Murder Maps. Drew Gray

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      22

      PART ONE — EUROPE.

      There were few things the Victorian public enjoyed more than a good murder story. From the discovery of a body to the capture, prosecution and execution of the culprits, the newspaper readership of the 1800s was gripped by every twist and turn. In a period that saw the growth of sensational journalism, the revelations that came to light about Frederick (1820–49) and Maria Manning (1821–49) had readers glued to the pages of London’s newspapers for weeks.

      Maria (or Marie de) Roux had come to England from Switzerland at some point in the late 1830s, or early 1840s, and by 1843 had found work as a lady’s maid for the Duchess of Sutherland.

      It was a prestigious position, and it seems to have entrenched Maria’s sense of self-importance. In 1847, she married Frederick Manning and the

      Below. floor plan of the kitchen, hall and dining room, marking the location at the foot of the stairs where patrick o’connor was shot and indicating the hole

      beneath the kitchen flagstones where he was buried.

      couple set up home running a pub in Taunton, Somerset. It was not a great success and they were not very happy; Maria probably craved the better things in life. They moved to Bermondsey in south London, taking rooms at 3 Miniver Place. In London, Maria seems to have rekindled a relationship with a former lover named Patrick O’Connor (c. 1796–1849), who had associations with the up-and-coming railway business. For a while, Maria, Fred and Patrick were firm friends and one wonders if Fred turned a blind eye to his wife’s infidelity, perhaps fearful of driving her away or simply scared of her temper tantrums.

      In the summer of 1849, Maria and Fred hatched a plan to murder O’Connor and steal his railway share certificates. Maria had been shown these in O’Connor’s London lodgings and knew how to sell them. On 9 August, O’Connor was invited to dinner (as he often was) and while he washed his hands Maria came up behind him and shot him in the head. This failed to kill him outright, however, so Fred finished the job with a blunt instrument. They buried O’Connor under the flagstones in the kitchen. When O’Connor’s friends missed him, the police were alerted and the Mannings’ house visited. Spooked by this, the couple split up: Maria headed for Edinburgh, Scotland, to sell the share certificates, while Fred fled to Jersey. The police soon tracked them down and brought them back to London to face trial for murder. In court, each blamed the other and when the jury returned a guilty verdict Maria lost her calm completely and raged at the injustice of it all.

      This story had everything: a ménage à trois, a foreign female murderess, adultery and greed, an attempted escape and a dramatic trial where the Mannings blamed each other and Maria turned her anger on the court, the judge, the watching public and what she condemned as ‘shame, base England’. Thousands turned up to watch them hang outside Surrey’s Horsemonger Lane Gaol. The novelists Herman Melville (1819–91) and Charles Dickens (1812–70) were among the onlookers, and Dickens used Maria as the model for his character Hortense, the murderess in Bleak House (1853). •

      3 miniver place, bermondsey.

       August .

      englandlondon.

      FREDERICK MANNING

      & MARIA MANNING. × Patrick O’Connor.

      weapon.pistol.

      typology. property crime.

      policing.n/a.

      frederick manning.maria manning.

      23

      ENGLAND — LONDON.

      the unsuspecting patrick o’connor dines with the mannings at

      miniver place.

      maria manning shoots patrick o’connor with a pistol as he

      washes his hands.

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