11

‘This is the fruit of going with another man’s wife’

Wood Green, London, 1869

Thirty-year-old carpenter Frederick Hinson and former governess Maria Death had lived as man and wife in Truro Road, Wood Green for seven or eight years and, although they were not legally married, Maria was universally known as Mrs Hinson and they had seven children together, only two of whom survived. Yet although the couple appeared to live happily together, Frederick frequently worked away from home and began to suspect Maria of engaging in an affair with a wealthy tea and silk merchant, whose garden bordered that of the Hinsons’ rented property. William Douglas Boyd was separated from his wife and was on the verge of initiating divorce proceedings against her. He had already moved another woman named Margaret Robinson (or Robertson) into his house but it was widely rumoured that he intended to get rid of her and invite Maria Death to live with him.

On Monday, 4 October 1869, Frederick told his wife that he had a job in Hendon and would therefore be away from home for two or three days. However, instead of going to work, after leaving home at the usual time, he went to a nearby public house where he spent the morning drinking. At around 3.30 p.m. he went home and finding that Maria was not there, he asked their landlady Eliza Allen where she had gone. Mrs Allen told him that Maria had left for London earlier that afternoon to buy some material to make clothes for the children.

Frederick went straight to the station and paced backwards and forwards in a rage, muttering to himself through clenched teeth as he awaited the arrivals of the London trains. Six came and left again until finally at 5.23 p.m., he saw Maria alight from a train, accompanied by Boyd. Frederick strode towards them and, without saying a single word, punched Boyd so hard in the face that he flew backwards, landing on his backside on the platform. While two musicians who had been travelling on the same train assisted Boyd to his feet and tried to staunch the blood flowing from a wound in his cheek, Frederick ran off in pursuit of Maria, who was running away from him as fast as she could. Frederick caught up with her, clasped her around the waist and ordered her to come with him. ‘No, Fred, I would rather not,’ Maria protested, but he linked arms with her and propelled her home to their cottage, lifting her over three stiles on the way. As they walked, he angrily accused Maria of playing him false and she sobbed in terror, vehemently denying any wrongdoing and occasionally appealing to passers-by for assistance, claiming to be frightened for her life.

Once they reached their cottage, Frederick ordered Maria to wait in the garden while he fetched something. Too frightened to disobey, Maria stood like a statue while her husband went indoors, picked up a shotgun and fired it at her through the window. There was a crash of breaking glass and a flash of flame and Maria instantly fell down dead, the shot going straight into her heart. Although they were on opposite sides of a window, Frederick was standing so close to Maria when he fired the gun that the burning wadding set her dress on fire.

Frederick rushed outside to where Maria lay and hit her hard on the head with the butt end of the gun. He then turned on his heel and walked purposefully out onto the main road, where a small crowd of people had assembled. ‘If a woman deceives me, I deceive her,’ he said aloud and such was the look on Frederick’s face that nobody dared to interfere with him and the crowd meekly parted, allowing him to force the door of Boyd’s house and barge inside. Meeting Boyd’s startled housekeeper Isabella Kepple, he demanded, ‘Where is he?’ and when she asked him who he wanted, Frederick barked ‘The Governor’. Mrs Kepple told Frederick that Boyd was in the garden, so he continued through the house and out of the back door, arriving at the stable at the end of the garden just as Boyd was returning, having been escorted home by the two musicians. Telling Boyd’s companions to get out of the way, Frederick seized Boyd’s collar and threw him out of the stable and, as Boyd lay on the ground, Frederick began to hit him on the head with the butt end of the gun, pinning him down with a foot on his chest. Having smashed Boyd’s skull to smithereens, Frederick retraced his steps back through the house. Mrs Kepple tried to grab his arm, asking him, ‘What is all this about?’ but he brushed her aside.

‘This is the fruit of going with another man’s wife,’ he told her then returned to where Maria’s body lay.

By this time, a considerable crowd had gathered outside the cottage in Truro Street and as Frederick stooped over Maria and tried to put out her burning dress, he was approached by two police officers. He immediately pointed his now broken gun at Acting Sergeants Edward Neale and Thomas Searle, threatening to shoot them but as soon as he bent over Maria again, the officers rushed him. Frederick lashed out and sent Searle sprawling but Neale was actually a neighbour of the Hinsons and knew them well. He quietly asked, ‘Fred, what are you about?’ and Frederick calmly explained that he needed to extinguish Maria’s burning garments. Neale agreed to help him put out the fire and, while he was doing so, Searle managed to snatch the gun from Hinson, who was arrested, handcuffed and escorted to the police station. On arriving there, he made a last desperate but unsuccessful bid for freedom and, while in custody, managed to stab himself in the neck with a knife but fortunately inflicted only a superficial wound.

The next morning, Hinson was taken to the house of local magistrate Mr E. Shepherd and, having been remanded in custody, was sent to the Clerkenwell House of Detention. That night, coroner John Humphreys opened an inquest on the two deaths at The Ranelagh Arms public house in Wood Green.

One of the first witnesses to give evidence was Frederick’s father, Thomas Hinson, who explained that his son had been living with twenty-six-year-old Maria for around seven years. He then dropped a bombshell, telling the coroner that the couple had never married because Frederick already had a wife and that the eldest child was actually not Maria’s offspring but had been abandoned as an infant by Frederick’s first wife when she left him. Thomas told the inquest that Maria was very well educated and highly respectable, adding that his son doted on her and always said that there was not another woman like her in the country. ‘I never saw any reason to complain of her conduct,’ Thomas insisted.

Thomas explained that he had last seen his son the day before the murders, when Frederick seemed cheerful and excited about plans to move with his family to a cottage close to Kingsbury Reservoir, near Hendon. When asked about Frederick’s drinking habits, his father explained that his son used to drink but never excessively and, for the past three months, had been completely teetotal. However, Thomas had been allowed to see Frederick at the police station after the murders and told the coroner that his son admitted then that he had been drinking rum all morning.

The next witness was Henry Alden, who explained that his sister had been married to William Douglas Boyd, until Boyd turned her out of the house over Christmas 1868. Henry revealed that the couple had married in Yokohama, Japan, five years earlier, where Boyd was working as a merchant. When Boyd lost his fortune of £9,000 in a fire, he moved back to England with his wife in November 1868. However, they had not been in England long when Boyd told her that he had only married her in the first place because he was tired of Japanese women and wanted an English girl. A few weeks later, Boyd claimed to be bored with his wife and threw her out of his house wearing nothing but a silk kimono.

Henry told the coroner that Boyd was now desperately poor, having no job or means of earning money in England. He had recently been pawning his possessions to survive, including some trunks of his wife’s clothing and a carpet bag containing six revolvers. ‘He was a most licentious man and coveted everyone’s wife and daughter,’ concluded Henry.

Margaret Robinson, who was co-habiting with Boyd at the time of his death, was the next witness. She was under the impression that Boyd was a widower and had moved in with him five months earlier, ten days after their first meeting. According to Margaret, the couple were planning to move to a smaller house together and, on the day of his death, Boyd had been out making arrangements for the move. Margaret told the inquest that Maria occasionally borrowed a newspaper from Boyd but that was the extent of their relationship. Boyd’s housekeeper concurred, saying that Maria had often come to the house to talk to her but she had never seen Maria and Boyd together.

The Hinsons’ landlady, Eliza Allen, was even blunter, describing Maria as very intellectual and well-conducted and stressing that there was absolutely no possibility whatsoever of any intimacy between her and Boyd. ‘She gave him a wide berth on account of his habits,’ Mrs Allen explained. She also contradicted Thomas Hinson’s evidence about Frederick’s drinking, claiming that he frequently got drunk and, when he did, was in the habit of firing his gun into the air and had once shot through her windows with crow shot.

The next witness was Civil Service clerk Edward Sawyer, who lived near to the Hinsons and had caught the same train home as Maria and Boyd. Sawyer claimed to have noticed both Maria and Boyd on the platform at Holloway Station but couldn’t say whether or not they were together. There were two street musicians on the platform at the time and Boyd, who was rather drunk, urged them to play a tune while they waited for the train.

Sawyer saw nothing more until Wood Green, when he got off the train just in time to see Boyd getting up from the ground and Maria running away, with Hinson in pursuit. Sawyer followed the Hinsons as they walked home but stated that Frederick was being forceful rather than violent towards Maria, using no more force than necessary to take his wife home.

The Hinsons disappeared from Sawyer’s sight when they reached home but only seconds later, there was a gunshot, followed by the sound of blows. Through the shrubs between him and the Hinsons’ home, Sawyer saw smoke and what looked like a woman falling. ‘The woman is shot,’ Sawyer called out then drew back as Hinson marched resolutely past him heading for Boyd’s house and once again disappeared from view.

There was a group of navvies standing nearby and Sawyer shouted to them to fetch a policeman. When officers Neale and Searle arrived on the scene, Sawyer witnessed their struggle with Frederick Hinson and assisted them by seizing Hinson round the throat until the policemen could apprehend him. He then went to Boyd’s house and helped Margaret Robinson into the kitchen, before heading back to the Hinsons’ garden. Sawyer’s account was corroborated by War Office clerk Henry Whitton and railway clerk Walter Gray, who walked with him from the station.

Dr William White and Dr Charles Edward Hocken testified. White happened to be visiting a house near the Hinsons home when the shooting took place and immediately went to see if he could assist, although he could do little but pronounce life extinct. Although Hocken examined the bodies the following day, it was not deemed necessary to conduct post-mortem examinations, since Maria had obviously been shot through the heart and Boyd’s head had been beaten almost to a pulp.

Finally, the two police officers followed each other as witnesses, both agreeing that, on the way to the police station, Frederick mused, ‘Ah, I little thought this would have happened this time yesterday.’ Although he persistently referred to Maria as ‘a good creature’, when asked to make a statement, his only comment was, ‘I have done for him and for her too and I am not sorry for it. I am only sorry for my dear children.’

Once all of the witnesses had been heard, the coroner announced his intention of adjourning the inquest to see if the police could establish the truth about the supposed intimacy between the two victims. Two days later, three publicans were taken to view the bodies and all three claimed that Maria and Boyd had been drinking together in their establishments on the afternoon of 4 October. Furthermore, one told the coroner that Boyd had bragged to him at the time about taking out married women then returning them to their husbands.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Frederick Hinson, who was committed for trial at the next assizes. The proceedings opened on 27 October and Dr Kenealey QC, who had been appointed to defend Hinson, immediately requested a postponement of the trial until the next sessions, saying that he had only had seven days to prepare his defence. Kenealey complained that he wanted to have Hinson examined by a physician in Newgate Prison but had been told by the governor that he could only do so if the prison surgeon Mr Gibson was also present. Kenealey objected to this proviso but the prison governor explained to Mr Justice Keating that to allow such access would be a breach of prison etiquette. Keating agreed that the prison rules should be respected but did permit the case to be held over, to allow Kenealey more time.

The trial finally opened on 22 November 1869, with Mr Justice Byles presiding. Hinson, who was described in the contemporary newspapers as ‘tall, muscular, powerful and rather good looking’ pleaded not guilty to both charges in a firm but calm voice. Although he was charged with both murders, the court proceeded only with the charge of murdering Maria Death.

Edward Sawyer, Henry Whitton and Walter Gray repeated their statements from the inquest, as did all of the other witnesses. The only surprise came from Boyd’s housekeeper, Isabella Kepple, who admitted under cross-examination by Kenealey that Boyd had told her that he intended for Maria Death to take Margaret Robinson’s place in his home. Mrs Kepple also revealed that her employer had boasted of ‘having connection’ with Maria.

Once all of the witnesses had spoken, Kenealey addressed the jury for the defence. He described his client as ‘an honest, hard-working man’, who, on 4 October, had been plunged in an instant from a position of the greatest comfort and happiness to the deepest depths of distress and misery. In order to support a charge of murder, it was necessary that there should be malice and, in Hinson’s case malice was absent. Hinson committed his acts under an uncontrollable feeling of passion, having received the greatest of provocation that had momentarily overturned his reason and deprived him of all self-control.

Kenealey reminded the jury that everybody who saw Hinson at the time of the shootings was afraid to intervene, regarding him almost as a wild maniac whose reason had deserted him and who was totally unable to control his actions. Kenealey maintained that if a man detected another in the act of committing adultery with his wife and killed him, he was entirely justified in doing so and Hinson considered Maria as much his wife as if their union had been blessed by the Church of England.

Mr Justice Byles interjected to correct Kenealey, saying, ‘This is not the law of England.’

‘I have always understood it to be so,’ argued Kenealey.

Byles conceded that, in such a case, the charge against the killer would most probably be manslaughter rather than murder and Kenealey thanked the judge for ‘setting him right’. However, if such a conviction were ever to take place, he continued, the likelihood was that the utmost punishment inflicted would be a day’s imprisonment and nobody would think for a single moment of depriving the culprit of his life.

Kenealey concluded his argument by stating that Hinson was in the same position as if the deceased had been his legal wife and contended that the provocation he had received was sufficient to reduce his offence from murder to the lesser offence of manslaughter, since it led to him acting in hot blood. Finally, the counsel for the defence called a number of character witnesses for Hinson, all of whom described him as quiet, humane and kind-hearted.

Mr Justice Byles told the jury that no attempt had been made by the defence to suggest that Hinson did not kill Maria Death and William Boyd, neither had there been any suggestion that he was not of sound mind at the time of the shootings. In fact, the only defence that had been set up was that he acted in hot blood, on an uncontrollable impulse. Byles stated that Maria was not Hinson’s legal wife as he already had a wife living so by law the offence of adultery did not apply. Furthermore, even assuming an inappropriate intimacy between the victims, Hinson had not actually caught them in the act and killed them, which was the only possible ground for reducing the offence from murder to manslaughter. ‘I am bound to tell you that the defence has failed,’ Byles informed the jury, instructing them that, if they believed that the prisoner killed the deceased they could not return any other verdict but guilty of wilful murder.

It took just thirty minutes for the jury to find Hinson guilty of wilful murder and he was sentenced to death and sent to Newgate Prison to await his fate. Hinson remained convinced that he was perfectly justified in killing the woman he regarded as his wife and the man he suspected of committing adultery with her. Although prison chaplain Reverend Jones tried his hardest to make Hinson see that it was quite impossible for Maria Death to have ever been considered as his wife while he was still legally married to another, Hinson remained adamant that he had every right to regard Maria as his wife and quoted passages from the Bible to demonstrate that he was justified in taking the lives of adulterers. Hinson also remained convinced that the authorities would eventually see the sense of his arguments and that he would not be executed and he refused to change his thinking, even after having been informed that a petition sent on his behalf to the Queen had been unsuccessful. While in prison, Hinson was visited by all of his family, including his legal wife’s mother, who aggravated him so much that prison officers had to intervene to prevent him from attacking her.

Hinson was executed at Newgate Prison on 13 December 1869 and was buried within the confines of the prison walls. He had finally admitted to Reverend Jones that he was guilty of committing a great crime but still maintained that he acted in the hot blood of passion and that, under those circumstances, his life should have been spared. As the date for his execution approached, Hinson’s concerns were for his children. He seemed anxious for it to be known that he and his legal wife had separated amicably and that, by mutual agreement, she had gone to Scotland, taking their oldest child and leaving the youngest with her husband.

Now, Hinson tried to make arrangements for the welfare of his children, begging Reverend Jones to watch over them and, as far as possible, prevent them from suffering in consequence of the unhappy fate of their father. (A neighbour of the Hinsons had taken an interest in the children and had placed them in a school in Wood Green and promised to provide for them.)

Since Hinson was so firmly convinced that he did not deserve to be executed, there were concerns that he might make some desperate, last ditch effort to prevent the sentence being carried out. However, when the time came for his final walk to the scaffold, he greeted executioner William Calcraft with a cheery, ‘Good morning, Mr Calcraft,’ asking to shake hands with the prison governor and some of the wardens before his arms were pinioned. Having thanked everyone for their kindness to him during his sentence he mounted the scaffold almost eagerly with a firm, unfaltering step, saying almost gleefully, ‘Now for the grand secret.’

Hinson maintained his brave façade until Calcraft placed the hood over his head, at which moment his courage seemed to desert him. He began to sway and, thinking he was going to faint, one of the warders stepped forward to support him until the drop fell, when he is reported to have died instantaneously.