Louise Masset. (Author’s collection)
On 9 January 1900 governess Louise Josephine Masset was executed and, of all the cases that the Billingtons were involved with, none of the exececutions were more controversial than this. She was beautiful, educated and the hangman’s victim whose motives and even guilt were most in doubt.
At approximately 6.30 p.m. on Friday 27 October 1899, two women approached John Joseph Standing, a porter at London’s Dalston Junction station. He described them as very tall and respectably dressed. They told him that they believed there was a woman who was ill in one of the cubicles of the ladies’ toilets.
Dalston Junction station was very busy with about 200 trains stopping each day. The partition between the two toilet cubicles was described as being made of ‘matchwood’ and sound travelled clearly between one and the next.
The cubicle door was partially shut, wedged behind it was the still warm body of a little boy. He was naked but his body had been wrapped in a black shawl.
By the time Standing made the discovery and emerged from the waiting room, the two women had disappeared. Despite later attempts by the police to trace them, according to most subsequent accounts of the case, these women were never identified.
Standing called for assistance and at 6.55 p.m. the body was examined by Dr J.P. Fennell of 20 Dalston Lane. He estimated that the child had been dead for at least half an hour but most probably for less than an hour. There were several obvious injuries, clean cut wounds to the face and another small but deep wound to the centre of the forehead. In Dr Fennell’s opinion he felt that the boy had been stunned by blows before being suffocated. With the body there were two pieces of rough-edged clinker, either of which could have been used to inflict the head injuries.
At the inquest Standing said:
I saw no blood marks on it (the shawl) and it was not under the body. The face of the boy was masked with blood. I saw no blood in the room nor on the floor … I did not touch the body. I called Mr Bunday.
David Bunday, the Station Inspector, confirmed Standing’s statement, adding:
A brick was found in the WC by the child’s head. I did not observe any two small pieces of brick there. Such a piece of brick as this could not have been found near any platform of my station. I can’t trace this brick as having lain anywhere about the station. I consider it must have been brought there recently.
The body was not immediately identified and for the next couple of days newspapers all over the country ran the story of the body of the unknown boy. He appeared very well nourished, explaining why he was described as being between five and six years old when in fact he was just three-and-a-half.
At 11 p.m. on Monday 30 October, thirty-six-year-old French governess Louise Masset arrived at the home of her brother-in-law George Richard Simes. She was in an agitated state. She said that she had heard that the child found murdered at Dalston Junction had been identified and she feared that it would prove to be the body of her son Manfred.
George was confused; he thought that she’d taken her son to France to be brought up by the child’s father’s cousin. He didn’t understand why she could possibly connect the dead boy found in London to Manfred. Hysterically, she admitted that she had lied to her family and had never gone to France. She claimed that she had lied in order to spend the weekend with her boyfriend, Eudore Lucas.
Simes persuaded her that she should make a statement to the police in the morning. They were just about to depart for the police station when detectives arrived at his home in Streatham Road, Croydon, and placed her under arrest.
They gathered witness statements and built a picture of Louise and the life of her little boy. Manfred Louis Masset was born at 17 Highgate Hill on 24 April 1896 and for most of his life he was cared for by Eleanor Gentle, who had been employed as his nurse.
Eleanor lived in Clyde Road, Tottenham, with her mother and stepfather, Mr and Mrs Norris. Eleanor Gentle’s statement at the inquest explained:
I am not related to the dead boy – I received this child, Manfred Louis Masset when he was three weeks old about 3½ years ago. The mother is Miss Louise Masset of 29 Bethune Road, Stoke Newington. I called for the child originally at the home of a Mrs Ballad of Highgate Hill. I made a contract with Miss Masset when she called upon me, and she was to pay me monthly £1-17-0- and it has been regularly paid – nothing is owing to me. I understood that Louise Masset was unmarried, I never saw any father. The mother at first saw him about every fortnight, and lately about once a week. She was a kind and loving mother.
I received a letter about October 16th from Miss Masset stating that she had unexpectedly met the father of the child and that the child was in future to live with the father’s cousin and so I should have to give up the care of him. The mother promised to call and make arrangements. She did call on Wednesday October 18th, alone, and she arranged that I should leave the boy at the Birdcage Tavern on Friday October 27th.
On that day I left home with the boy about 12 noon and got to the Birdcage Tavern about 12.20. Miss Masset came soon after. She got into a bus and there I left him and the bus went off with Miss Masset and the boy and I never saw him alive again. It was a bus which started from the Birdcage Tavern toward the Elephant and Castle.
I next saw the boy dead on Monday October 30th. The mother seemed always fond and proud of the boy. She sometimes paid money in advance.
Eleanor Gentle handed over a large quantity of clothing with Manfred, twenty-three items in total. Only two of these were ever found. On 28 October 1899 a small parcel wrapped in brown paper was found at Brighton containing a navy blue serge frock and a blue cloth coat. The braid had been torn from the collar, cuffs and waistband of the frock, and the collar, cuffs and brass buttons had been cut from the coat. There were also a pair of toy scales with Manfred of which he was particularly fond.
Maud Clifford, a draper’s assistant, confirmed that she had sold a black shawl identical to the one found on the body. As far as she could remember she had sold it just before lunch on Tuesday 24 October. Maud picked Louise Masset from a group of women. But both Standing and Dr Fennell believed that the shawl was not new.
The testimony of Louise’s sister, Leonie Cadisch, gave more details of the family circumstances:
I have seen the dead boy; it is the body of Manfred Louis Masset. I last saw him in April last.
Louise Masset lives with me now and has lived with me 18 months. She is a French governess and she paid the nurses fee for the child.
She used to see the child often and was very fond of him.
She left me on October 27th about 12.30 p.m. to go to London Bridge and that the boy was to meet her there. I don’t know who is the father, nor the cousin.
I expected her back on Sunday or Monday thinking she was going to France to the cousin. She took a portmanteau away with her. She returned on Sunday night October 29th at 9 p.m. with the same portmanteau. She went to bed without making any statement. I asked her had she had a good crossing and she answered that the sea was very rough. The boy was not mentioned.
On Monday October 30 I asked Louise whether she had trouble with the boy crying, she answered ‘only at London Bridge.
Leonie Cadisch was also asked if she could identify the black shawl or the clinker bricks. She had never seen the shawl before but said the bricks looked like those used for rockeries in their house and many of the other houses in the neighbourhood.
Throughout the inquest Louise Masset insisted that she was innocent but was committed for trial. She was a very attractive and memorable woman and plenty of witnesses came forward helping the police to map out her movements.
In court one of the witnesses was Thomas Bonner, the omnibus driver who had picked up Louise and Manfred at the Birdcage Tavern. They alighted at London Bridge and were memorable passengers because the little boy was upset and kept saying, ‘I do not want to go.’
John Findlay ran a hotel in Queen’s Road, Brighton. He confirmed that Louise had checked in at 9.45 on the evening of the 27th. She carried a bundle and a portmanteau and was joined on the Saturday by a man she claimed was her brother. She was at the hotel for lunch on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday morning, checking out later in the day and making it impossible for her to have travelled to France and back.
After she had gone the chambermaid found a pair of toy scales in her room.
More timings were laid out in the statement Louise Masset made to DS William Bunch following her arrest:
I last saw my child, Manfred Louis Masset age 3½ on Friday at London Bridge Railway station in the mailing room. I gave it to two women who gave me their address as 45 Kings Road, Chelsea with £12 mostly gold to take care of it for a whole twelve months. I had seen them at Tottenham Green 4 Wednesdays back. I had the child with me then. They first spoke to me and by their conversation with me they found out it was a nurse child. They said they were setting up a home and would I mind letting them have mine for £12 a year. At first I didn’t agree with it. I met them there again – the next Wednesday I had the child with me then I decided then to leave it with them for that sum. I then arranged to meet them at London Bridge at 2 p.m. on Friday last in the Waiting Room, London – Brighton. I met them there but before going there I went into another waiting room, the one near where the parcels come out. There was a woman attendant there, she had a cap on, and another one came to relieve her while I was there. They [the two women she met] left to go to the refreshment room and took the boy with them as they asked him if he would like a cake. They were to come back and bring me a receipt for the money. I waited there 2 or 3 minutes but they never came back. I have not seen my child since.
The attendant was a woman named Georgina Worley. She wore a white cap and was on duty at London Bridge Station at 1.45 p.m. when a woman entered with a young boy. She was carrying a bag which appeared to be heavy. Georgina identified Louise Masset as the woman but was unable to identify Manfred. Georgina left work at 2 p.m., she saw no one else with either Louise Masset or the little boy, but remembered that they had left the waiting room by the time she finished her shift.
Ellen Reece, attendant in the first-class waiting room at London Bridge, gave a very specific account of seeing Louise Masset and a month later picked her out from a group of twelve women forming an identity parade at Dalston police station. Ellen Reece had started work at 2.30 p.m. on 27 October, and had finished at ten minutes past midnight. She first saw Louise Masset at about 2.40 p.m. and stated:
The prisoner was sitting on a couch. The boy was standing up and he did not appear to want to go to the prisoner. I asked her what the little boy was fretting about and she replied ‘his nurse. Perhaps he is hungry. I will give him a cake. Have you a refreshment bar here?’ She took the little boy away then and this was after she had stayed in the waiting room for about ten minutes.
Ellen Reece next saw Louise Masset at six minutes past seven that evening. She was alone and asked the time of the next train to Brighton. She was told 7.20 p.m. and left the waiting room at 7.18 p.m.
The timings are crucial; reliable sightings put her at London Bridge at 2.40 p.m. and again at six minutes past seven. There had to be enough time for her to travel to Dalston Junction, murder Manfred and travel back.
Ralph Harrington, an expert on London stations in Victorian times, here gives his view on the viability of this trip:
The first thing to say is that there were no direct trains from London Bridge to Dalston Junction: the only way Louise Masset could have made the journey by rail would have been to go all the way to Richmond and get a North London Railway train back from there, which would have taken over two hours (and the same to get back the same way, of course). Nor was there a direct underground connection in 1899, only an indirect one via Cannon Street station and the Metropolitan railway. I would summarize her possible means of making the journey as follows:
1. Road transport (omnibus or cab - plenty of both available) from London Bridge to Broad Street (20–30 min), then train from Broad Street to Dalston Junction (30 min). The entire journey would have taken about one hour, perhaps a little longer depending on the traffic and allowing time to purchase tickets etc.
2. Railway from London Bridge to Cannon Street (6–8 min), then underground by the Metropolitan Railway from Cannon Street to Bishopsgate (20 min), which was the closest stop for Broad Street station; then Broad Street to Dalston Junction (30 min). Again, about one hour in total, but the two changes and the walk from Bishopsgate to Broad Street could add another 20 minutes depending on how congested things were. (The City and South London Railway was the other underground line running near London Bridge, but the connection was by a lengthy underpass and until 1900 the trains terminated at King William Street, which would not have been as convenient for an onward journey to Broad Street station as Cannon Street: so I don’t think she would have gone that way.)
3. By foot from London Bridge to Broad Street (30–45 min – hard to estimate), then by rail from Broad Street to Dalston Junction (30 min). Would certainly take more than one hour. Walking seems the least likely way for her to have made the journey.
I estimate the journey time from Broad Street to Dalston Junction in 1899 as no more than 30 minutes, and services on that line were very frequent. I’d have thought Louise Masset could have made the complete round trip between London Bridge station and Dalston Junction within the five hour period, with time to spare, even allowing for however long it took her to commit the murder itself (assuming her guilt) at Dalston.
Louise Masset would have needed to be quite determined to have taken a small boy on this journey and with little or no hesitation to have killed him and returned to London Bridge. Unless, of course, she was travelling to Dalston without murder in mind.
The testimony of her boyfriend, Eudore Lucas, revealed that she was familiar with the station. Lucas, a Frenchman, moved to England in August 1898 and met Louise Masset at the end of that year. He denied that he was Manfred’s father or that he knew the identity of Manfred’s father. Lucas lived next door to the Cadisch family until the start of November 1899, when he moved to Islington.
Eudore was eighteen when he first met Louise. In May 1899 they were both part of a group of four friends who spent a weekend at Mr Findlay’s Brighton hotel. Their friendship continued until July when they began to walk out together. They corresponded frequently, but the letters were more notes of friendship than love letters. In September 1899 she told him about Manfred. Eudore was not overly concerned with the existence of her son, they never discussed marriage and there is nothing to suggest that either party considered the relationship to be particularly serious. In fact, Eudore never told his friends of their affair and he always dropped her home out of sight of the house. More interesting is the fact that they often met at London Road station, travelling to Dalston Junction and from there by tram to her home in Bethune Road. Louise also used Dalston Junction station en-route to two families that she taught.
Evidence from some of those families served only to make it seem unlikely that she had committed the crime. Mrs Hass of West Hampstead knew Louise Masset as well as any of the other families for whom she worked: Louise had taught French to Mrs Hass’s children for four years. When she arrived at work on Monday 30 October Mrs Hass said, ‘she came and went at her usual time and she was in her usual spirits – quite cheerful and natural.’ And yet, if the crime was not premeditated then where did the clinker come from? It seems most likely that it was in the heavy bag that she carried the whole time.
Louise asked to see Manfred’s body and was distraught when she was taken to him, crying, ‘My poor baby, my poor baby’. But whatever Louise Masset’s state of mind, she was certainly weaving some complex stories around Manfred’s change of home. On Monday 30 October Eleanor Gentle and her mother, Mrs Norris, received two letters from ‘Mrs Mason’, the name that Eleanor knew that Louise Masset often used for correspondence:
Dear Mrs Norris,
I have just returned from my journey and hasten to let you know how we got on.
Our boy would cry ’til he saw the ships from London Bridge and then he felt better and thought he would like to go into the trains as he could see other men and boys doing. I suppose he was not scared of the engines because they were standing so still, only puffing now and again.
He was scarcely ill on board and the stewardess thought he was a dreadful chatterbox.
Poor I, was awfully sick both going and returning and I am not having more just yet thank you.
I enclose the letter I promised you. Please thank Miss Norris for all her trouble and tell her how sorry I was not to be able to talk to her on Friday, but our young man would certainly have been more upset had she remained.
He sent his love to Mummy and Daddy and Nelly and certainly hopes to see them again.
I shall try and be over at the end of the week, but not Wednesday as that day I must make up the lesson I lost in Saturday.
The letter Louise Masset mentions was a letter of reference, which read:
Dear Mrs Norris,
I felt so sorry at withdrawing Manfred from your care.
He has been so lovingly and thoroughly taken care of that should you think of taking another nurse child I shall be most pleased to answer any enquiries the parents of guardians may wish to make.
You treated my son in every way as you would have treated your own child and I again take this opportunity of thanking you for your kindness.
Yours ever sincerely, L Mason.
Louise Masset was met by an angry mob each time she arrived at court, particularly enraged by the idea that her motive had been simply to dispose of Manfred so that he wasn’t an obstacle to her romance with Eudore Lucas. On 17 December, Louise Masset was found guilty with no other explanation for her crime being offered.
The lack of plausibility of this scenario fuelled the idea that she was innocent. The idea that the ‘mysterious’ ladies at Dalston Junction station disappeared, coupled with Louise’s claim that she had handed Manfred over to two women, only added to the speculation that there was truth in her story. The notorious baby farmers Sach and Walters were arrested, charged and executed for murder just three years after Louise’s execution and their crimes reignited the debate – could they have been the two mystery women?
In fact, the ladies were identified fairly quickly: Standing’s initial comments about being unable to find them grew into the myth that they had simply vanished. Their names were in fact Mary Seaham and Margaret Biggs. They both came forward to make statements to the police. The inquest was adjourned until 9 November, by which time Mary, a governess, was on hand to explain the moment she found Manfred’s body:
I went to the ladies’ waiting room and went to the lavatory and there behind its door I saw a dark thing on the floor. I stooped, I saw a face, I went away. I had a friend, Miss Biggs in the waiting room, I told her about it and we both left the platform. We saw a porter coming towards us and Miss Biggs told him there was someone ill in the waiting room.
In a last attempt to save Louise from the death penalty, a letter was sent to the Secretary of State by her two sisters and their respective husbands, George and Matilda Simes, Richard and Leonie Cadisch, and her mother Elizabeth Armstong. In their petition they stated that they had total confidence in Louise’s innocence, but put forward a letter detailing instances of mental illness within the family arguing that the details could ‘throw light upon the present case and call for sympathy instead of retribution upon the alleged conduct of their unfortunate relative.’ The letter was written by Albert H.G. Burchatt of 8 Holly Villas, South Wordford, Essex, it is dated 24 December 1899 and begins:
I received your letter of the 22nd inst., and yesterday I conveyed to Mr Simes the cover of a family Bible containing a record of the names and dates of birth of my father and his brothers and sisters. With this I sent some notes in further elucidation of the instances of insanity, suicide and attempted suicide among the members of that family. To make clear my relationship with Louise Masset let me repeat that my father and her maternal grandmother were brother and sister.
He then goes on to give details of nine relatives, three of which had committed suicide, while the other six had all been declared to be suffering from various levels of insanity. All but the last were great aunts and uncles of Louise or their children. The only person listed who was of Louise’s generation was her cousin Daniel Wyeth. Albert Burchatt compares Daniel and Louise:
These last two cases present widely differing characteristics, yet in my opinion both have their origin in the same obscure physiological taint which is so strikingly apparent in the two preceding generations. I have not seen Daniel Wyeth since he was a child some few years old but at that time he had scarcely any control over the action of his limbs and he had hardly any power of speech. He is now a man and I am told that he has to some extent improved in both these respects, and also in his mental powers. Louise Masset on the other hand is of good physique, with strong and little controlled passions, a quick but most short sighted intelligence and a rudimentary or non-existent moral sense so abnormal as to permit of her committing the cruel and unnatural act of which she has been pronounced guilty, without altering her equanimity or disturbing her in the slightest degree in the pursuit either of her pleasures or her ordinary avocations; and in my opinion the soundness of her mental condition is, to say the least, so doubtful that she ought not to be subjected to the extreme penalty of the law.
He gives another two pieces of information that provide important details of Louise’s life:
On the 27th day of September 1899 the step-father of the said Louise Josephine Jemima Masset died somewhat unexpectedly, and during his illness she was, to use the expression of her own mother ‘exquisitely kind’ and devoted to him. In the opinion of the petitioners his death had a great effect upon her – coming as a great shock.
The second point related to Louise’s ongoing contact with Manfred’s father:
In addition, ever since the 29th day of December 1895 up to the 6th day of October 1899 a regular correspondence had been kept up being full of pathetic and loving details written with reference for her love and affection for her little son and her pride in his growing beauty and affection for her. Suddenly, without rhyme or reason the father ceased to write so regularly and then, a week after the sending by him of a loving and affectionate letter, he wrote saying he had found another woman to love.
Two of these letters demonstrate some of Louise’s anguish at the situation with Manfred’s father. The first reads:
30th September 1899
My dear little husband,
I am really astonished not to have received news from you. For mercy’s sake write to me!!! You know how unhappy I am and unhappily placed for the present you would help me for I know your heart. I can only suppose that you are not receiving my letters or that you are travelling and that thus you do not know how unhappy I am, but however you had promised to let me know the result of the revision. Were you taken – yes or no? Will you help me – yes or no?
They are wondering in the family that I do not buy black things [as mourning for her step-father] and I answer that I will think of it during the week. What will they say when they see me one day come back with Manfred – or rather I do not think I shall ever have the courage to bring the child to the house, then we will have to stop without shelter that is all, for I have promised not to speak about you and if I bring back the child they will force me to say your name. I was not thinking a year ago that I should be so frightfully unhappy, I had faith in your heart and love for us and when I read over again your last letter it shows that you still love us; then why this complete silence? If your father interferes let me at least know it, do not leave me in my frightful despair for I am the last extremity.
Your little Loulou – who beseeches you to help her.
The tone of the letter which she wrote just one week later was substantially different:
6th October 1899
My dear Maurice,
In receiving the few lines you sent me on Wednesday I felt as if stunned, the shock was too great especially after your last letter still full of love. But today I am awake and I accept for me the fate destined to me. I do not find you a coward to have loved another but a coward to leave me just at the time of my greatest misery, for you know as well as I that your son will never be received by my family. They have told me often enough. I ask nothing for myself, it was your kisses I wanted, because I loved you and will always love you but having had advice outside the family I tell you that your son cannot and must not be thoroughly [sic] as dirty linen. I ask you then to assure him a shelter to send him an annual sum of twelve pounds, it is very little for a father who comes from a wealthy family. In that case I swear that you will never be bothered in any way. At the age of fifteen, that is in twelve years time, the annual sum can cease as Manfred, your flesh, will have then I hope a fairly good education and health to work himself. Answer me on that subject and all correspondence will end between us, but do not let me wait long for your answer. Your heart is your master but remember my own in a mother’s heat and it also speaks.
Your well-wisher
Louise.
Mrs Mason.
On the eve of her execution Louise Masset’s solicitor contacted the Home Secretary, presenting both the petition from her family and a second from 1,200 French women, including governesses, but it was decided that there was insufficient reason to halt the death penalty.
On 3 January 1900, Eleanor Gentle took advice on what to do with Manfred’s belongings. Ironically George Simes had asked for them. Even though the family had refused to allow Manfred into their home during his life, they still sought to keep souvenirs after his death. Eleanor was told that unless Louise Masset willed them elsewhere she should hand them over.
Whilst before Mr Fordham, Eleanor Gentle asked if there was any way she could receive any financial help: her living had gone and due to the notoriety of the trial no one wished to employ her. During the trial, Louise Masset tried to convince the jury that she had removed Manfred from Eleanor Gentle because she was not happy with the care he was receiving. Perhaps Louise Masset’s idea was to show that she had his best interests at heart when she handed him over to the ladies from King’s Road.
Eleanor Gentle explained that since Masset’s accusations had been published she had not been able to work. Solicitor Mr Fordham told her that she could use him as a referee, adding, ‘My good woman, Miss Masset’s word goes for nothing. The jury did not believe her. Nobody believes her.’
James Billington was the executioner, with William Warbrick as his assistant. Both men thought it highly likely that Louise Masset would receive a last minute reprieve. She continued to insist that she was innocent. But the execution went ahead as planned. Warbrick recorded the event in his memoirs:
A heavy mist hung around old Newgate on the Tuesday morning as we went about our mournful task of preparing to hang Louise Masset. A crowd of 2000 to 3000 gathered outside, and at quarter to nine they knew that the fateful moment was near, for the bell of St Sepulchre’s began to toll.
I had quite a shock when I entered the condemned cell with Billington. Her beautiful tresses had turned white since we saw her on the previous evening, and much of her facial loveliness had disappeared under the fearful strain occasioned by her night of soul-agony. She looked a nervous wreck.
Her face was haggard as she stood up to be pinioned, but despite this, she was perfectly calm and collected. I must confess that her firmness was a big surprise to me. She was a woman, and a young one at that, so naturally I expected her to display fear of the scaffold.
She hardly saw the execution chamber; Billington capped her too quickly for that. And she would hardly have realised that the rope was round her neck and that I had strapped her legs before the merciful release came.
At the inquest held after Louise Masset’s execution, a man named General Daly of the Spanish Service appeared and claimed that he had been to see the Home Secretary to plead for Masset’s life. He claimed to have new evidence that would show that someone else had committed the crime but was not allowed to present this, what he wished to report is therefore not recorded.
At the inquest it was reported that Masset’s final comment to the chaplain on the night before her execution was, ‘What I suffer is just.’
The problem with this case is not so much Louise Masset’s guilt but the ongoing disbelief at it. For her story to be true, it has to be accepted that she took Manfred away from a loving home and was prepared to place him with two strangers. Then that she did not bother to visit the new home or to take him there herself, and did not raise any alarm when these two ladies vanished from the waiting room with him. And finally, that she made no attempt to deliver or forward his belongings, including his favourite toy, but instead removed the trim and buttons and dumped his clothing at Brighton Railway Station and the toy in her hotel room, before carrying on with her weekend away showing no signs of unhappiness or anguish, delivering letters containing a fictitious account of Manfred’s journey to France.
These points prove that, in either scenario, Louise Masset can be shown to be both an accomplished and premeditated liar and a woman with only limited maternal instincts.
The most challenging obstacle to accepting Louise Masset’s guilt is accepting that she planned the murder of Manfred without an obvious motive for the crime. Louise bought the black shawl and wrote to Eleanor Gentle. Louise knew that both of these arrangements were steps towards her cold-blooded aim of killing Manfred. If the clinker used to beat Manfred did come from her sister’s garden then she carried that to Dalston station and had it in her bag as Manfred was handed to her.
Her relationship with Eudore Lucas never involved any discussion of marriage. Eudore knew of Manfred’s existence but there is no evidence to support the claim often made in accounts of the case that suggest she killed Manfred to improve her chances with her lover.
It is this author’s personal theory is that Eudore and Louise used each other as a convenient and mutually flattering diversion and nothing more. Louise’s relationship with Manfred was more complex and she loved her son as part of her love for Maurice. It is no coincidence that Manfred’s death came so soon after Maurice’s letter of rejection.
Louise had shown no outward signs of distress when she had received notification from Maurice to say that he had found someone else, despite spending the previous three-and-a-half years, all of Manfred’s life, in the false hope that her relationship with Maurice would result in marriage.
She did not seem to acknowledge that a man who left his girlfriend at the point when her pregnancy became noticeable, and a father who had shown no interest in seeing or supporting his illegitimate son up to that point had, in fact, made his intentions abundantly clear.
I also believe that there is no coincidence that the amount she requests from Maurice, £12, is exactly the sum she claimed to have paid the imaginary ladies from King’s Road, Chelsea.
Louise Masset’s execution had more than just an uneasy effect on the British public. She had been Billington’s 128th hanging but his grip on the position of number one executioner was starting to slip. His performance at her execution raised some concerns with the Governor of Holloway Prison, leading him to comment that James Billington was ‘more nervous and was less expeditious than on former occasions.’ Ruggles-Brise, the Under-Sheriff for the County of London, asked him to clarify the statement, to which the Governor replied:
11th January 1900
I contribute his nervousness on the 9th to rum drinking: he appeared stupid and forgetful. I think the presence of Warbrick the Assistant partly disconcerted him. He was on first employment a tee-totaller, be he has degenerated the last two years. I found that he did better when accompanied by his son Thomas who has now left the country and I believe if his younger son William Billington were added to the list he would be of use to his father at executions.
The medical officer, James Scott, concurred with the Governor, saying, ‘at the last two of three executions that have taken place at Newgate it has been very noticeable that Billington appeared more nervous and confused than was formerly the case.’
In response, Ruggles-Brise sent the following on to the Secretary of the Prison Commission:
26th January 1900
I quite agree with the reports of the Governor and the Medical Officer. In addition I think it would be desirable that some other men should be instructed in the duties of an executioner.
In my opinion Billington is rapidly losing his nerve owing to causes mentioned in the Medical Officer’s report and I do not think the man Warbrick is very likely to be thoroughly satisfactory. It would greatly assist the Sheriffs throughout the country if there were more names on the list of persons who have been instructed in the duties of executioner.
Two days before this memo had been sent, the Prison Commission had already contacted the Governor of Holloway Prison to set the training wheels in motion:
The Treasury have sanctioned the payment to the chief warder of Newgate Prison of a fee of £2/2/- for each candidate trained by him for the office of executioner and have agreed that each candidate should receive an allowance of 5s/- a day for board and loss of time and third class railway fare to and from his home. There are now two candidates ready to undergo a course of training. Please say when it will be convenient for the first one, William Billington to be instructed.
The course was to last from Monday to Saturday.
Despite the reservations over William Warbrick, he was one of the men chosen to undergo formal training. In further Prison Commission memos sent over the last week of January and the first two weeks of February, arrangements were finalised for the training of assistant executioners at Newgate. On 26 January William Billington was invited to attend, then in February William Warbrick received his instruction. In the memo telling the secretary to arrange Warbrick’s training, there is an instruction to first check with the Governor to ensure that Warbrick’s training day does not coincide with Billington’s.
On 12 February, Chief Warder of Newgate W. Scott wrote, ‘… William Billington completed his week of instruction on Saturday 9 February … he appears to be a steady and reliable young man and I think suitable for employment when required. I beg to suggest that, if possible, he be tested by actual experience as assistant before being employed alone …’ He seemed unaware William Billington had already conducted executions at this point.