The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime. Judith Flanders

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      On the fifth day, a witness who testified against the police was so confused and contradictory that the jury showed their independence of mind by saying they refused to believe a word. The solicitor watching proceedings for the police leapt up and asked that the witness be committed for perjury, at which the jury noted sourly that none of the police witnesses who had obviously lied had been so threatened. The coroner, not knowing when to let well alone, smugly commented, ‘I hope that the eyes of the Jury are now opened. I cannot but say from my heart, that there is not a tittle of evidence that can be relied on against the police: not a tittle that can be placed in comparison with the manly, straightforward evidence given by the police themselves … I cannot help saying, that since the Court was opened, the Jury have pursued a course such as I have never before witnessed in the course of my life, and such as I hope never to see again.’ The jury cried, ‘“Shame, shame!” and with clenched fists approached the Coroner … An indescribable scene of confusion followed. The people in the room united in the vociferations of the Jury, and the crowd in the street. expressed their approbation by loud shouting and clapping of hands.’ The coroner realized the position he’d put himself in, and added hastily, ‘I feel deep sorrow for having expressed myself in a manner disagreeable to the Jury, whose conduct, it is my duty to state, as far as the ends of truth and justice are concerned, does them great credit: I did not mean in what I said to censure them morally.’ The jury were having none of it, and the foreman responded: ‘We stand here as honest men, having characters to support, and I can say before God, that I came into this room unbiassed against the police. Nothing that can be said to us, in the way of censure, can affect our verdict. If we are to be taxed with having a bias against the police, I, for one, would lay down my fine of 10l. [for refusing jury service], and walk home.’ Then the coroner tried to speak, but one of the jury interrupted him: ‘You have called us biassed men; we have been ill treated by you individually and collectively: your conduct has been most partial [great confusion].’ The inquest was once more adjourned.

      When it resumed, the coroner finally summed up: ‘When I found that some members of the Jury endeavoured to degrade my office [the Jury here exclaimed that they did not], and to impugn my impartiality – when I perceived the spirit of persecution in which the examinations were conducted [cries of ‘No, no!’], and the intemperate manner in which all interference on behalf of the police was resisted – I felt bound by every obligation … to extend the broad shield of the Judge over the devoted heads of the policemen, and protect them from the cruel inquisition to which they were exposed.’ He then admitted that he might have been led into ‘some warmth of expression’, which he regretted. The jury took three hours to consider their verdict (this in an age when death sentences were routinely agreed in twenty minutes), returning with a verdict of ‘Wilful Murder against some policeman unknown’, adding a rider that the death certificate should be altered to read ‘We are of opinion [sic] the murder was committed with a truncheon by a policeman of the K Division.’ The coroner responded coldly: ‘The verdict is yours, and not mine, and on you rests the responsibility.’

      And there the case rested: no one was ever identified, so no one was ever charged. But a few weeks later, the House of Commons reported on Popay, condemning his behaviour as ‘highly reprehensible’ and blaming his superiors for their lack of proper supervision. The public too made its feelings known: on Guy Fawkes Night, the two police commissioners, Richard Mayne and Charles Rowan, were burnt in effigy on local bonfires, together with a third guy, labelled ‘Justifiable Homicide’.

      The following year, the police distinguished themselves even less, demonstrating the limitations of preventative policing. This time it was not the murder of a friendly drunk, but of a respectable member of the merchant class. Thomas Ashton, the twenty-two-year-old son of a mill owner, had left the family house at Gee Cross, near Ashton-under-Lyne (now part of Greater Manchester), at 7.30 one evening in 1834 to deputize for his brother at their father’s Apethorne factory (Ashton usually managed another family mill, at Woodley). Minutes later, a messenger from the mill rushed in: ‘He believed Mr. Thomas was down in the lane, and hurt.’ Mr Thomas was not hurt, but either dying or dead, having been shot at point-blank range. At the inquest, a nine-year-old girl said that she had seen three men on the road, and thought one of them had been carrying a gun, which he tried to conceal as she passed. A book-keeper from the mill testified that three men had been sacked the week before, ‘for irregularity in their general conduct’, but none of them was known to have made any threats against any of the Ashton family, and one had already been rehired. This was a time of great labour unrest, and there was some discussion about whether the men had belonged to the Spinners’ Union, but no evidence was offered, and in any case the Ashton mills were in full employment. Mention was made of a ‘piece of thin and soft blue or purple paper’ which had probably been used as wadding in the gun that was fired, but this clue seemed to lead nowhere. The jury brought in a verdict of ‘wilful murder against three persons at present unknown’, and the government offered a £600 reward.

The Manchester Guardian said that the perpetrators must have been outsiders: not only had no one recognized them, but they had made no attempt to hide their faces, as though they had no fear of recognition. The case remained in limbo for three years, until William (or James, depending on which newspaper you read) Garside, in gaol for stealing tools, told the authorities that he knew something about the murder. He refused to speak to the magistrate, however, until a three-year-old copy of the Hue and Cry *was found, to prove to him that the government was offering a reward (now raised to £1,500) and a pardon to anyone except the person who had actually fired the gun who could give information leading to the discovery of the murderers. Garside could not read, but the offer was read aloud to him. As a result he admitted to being present at the crime, and named two brothers, Joseph and William Moseley, as the perpetrators.

      All three were committed for trial. Although the newspaper reports are not explicit, it looks as though William Moseley turned king’s evidence and testified against the other two. Joseph Moseley and Garside were committed for murder, William Moseley for aiding and assisting. Each of them blamed the others. William Moseley said he had been looking for employment near Macclesfield when he met a man named Stanfield or Schofield, who was with Garside and Joseph Moseley. The three men talked, and William said he caught the words ‘the union’. Garside and Joseph then told him that they had agreed to shoot one of the Ashtons, ‘because of the turn-outs’ (strikes), and they would be paid £10 for the murder. He said they signed a book, and he made his mark. ‘We then all went down on our knees, and holding a knife one over the other, said. “We wished God might strike us dead if we ever told.” ‘ Garside said Joseph Moseley was the one who fired the gun, while Joseph Moseley, who had no legal representation, simply said that his brother William had committed ‘many crimes’, while Garside would swear to anything for the price of a drink. As to himself, ‘It is not likely that he should shoot a man that he never saw or knew any ill of.’ This was his only defence. The jury took a few minutes to decide that Garside was the actual murderer, but that Joseph Moseley was equally guilty. They were sentenced to hang. William was found guilty as an accessory, but later reprieved.

      The resolution of this three-year-old crime caused a sensation among all classes and types. The Stockport Advertiser couldn’t keep up with demand, and was driven to produce single sheets of the trial transcript. It was anti-climactic, therefore, when the executions were delayed into the following year, after legal wranglings over jurisdiction. Thus, while the Manchester Guardian dedicated nearly 27,000 words to the trial, by the time the two men were finally executed it was no longer topical, and the paper did not cover it at all.

      This sad little case would merit no more than a mention in a history of labour unrest, were it not for two works of literature that it spawned. As a preliminary, however, in 1842 came a novel that in no way qualifies as literature. William Langshawe, the Cotton Lord was written by the daughter of the owner of the Manchester Chronicle, whose previous work, the title page advertised, was The Art of Needlework. The book reads pretty much as one would expect from the authoress of The Art of Needlework. Although СКАЧАТЬ