In the middle of January 1896, Mrs Charlotte Culham, a chirpy, showily dressed Cockney, and her husband, Albert Charles Culham, a carriage cleaner on the Metropolitan Railway (and a keen rabbit breeder), were pleased to rent out rooms in their modest house to a young couple and their sickly looking baby son, Harold. The two furnished rooms either side of the front door were engaged for a weekly sum of seven shillings. Polly and Arthur Palmer paid a month in advance. They seemed to be a pleasant and respectable couple; Polly made an effort to make the most of her slightly common features, and Arthur took far more of an interest in his appearance than was usual for a man. He seemed fond of silk hats and frock coats and kept his sandy hair foppishly long and his moustache neatly trimmed. He had not the strongest features: he was weasel-like, with very pale eyelashes and prominent ears. Although he was without employment when they first took the rooms, he soon found a position as a salesman for the Singer Sewing Machine Company. Number 76 Mayo Road, Willesden, was a comfortable place to lodge. The young couple had their own bedroom and a sitting room with an armchair, a dining table, a small fireplace and an overstuffed couch that was worn to a shine.
While the Palmers made themselves comfortable in Willesden, Mother, Granny and Willie Thornton moved into 45 Kensington Road, Reading. The rows of regimented red-brick houses would have looked mournful in the January half-light; the gas lamp at the corner of the street reflecting weakly on to the wet pavements and the damp air hanging around the roof tops and seeping between layers of clothing. Granny and Mother would have pulled their shawls tight around their shoulders as they lit a fire in the cold grate of the parlour to try and chase the chill away. The house was silent without the sound of babies stirring in their sleep.
With the amount of money that had come into her possession over the last few months it is somewhat surprising that it was necessary for Mother to rent out the downstairs parlour to a woman called Mrs Chandler and her two little girls. It seemed not to concern her that another pair of eyes would now be witness to the steady traffic of children passing through the front door; perhaps the two little girls in Mrs Chandler’s care were helping to pay her rent; and, after all, two people in the same line of business would most certainly turn a blind eye to one another’s dealings.
With the Palmers far away in London, Mother took full advantage of the phenomenally efficient postal service of the time. At the end of the nineteenth century a half-ounce letter cost just one penny to be sent anywhere in the country and deliveries were made between six and twelve times a day. With such a fast service, Mother was able to keep communications with the Palmers wide open, and it wasn’t long before she arranged her first visit to Willesden.
Mother arrived at Paddington Station and took an omnibus the length of the Edgware Road, alighting at the corner of Mayo Road. It was a convenient ride away; the omnibuses from Paddington ran regularly, with two horses being changed for a fresh pair at intervals throughout the day. The driver, perched up high, would have been well wrapped up in oilskins to protect him from the chill of the January fog. Although sitting on the open-top deck would have proved a more pleasant ride despite the cold, decorum would have forced Mother to accommodate herself in the crowded and sweaty atmosphere of the enclosed lower deck. It was considered improper for a woman to travel on the exposed upper decks, and even the stairs leading to the lower deck had vanity boards which hid the ankles of ascending female passengers. There were seats for twelve, but space was limited and any luggage had to be held on the lap or placed by the feet in the layer of dirty straw which was strewn on the wooden floors. It would not have been the most comfortable of rides, with the smell of wet woollen clothing mingling with the scent of damp straw; the men in the carriage trying their best to avoid being brushed with mud from the caked hems of the women’s skirts.
Mother’s object in coming to London was to fetch a child from Shepherd’s Bush to nurse. The child was to be collected from Coningham Road, and as Arthur was familiar with the area (he had a customer who resided in that same road) he accompanied her and waited outside while Mother went in to conduct her business. The young lady (a Miss Brown), who was staying in the house at the time, was under the impression that the stout, middle-aged woman who had come to collect her illegitimate child was the wife of a well-to-do farmer living in a village just outside Reading. She had placed an advertisement in the Weekly Dispatch and had received a reply from a ‘Mrs Stansfield’.
45 Kensington Road
Oxford Road, Reading
Berks.
Sunday Jany 12. 96
Dear Madam, Seeing an advertisement in the London W. Dispatch, Lady Wanted to take a new Born Baby, I beg to say we are well to do Farmers we have no child. I should be delighted to take your Little one. We have a nice home and every comfort but no Child. A Child with me would be well brought up under Church of England influence and would have a mother and a fathers love, and I must tell you my Husband as well as myself are dearly fond of children. I should never take a child for the sake of money. I do really want a nice baby. I don’t mind Boy or Girl, I could love either. I don’t mind how small a sum you will pay if you will kindly reply and tell me all particulars I feel we may come to an arrangement. And if at any future time you would like to come and see me I would make you welcome to stay for a few days, for it is lovely in the Country in the Summer time. Now my dear Madam will you kindly send a line by return and tell me all particulars and oblige
Yours respectfully
A. Stansfield
Mrs Stansfield appeared to be somewhat older than Miss Brown had been expecting; but no matter – the woman had fervently expressed her and her husband’s desire to adopt a dear little baby – for a premium of £10. When “Mrs Stansfield” was shown to the front door she introduced the young man standing on the doorstep as her nephew. Arthur stepped up and took the baby’s feeding bottle out of her hand and put it in his pocket, then both he and Mother walked away down the road, another child gripped tightly in her arms and a £10 note tucked firmly in her pocket.
A CASE AT WILLESDEN
A signalman residing at Railway Cottages, Willesden, discovered a parcel tied with string and tape about 3 ft. from his doorway. Upon being opened it was found to contain the dead body of a male child. He called a constable who conveyed it to the public mortuary, where it was examined by Dr. J.B. Gibson, who found that the nose was squeezed in and displaced and the mouth bruised, death being due to intentional suffocation by direct pressure. A verdict of “Wilful Murder” was returned by the jury. It has been ascertained that the place where the parcel was found was not a public road, and the parcel could not have been thrown there from the railway.
Weekly Dispatch, 4 February 1896