A Punch depiction of Herbert Henry Asquith, Home Secretary 1892–1895. (Gutenberg)
There were seven Billington executions in the six months following the hanging of Dr Cream and every case was the result of the violent murder of a woman. These men were James Mellor, executed at Manchester on 20 December 1892; Thomas Edwards two days later at Usk; Cross Duckworth at Liverpool on 3 January 1893; Andrew McRae at Northampton on the 10th; William McKeown at Glasgow on the 18th; Albert Manning at Gloucester on 16 March; William Williams at Exeter on the 28th, and finally Edward Hemmings at Leeds on 4 April. As well as killing his ex-fiancee, sixteen-year-old Emma Dodge, the nineteen-year-old Williams was also found guilty of murdering her new boyfriend William Rowe.
All but two of the killers were known to their victims; Thomas Edwards cut the throat of vagrant Mary Connelly and Cross Duckworth abducted Alice Barnes as she was herding her father’s cattle. Her body was discovered a short time later, she had been gagged and suffocated. Police believed that the motive was sexual, although there was no proof that an actual assault had taken place.
Despite the shocking nature of these crimes only the McRae case presented a story that involved a complex web of deceit and betrayal. This case never achieved the notoriety of the Cream murders; it didn’t have the dangerous pull of London’s seedy nightlife, the overtones of Jack the Ripper, nor the enigma of an educated man gone bad, but from the moment the body was discovered the Northampton area was gripped by a case that proved itself to be every bit as evil.
Charles Hadley worked as a platelayer for the London & North Western Railway Co. and lived in the village of East Haddon. When he walked to Althorp station on Friday 5 August 1892 he noticed a smell; he noticed it again as he walked back towards home on the 6th. On this occasion he stopped to investigate and soon spotted a bundle lying in the bottom of an overgrown dyke. He found a stick and used it to lift the fabric covering it; it was tied up with string, but he could see it contained rags and some undergarments. One end of the bundle was teeming with maggots, and the smell drove Charles back. He reported his find to Mary Ann Dench, wife of the local policeman, but it was the following day before two other local men, brothers Jim and Jack Chapman, decided to investigate the smell. They opened the bundle enough to distinguish a blue skirt and a pair of human legs.
PC Dench was called, and the information was passed to Superintendent Alexander of the Northamptonshire County Police. The bundle was examined by a local surgeon, William Churchouse; it contained a corpse, double wrapped in canvas and tied with string. The body was placed in a coffin and taken to the nearby Red Lion Inn where it was examined further.
The body was so badly decomposed that it fell to bits when it was moved, leaving only the buttocks intact. Churchouse described the corpse:
The upper part of the body was almost gone. I noticed the remains and the clothing were covered with lime. On making my examination I found the remains were the lower part of a human body. They were in an advanced state of putrification, and much eaten by maggots. The head and the greater part of the arms were gone. All the flesh was gone from the upper part of the body, and the organs were all eaten. The bones fell to pieces when touched. The remains appeared to be those of a female over eighteen years of age.
In fact several local residents, and at least one dog, discovered bones strewn around over the next few hours and handed these over to Mrs Dench. Churchouse examined these too:
I was shown some bones by PC Dench the next day. They consisted of some ribs, the vertebrae, and a portion of an arm bone. The latter appeared to have been sawn through. I found the two collar bones, the two shoulder blades, and other bones, practically the whole of the bones of the body, with the exception of the arms, a portion of the vertebrae, and the head. I could not form any opinion as to how long the body had been dead, but should say not less than a fortnight. The length of the legs was thirty-two inches, and I judged from that the woman would have been about 5ft to 5ft 4in. in height.
In Churchouse’s opinion the woman had been dead for over a month. There were several items of clothing with the body including a chemise, two skirts, one green and one striped, stockings, knickers and a piece of nightdress. These items, plus what remained of the headless, one-armed corpse, had been covered in lime before being wrapped in sacking. Churchouse concluded:
I could not give any idea of the cause of death … it might have been accidental, or natural, or suicidal, or at the hands of another. It was not likely that the arms were cut off during life, and the probability also was that the head was removed after death.
The layer of canvas wrapping the body bore a label which proved that it had originally contained supplies sent via the London & North-Western Railway from a wholesaler in Whitechapel to a grocer in Northampton. The Northampton grocer’s name was Edward McRae. Initially it looked as though the sacking would only yield minimal information; on 10 August Superintendent Alexander visited Edward McRae who explained that the used sacking would either be returned to the supplier or sold on to the public. The last time he had sold any of these wrappers to the public had been to an elderly travelling hawker who had stopped by at the McRae market stall in June 1892.
At the inquest, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict that the remains were of a woman unknown and there was insufficient evidence for them to determine a cause of death.
A surprisingly short chain of connections led to the identity of the dead woman.
Edward McRae’s brother, Andrew, was married with two sons, aged eight and ten. He lived with his family in Highgate Road, Birmingham. In March 1892 he took a job working for Edward and moved into lodgings in Edith Street, Northampton. Edward took over a warehouse in Dychurch Lane and all Andrew’s post was delivered to that address. When he left his lodgings in Edith Street even his own brother did not know where he had moved to.
Next door to Andrew’s family in Birmingham lived the Pritchard family: Annie, aged thirty-two, and her three brothers and three sisters. Amongst the Pritchards there had been concern that an ‘improper relationship’ existed between Andrew McRae and Annie. So it was with a mixture of relief and surprise when they learnt that Annie was to marry a man named Guy Anderson and sail for America. Anderson was a previous suitor of Annie’s, who had lived in the village of Northfield near Birmingham until the early part of 1891 when he had moved abroad.
Annie left home in March 1892. On the 26th, at Castle station, she met a travelling salesman, James Fenley, and asked him to post a letter for her. On 29 March her family received this note:
My Dear Sisters and Brothers,
You will doubtless think it very strange not hearing before and most likely my going away is a nine day wonder and people will say and think all sorts of unkind things which will not hurt me. I was dreadfully upset on Tuesday. I left my luggage and went into the arcade and when I came back they took me from one platform to another till I missed the train and had to go by a later one; of course Mrs A did not meet me, but I got to my destination all right. Since then I have been very poorly, and so occupied with one thing and another that I could not write. My dearly beloved arrived safe and well. He has not altered much but thinks I have a good deal.
Well I am no longer Annie Pritchard, we were married this morning by special Licence, and we are going back to New York till my husband has completed his engagements, which will not be for longer than six months, and then we hope to settle in England near to you all. I very much regret that we cannot come home now as we sail at once. How I wish dear Lizzie and Linda that I could take you with me, but I hope to see you all again before long so cheer up and then John will be convinced that my husband is not too uppish to be introduced to you all. I am in very much better spirits, and I know I shall have a husband and be happy, and also I am looking forward to our return, when I shall meet you all again. I have not time to say much, but my dear brothers and sisters you must believe that I shall not forget you all. I hope you will go on well and be comfortable, and should you write to Miss Mason give my love to her and tell her I also am very sorry that I could not see her again. There are several others, dear Charlotte, and a lot more I cannot mention, but you will doubtless hear from them one and all that I do not forget them though I cannot write.
And now my dearest sister I must say goodbye till we meet again. Let me ask you both not to grieve for me but think it is for the best. I know I shall have a good home and a good husband in my dear Guy and do not dear Lizzie stay too much alone for you must have company. Go and see Mrs Mc as often as you can and other friends you have and you will be having Aggie B soon for a little while and now my dearest sister once more I say goodbye to you all and not forgetting one God bless,
I am now and forever your loving sister, Annie
It was the last they ever heard from her, and it was only after her murder that they realised the true reason for her sudden departure: she was expecting a baby.
Annie Pritchard’s belongings, a tin trunk and a sewing machine, did not board a ship to New York, but were delivered to 33 St John Street, Northampton, where, on 22 March, a ‘Mrs and Mrs Anderson’ moved into lodgings. They stayed until May, when they made the short move to No. 29 in the same street.
On 19 June Annie gave the landlady, Sarah Ann Pilkington, notice that they would be moving in one week, but within hours she went into labour. Annie gave birth to a boy just before 7 a.m. on 22 June, but was not well enough for the family to leave until 20 July.
During the five months Annie lived in St John Street she became friendly with one of the neighbours, Harriet Burrell, who lived at No. 25. Harriet helped Annie in the first days after the birth of the baby, nursing her and washing clothes for her. She also helped Annie dress for church when the baby was about three weeks old. Harriet had a very clear recollection of the outfit Annie wore: a grey dress, with grey astrachan on its bottom, a flowered cloak, black hat and black veil, with kid gloves. She had on a green skirt with a black flounce, and a striped flannelette underskirt.
When Annie moved from St John Street on 20 July she left her sewing machine with Harriet; Annie’s husband returned the next day and asked Harriet if she could hold on to it for one extra day as the new lodgings were not ready for them. He told her that Annie and the baby were staying overnight with a friend, but when he returned for the machine on 22 July he told Harriet that Annie had gone to stay with a friend in Birmingham and would be there for a month.
In August Harriet saw Annie’s husband at the market and was surprised to be told that Annie was still away and this time visiting her sister in Brighton. Harriet discussed Annie’s strange absence with Elizabeth Elliott, a mutual friend who had been in St John Street just as the Anderson family were moving out. She recalled:
I offered to carry the baby for them, when Mr Anderson said he would not trouble me, as he thought they could manage themselves. I however carried the baby. We went down St John Street, up Bridge Street and stopped at the beginning of George Row. He then said he would not trouble me to carry the baby further and I delivered up the baby to them.
He said they were going to the post office, and could then ride by tram to where they were going. I then parted with them and from that time I have never seen Mrs Anderson or the baby.
When the police interviewed Harriet she was able to identify the skirt and underskirt that Annie Prichard had worn to church as being the same as those found on the body.
The midwife who delivered Annie Pritchard’s baby was a local woman named Sarah Pulley. When presented with a photograph of Annie Pritchard she was able to confirm that she was the same woman who had been known as Mrs Anderson. At one point she noticed that Mr Anderson began to introduce himself as Mc … before correcting himself.
The police found witnesses who could account for some of Andrew McRae’s movements after 20 July, and several more who could identify articles that had belonged to Annie. Henry Goulston, of the Palmerston Inn in Northampton, remembered that Andrew had been into his pub just after half past nine in the morning of 21 July. Andrew McRae was a regular and Henry knew him well enough to comment, ‘Andrew, you don’t look well.’
‘No, I am not,’ McRae replied. ‘I have been up since four o’clock this morning washing bacon by myself.’
‘Why didn’t you have the boy help you?’
‘I have not got any boy.’
On Friday 22 July, Andrew McRae called upon a landlady named Sarah Philipot and arranged to take a room with her. He arrived with some of Annie’s personal belongings packed in a tin trunk and also her purse, which he said was one he had bought at a sale. Sarah Philipot was a customer at his brother’s market stall and had known Andrew since he moved to Northampton. She had only ever known him use the name McRae, and was not aware of either his family in Birmingham or Annie and the baby.
McRae sold some clothes to a second-hand clothing dealer named Mrs Bland later the same day. He told her that the clothes were from his family in Birmingham, and that they’d sent them on to him to sell as they didn’t want to stand a chance of seeing other people wearing them. Mrs Bland noticed that McRae seemed unwell.
‘I have had a great deal of trouble and worry lately,’ he said. Pointing to the pile of clothes, he added, ‘I don’t mind telling you, those things belong to my sister. She went wrong. It was a love affair and now she is in a lunatic asylum, and never likely to come out.’
Mrs Bland saw that as well as women’s garments, the pile contained a nightgown suitable for a newborn. ‘There was a baby wasn’t there?’ she asked.
‘Yes. That’s dead and a good job too.’
McRae moved his trunk and tin box in that evening, and then returned to the Palmerston Inn for a drink. Again Henry Goulston noticed that McRae did not seem his usual self.
McRae’s story that he had no help at the warehouse was a lie: in April 1892 he had hired Edgar Wright to assist him. Wright’s evidence included several important details. It was Wright who had helped McRae move into Mrs Philipot’s house, and had also noticed that McRae looked unwell; McRae agreed that he felt unwell and attributed it to ‘a hard night or bed on the wraps’. Wright took this to mean that McRae had slept on the wraps in the warehouse.
McRae gave Wright 1s and asked him to purchase a bushel of lime. Wright paid 6d for it from a local merchant and McRae let him keep the change. This was on Monday 25 July. The following day McRae hired a trap from cab driver William Ward. It was not the first time he had hired the vehicle, but it was the first time he had used it twice on the same day. The first trip was from 9 a.m. until 12.30 p.m., but it was the second trip that seemed unusual to Ward. McRae never made deliveries in the evening but said that he needed it to visit a customer in Moulton, a trip of approximately four miles. McRae was gone from 4.30 p.m. until between 6.30 p.m. and 7 p.m.; when he returned the dog-cart the horse was sweating heavily. It would have been possible for him to make the longer six mile trip to Althorp in that time, but he would have needed to push the horse much harder.
During the two weeks following Annie Pritchard’s disappearance Andrew McRae sold on the rest of her possessions, including her trunk, books, cutlery, glasses and a family Bible with the Pritchard family tree drawn on one of its pages. In each case he explained that the items were ‘no longer needed’. He may have appeared noticeably stressed or ill at various times but he succeeded in systematically ridding himself of every item connected with Annie.
Edward McRae’s warehouse was situated in Dychurch Lane, and beneath it ran a large cellar which extended from Dychurch Lane to Abington Street. Access to the cellar was via a separate building which stood in the yard; the building was locked and had once been used as a wood store. Edward McRae did not have the key and assumed he had no right of access to the shed as the yard belonged to his landlord who lived in Abington Street. Edward McRae was not aware of the existence of the cellar until the investigation unfolded, and it ultimately transpired that the only person who had made use of the unlit cellar during 1892 was Andrew McRae. The family’s luggage was deposited there, and Andrew McRae admitted being there too.
Tucked away at the back of the warehouse was a small room containing a fireplace and a copper stove. A search revealed the burnt remains of a human hand, and part of the arm that had been sawn off one third of the way between the shoulder and elbow. This was the section of arm missing from the East Haddon corpse. Also present was a copper pot containing ‘a quantity of greasy and fatty matter.’
A sample was tested by a surgeon from Westminster Hospital named Mr Bond. Bond was also a lecturer in forensic medicine and found that the fatty matter contained light brown hair which had come from a human head. The colour matched Annie Pritchard’s. Mr Bond was also asked to look at some of the bones recovered from the warehouse. He could not be totally sure that they had come from the same body, but because of their size and condition thought that it was reasonable to assume that they had. He concluded that an attempt had been made to dispose of the body by boiling and burning, and when this had largely failed the body had been dumped in a ditch.
Annie Pritchard’s letter home was a complete fabrication: neither Guy Anderson nor his mother ‘Mrs A’ existed. The idea that she was married and travelling to America with her husband on business was a romantic fantasy in which she had willingly participated. The ‘Mrs Mc’ Annie referred to was her neighbour, Andrew McRea’s wife.
It is unclear whether Annie ever planned to come home; perhaps she and Andrew McRea initially thought that their new life together would never need to collide with their old one. It is certainly hard to see how Annie could have returned in six months unless it was after a split from her imaginary marriage to Mr Guy Anderson.
Investigations on behalf of the prosecution discovered that when Andrew McRae visited Warwick on business Annie Pritchard visited too, and when he started work for his brother and moved into his Northampton lodgings she moved with him, living as man and wife under the names of Mr and Mrs Anderson.
By 12 August McRae had returned home to his wife; he was ill with a throat infection and remained there for several days.
By the time of the trial the surgeon who originally examined the body, William Churchouse, had spent time learning more about the speed of decay of a body, and specifically the activity of maggots as part of this process. He had consulted books as well as asking advice from farmers and butchers, leading him to amend his original statement and conclude that it was possible that the body had been in the ditch for as little as two weeks.
Superintendent Alexander first met Andrew McRae on 13 August 1892. McRae had arrived at the police station to give a statement confirming that sacking had been sold by the McRae brothers from their market stall. Alexander was busy and asked McRae to return at 3 p.m., but he never turned up. Although Alexander thought this was strange it did not immediately make McRae a suspect.
Lizzie Pritchard, the eldest of Annie’s sisters, explained that Annie was the seamstress in the family and had made clothes for most of them at one time or another. Not only could she identify the clothes found on the body and sold to Mrs Bland, she could also produce remnants of the material that they had been made from. It was quite a usual practice for shirts to be edged with more decorative fabrics and Lizzie had the offcuts of tartan and astrachan that Annie had used to trim her skirts. Lizzie was able to identify every item which had been sold on by Andrew McRae.
The November trial at Northamptonshire Assizes had to be scrapped after one juror walked out. The judge initially suggested that the new trial should be delayed until the spring sessions but listened to a request from McRae’s solicitor asking that it should go ahead sooner. McRae’s mental and physical health had deteriorated since his arrest; of greatest concern was the possibility that he would not be fit to stand trial if it were delayed by several months. In the end it was tagged onto the end of Judge Kennedy’s winter circuit and the trial reopened on 15 December 1892 in Warwick.
The indictment read, ‘Andrew George McRea (36), salesman, in the county of Northampton, at some time, believed to be within the last six months did feloniously, wilfully and of malice aforethought, kill and murder one Annie Pritchard.’
During the trial Robert Arthur Milligan, an honorary surgeon for Northampton General Infirmary, was called as an expert to give his opinion on the bones found. As well as confirming that the hand bones appeared to have been removed with a fine saw he made an interesting comment on the procurement of skeletons for medical research:
Skeletons in ordinary conditions are very common in London. They are, however, very expensive, a whole skeleton costing £6 or £7. Hands could be brought separately for about 10s. I should think a bad one for about 5s.
The case for the defence was not strong; Mr Hammond Chambers argued that the inquest had found insufficient evidence to determine a cause of death and therefore there was no proof that a murder had taken place. He reasoned that the shame of having a child as the result of a relationship with a married man was more likely to have driven Annie to suicide, and that his client’s greatest crime was disposing of the body in order to avoid scandal.
Mr Buszard QC, prosecuting, summed up well when he asked the jury to consider six questions that led them in logical steps towards their verdict:
1. Did Annie Pritchard leave Birmingham in March, and did she come to Northampton?
2. If so did she live with the prisoner?
3. Was she dead or not?
4. If she was dead was the body hers?
5. If so, was she murdered?
6. Was she murdered by the prisoner?
The final day of the trial was Saturday 24 December. The judge, Mr Justice Kennedy, pointed out to the jury that much of the evidence was circumstantial and reaching a verdict would ‘require specially careful consideration.’ However, the evidence and the prosecution’s questions led the jury to a swift verdict, in just under an hour-and-a-half they found him guilty, the verdict being unanimous.
When asked if he had anything to say, McRae replied that he was innocent and that the jury would have the decision on their consciences as long as they lived. He continued to insist that he wasn’t guilty right up until his execution on 10 January 1893, writing to his wife just a few days before in an attempt to convince her and still hoping for a reprieve.
The execution was reported in The Times on 11 January:
The condemned man retired to rest at his usual hour on Monday night and rose between 6 and 7 yesterday morning and partook of breakfast as usual. About a quarter to 9 o’clock the bell of St Sepulchre’s Church began to toll, and the procession left the interior of the gaol for the scaffold at two minutes to nine. McRae, who had borne up well all along, walked between two warders, apparently quite firm and collected. The condemned man, upon taking his stand on the drop, was expeditiously pinioned by Billington the executioner, and the bolt was immediately drawn. Death was apparently instantaneous. The culprit is stated to have made no statement whatever beyond protesting his innocence to the last.
The newspaper account of Billington’s next English execution, Albert Manning at Gloucester, is particularly detailed. Manning was executed on 16 March 1893 and this report appeared in the Gloucester Chronicle the following day:
No morbid curiosity took me to the execution of Manning on Thursday morning but a stern sense of duty. Outsiders have but a poor idea of the impressiveness of an execution and for the benefit of those who have never seen the actual carrying out of the ‘extreme penalty of the law’ I may as well say that I have not the least doubt, but that of the dozen odd spectators of the gruesome affair at early morn on Thursday, not one wishes to see another execution. As I wended my way to the County Gaol shortly before eight, I could not help repeating to myself the sentence ‘It is a pleasant day to live, but a gloomy one to die’. Once arrived at the gaol it was an easy matter, thanks to the permit courteously granted me by Mr J.W. Coran the county Under Sheriff; not before, however, clearly stating my business to the sturdy yet civil janitor stationed at the entry lodge. Inside the gaol lodge were the Deputy Chief Constable Mr Phillpots, Inspector Elliot and a posse of police as well as a Warder of the prison and there we were kept waiting until close on the stroke of eight. We observed a Warder on the roof of one of the prison buildings preparing to hoist a black flag. We are informed that the black flag is some four yards by eight and whilst contemplating it we were startled by a loud cry evidently proceeding from the poor man whose terrible crime we were about to see expiated.
We are now gathered around the gallows, surely not one of the group will ever forget those few moments. Billington, the executioner, and his assistant Scott – both of whom wear black silk skull caps – together with Mr Coran and his clerk, withdraw, and then we hear the solemn and impressive tones of the funeral service of the Church of England being pronounced ‘I am the resurrection and the Life said the Lord’ was the first sentence we heard previous to the procession appearing. The Chaplain (the Revd J. Hart Johnson) in full clerical attire first appeared after which came the County Under Sheriff and his Clerk, each bearing a white wand, then followed the unfortunate man, a Warder being on each side, the executioner and his assistant bringing up the rear. His face was of an ashen hue but he walked with a firm step to the gallows and as Billington with an accustomed hank quickly fixed the noose around his neck he was heard by those standing very close to say ‘it’s too tight’. Quick as lightning Billington and his assistant strapped the unhappy mans legs, his lips at the time quivering as if in prayer and quite as quickly the white cap was adjusted. Then stepping back Billington drew the bolt and in the fraction of the time it takes me to write this Albert Manning was no more. The silence was most impressive and after the body had been suspended for about a minute Mr Coran, calling the three Press representatives, asked them to look into the pit. Then it was seen that the body was quite stiff, the hands being clenched behind as if at the last moment the unfortunate man had struggled. Those who had seen previous executions remarked that Billington had done his work remarkably well, the affair being managed most expeditiously. The black flag was of course immediately hoisted and the aforementioned Press representatives, together with Dr Oscar Clark, the Deputy Chief Constable, Inspector Elliot and Mr G.H. Romans were called aside by the County Under Sheriff and asked to sign a declaration that the execution had been duly carried out.
The inquest which was held in the Board Room afterwards requires no attention at my hands but an act of courtesy on the part of Major Knox, Governor of the Prison, certainly deserves recognition. At the conclusion of the inquest Mr J. Waghorne, the Coroner, said that Major Knox would be pleased to show any gentlemen around the gaol. With the exception of one member of the Jury, everyone accepted the invitation and for nearly an hour Major Knox succeeded in interesting those present. Every department of the vast building was visited, a batch of prisoners were seen at work on the treadmill, the kitchen was visited and the soup tasted, the condemned cell was peeped into, the system of oakum-picking explained; in fact the whole of the daily routine of an inmate of one, and surely one of the best managed, of Her Majesty’s Prisons was described. Thus ended a day memorable to more than one of Gloucester’s Citizens.