Finally it was time for him to die. Levi Richard Bartlett had been waiting for this moment for three weeks, readying himself, preparing for the end while at the same time hoping that somehow he might be saved. Every effort had failed. He had made his farewells to his family and now the date of execution had arrived: 13 November 1888.
At 6 a.m., Bartlett woke up and saw the familiar walls of his cell at Newgate Gaol, the most famous prison in the country. He was offered breakfast but felt no inclination to eat. He had only two hours left on earth. Two hours interrupted only by the arrival of the chaplain and, a few minutes before 8 a.m., the executioner. James Berry was a solid-looking sandy-haired man with an unsettling deep scar down his cheek and a reddish complexion that suggested a fondness for drink. Overall, he had a surprisingly gentle face, considering his occupation. Berry introduced himself in a broad Yorkshire accent before getting to work, slipping a broad leather belt around Bartlett’s waist. The prisoner’s arms were pinioned using two straps around the elbow and another strap around the wrists, and fastened to the body belt at the front. Bartlett was then taken from the condemned cell to join the ceremonial procession towards the gallows. Ahead of him were the chief warder and the chaplain, reading aloud from the burial service. Berry, the executioner, was directly behind him, followed by the warders, the governor Colonel Milman, two under-sheriffs, the prison surgeon and an attendant. As they set off, a white cap was placed upon Bartlett’s head.
All too soon, they were at the foot of the scaffold. Bartlett managed to keep his composure as he was helped by the warders to the trapdoor beneath the beam. Once in place, his legs were tied together with a leather strap below the knees. He was asked if he had anything to say. ‘I wish only to give my love to all my family and to thank the governor and sheriffs and all the officials for the kindness they have shown me,’ he replied. Berry placed the noose over his head and checked the knot was in the correct position to ensure a clean execution. He also had to make sure that he had correctly measured the rope’s length. This was something Berry was very particular about. If the ‘drop’ was too short Bartlett would not suffer instantaneous death by dislocation of the neck, and would instead suffer a slow, undignified strangulation. If it was too long then the head might be torn clean off the body. Berry calculated that 4ft would be enough. Bartlett was a large man, but more importantly he had a large wound to his neck which had only recently healed. There was a risk that it could reopen when the noose tightened and spray blood everywhere. They wanted as little mess as possible.
Finally the preparations were complete. Berry pulled down the white cap to cover Bartlett’s eyes and gave the signal for the trapdoor to be released. There was silence as the spectators held their breath.166
Levi Richard Bartlett was sixty-six years old. He had led a colourful life, for in his time he had been a soldier in the Crimea, a ‘ganger’ on the Millwall docks and a milk dealer. He sometimes went by the name of Richard Freeman, using the surname of his first wife, while others knew him by the nickname ‘Mad Dick the Jockey’. In 1872, he had spent seven weeks in hospital after an unloading accident at the docks and since that time he hadn’t been quite right. He was well known in his neighbourhood on the Isle of Dogs for his strange and eccentric behaviour. William Leslie, a local surgeon, remembered how ‘several times when driving I have seen him come up with an unmeaning grin on his face, put his arms round the horse’s mouth and kiss it, and sometimes he would take the foam from the horse’s mouth and put it into his own’. Despite his bizarre behaviour, Bartlett formed a relationship with a divorcee ten years his junior and in 1884 they were married. Elizabeth Bartlett was described as a hard-working and industrious woman, who sought to control her husband’s errant ways. This was fine when he was sober, but a drink or two almost inevitably meant a blazing row, the throwing of sticks and bottles, and drunken threats to cut off her head and throw it in the street.
Levi made attempts to turn teetotal, but by August 1888 he had been drinking pretty much solidly for the whole month. The only way his wife could stop him was by withholding money, but this just meant another argument. On Saturday 18 August, the rows started at 9 a.m. after Levi returned from finishing the milk round. Levi wanted 2½d to buy some more gin, but Elizabeth was determined not to give him anything.
‘You won’t have it out of me this day if I know it,’ she told him.
‘You cow, I will mark you for this tonight,’ he replied.
Levi moved towards a display of cakes, intending to go out into the street and sell them, but was intercepted by his wife. Levi kicked her between the legs and grabbed an iron bar while she ran round into the shop and grabbed a knife from behind the counter. Levi then ran out the house, ripped the bell from the gate and threw it at his wife. When that missed he took the gate off its hinges and hurled that at her as well, telling her, ‘You cow, pick that up.’ Eventually he got the money and spent the rest of the day sitting in a drunken haze in the armchair in the parlour. At 11 p.m., after yet another row, the couple shut up shop and retired to bed.
It was around 4 a.m. when the lodgers Thomas Jones and Benjamin French were woken by a knock on their door. It was Levi Bartlett asking if they had any alcohol. When they told him they hadn’t, he shook both their hands in turn and told them, ‘Goodbye, you won’t see me no more alive … I have done for my missis and I am going to do for myself.’ He left the room but returned a few minutes later with a razor in his hand and blood pouring from his throat. They followed him back to the couple’s bedroom to find Mrs Bartlett lying in bed. Her head had been smashed in with a hammer. There was blood spattered over the pillow, up the wall and across the ceiling.
Mrs Bartlett was still breathing when the doctor arrived at the house, followed shortly by her sister Emma Mears, who lived just down the road, a police inspector, a sergeant and three constables. The officers managed to disarm Levi after a struggle, and held him on the bed while Dr Charles Smythe examined his wife, but there was little he could do to save her life. She had been stabbed three times in the neck and had suffered a severe fracture to the left temple. ‘The bones were quite broken in, and the brain substance knocked out … that blow alone was quite sufficient to cause death,’ he later recalled. She was pronounced dead an hour later. Dr Smythe sewed up the wound to Levi Bartlett’s neck before he was taken off to Poplar Hospital.167
It was another month until Bartlett had recovered sufficiently to be charged with murder and attempted suicide, and to be brought before Thames Police Court. ‘Owing to the weak state the prisoner was in he could not be put in the dock but sat on a seat close to the solicitors’ table,’ reported The Times. He listened as his wife’s sister, Emma Mears, described him as a ‘treacherous vagabond’ who used to rob money from the shop to spend on drink. His milk carrier, Thomas Jones, was also called to speak about the violent confrontation the day of the attack. It was more or less a formality. Bartlett was remanded in custody at Holloway Prison to await trial at the Old Bailey on 24 October.
His only hope of avoiding a death sentence would be to prove that he was insane at the time of the attack. The prosecution relied on the surgeon at Holloway, Philip Gilbert, who told the court that there was nothing wrong with him apart from gout. Bartlett’s defence barrister was the Irishman Gerald Geoghegan, who went on to represent the serial-killer Thomas Neill Cream, and was described as ‘the outstanding figure at the Old Bailey’ until his powers were diminished by drink. Geoghegan played upon Bartlett’s nickname of ‘Mad Dick’ and called evidence to suggest he should be locked up in an asylum. Bartlett’s sister, Sarah Ann Fitch, who lived in Westminster, told the court that one sister had tried to drown herself and another had twice attempted to poison herself. Charles Serel, the warden at Christ Church and a resident of Manchester Road, described him as ‘very strange and eccentric’. Finally, William Leslie, a surgeon who treated Bartlett for a dislocated arm, told the jury, ‘Even when sober I could not honestly say he was quite sane, when drunk he is a dangerous lunatic … he was the most furiously mad man I ever saw.’
The jury took nearly three hours – an unusually long time in those days – to reach a verdict. It was guilty, with no recommendation to mercy. The judge, Mr Justice Cave, passed the death sentence and Bartlett was taken to his cell at Newgate Gaol.
His solicitors quickly gathered together a petition calling for a reprieve but the reply from Whitehall was disappointing:
Sir, I am directed by the Secretary of State to inform you … that he has had this case under his careful consideration but he regrets that he has not been able to find any sufficient ground to justify him in advising Her Majesty to interfere with the due course of the law.
The execution would go ahead.168
Twenty years earlier it would have taken place in public, outside the prison walls. Now, there were only a handful of press and officials to witness the death of Levi Bartlett. At 8 a.m. precisely, the massive oak doors swung open beneath his feet. He felt gravity take hold, his stomach lurching as he plunged downwards. All too soon the rope snapped taut around his throat, dislocating his neck.
‘Death was instantaneous,’ noted the reporters, watching the body swing slowly below the scaffold. Outside the prison a small crowd cheered as the black flag was raised.169