16

‘I’ll pay the little devil out’

Douglas, Isle of Man, 1892

Although originally from Shirley in Birmingham, Edith Annie Cooper was living in Douglas, on the Isle of Man and working as a barmaid at The Central Hotel on the Promenade when she met George, the son of a wealthy businessman from Manchester. Contemporary newspapers describe Edith as ‘a good looking, vivacious and highly accomplished young lady’, who was educated in a private school and was blessed with ‘a bright and intelligent face’ and ‘a petite figure’. After a whirlwind courtship the couple married in November 1891. It was a second marriage for George, who was older than his bride and by coincidence his full name was George Barker James Cooper, although he was not related to Edith. By a further coincidence, the first Mrs Cooper was also named Edith.

George, whose mother came from the Isle of Man, was a frequent visitor to the island. The son of a wealthy Manchester businessman, he had a privileged childhood and was thoroughly spoiled by his over-indulgent parents. He grew up to be somewhat eccentric, favouring ostentatious gold and diamond rings and sometimes even dressing in full naval uniform and falsely representing himself as a ship’s officer.

When George married his first wife in 1878 he was supposed to be working in his father’s business. However, he quickly decided that he did not care for work and, although he and his wife had two children, he devoted most of his time to womanising. In 1880, he met a lady named Ellen ‘Nelly’ Ditchfield, who became his mistress. He set up a second home with her in Hulme, Manchester and when his wife found out about his parallel life, he made no attempt to deny it. On 14 March 1882, he actually took his mistress to his wife’s home. He accused Mrs Cooper of having been to Nelly’s house and stolen a photograph from the mantelpiece, demanding that she apologise immediately, otherwise Nelly intended to prosecute her for theft. Mrs Cooper went downstairs and ordered her husband’s mistress out of her house. When Nelly refused to leave, Mrs Cooper slapped her face and Nelly promptly slapped back. As the two women scuffled, Cooper pulled a revolver out of his pocket and pointed it at his wife.

‘For God’s sake don’t shoot,’ shouted Mrs Cooper and her cry brought her father-in-law rushing to her aid. Courageously George Cooper senior grabbed the gun, much to the annoyance of his son who told him, ‘Out of the way – I’ll let it off. Stand out of the way or you’ll be shot.’ Although his father was still clinging to the gun for dear life, Cooper pulled the trigger and fired twice, fortunately without hitting anyone.

Cooper was brought before magistrates at Altrincham Police Court charged with shooting at his wife with intent to murder. He was committed for trial at the next Chester Assizes and typically, even though he had just given evidence against him, Mr Cooper senior tried to apply for bail for his son, which was refused. The charge against Cooper was eventually reduced to having feloniously shot at his wife with a loaded pistol with intent to do her grievous bodily harm and the case was heard by Mr Justice Chitty at the Chester Assizes of April 1882.

The first Mrs Edith Cooper stated that George habitually carried a gun but had always been a good husband until he met Ellen Ditchfield, since when he had beaten her many times. She had become thoroughly afraid of him, especially as he often threatened to shoot her and waved a pistol at her, although he always apologised afterwards and claimed that he intended only to frighten her. The court eventually determined that, although George had fired the gun, he had not done so with wilful intent, which equated to a not guilty verdict.

George Cooper was discharged from court and fled to America with Ellen. However, in 1884 he unexpectedly returned to his wife, who forgave him and took him back. Almost immediately, George Cooper found another lover, a married woman named Hunt. After her husband found out about the affair and threatened him with violence, Cooper once again abandoned his long-suffering wife and went abroad with his paramour but returned to his marital home in 1889. Mr Cooper eventually filed for divorce in 1891 after discovering that her husband was living in lodgings in Liverpool with yet another mistress.

By that time, George Cooper had already met the second Edith in the Isle of Man and when his divorce was finalised in March 1891, he proposed marriage to her. They married in Shirley and over the next few months they made several trips back to the island together, usually staying at The Regent Hotel on Loch Promenade in Douglas.

On 2 September 1892, the couple arrived at The Regent and were initially shown to room number eleven, although they later changed to number sixteen. Maid Mary Ellen ‘Polly’ O’Brien escorted Mrs Cooper to her room and since Edith claimed to have been very seasick on the crossing to the island, she retired to bed almost immediately, after drinking a glass of brandy and water brought to her by the maid. George Cooper went to the hotel bar and, once dinner had been served, he asked Polly if she would mind checking on his wife. Polly found Edith Cooper lying fully dressed on the bed and when the maid asked if she wanted anything, she told her no.

Polly went to bed at around 11 p.m. but around four hours later, Cooper approached Thomas Lewis, the hotel’s night porter, and asked for a bottle of champagne to be sent up to his room for his wife. Told that the bar was closed, Cooper eventually settled for soda water.

At around 8 a.m. the following morning, as Polly was working on the landing, Cooper came to the door of his room and asked her to send out for a collar stud, but she happened to have one in her pocket, which she gave him. Shortly afterwards, he asked for champagne to be sent to his room. Mrs Cooper was still in bed and, when Polly delivered the champagne and two glasses, she drank one glass while Polly watched. George Cooper then offered Polly some champagne but when she refused he placed the second glass on the dresser, passing his wife’s empty glass and the bottle back to Polly, who put a paper cork in the bottle and left it on a table in the hallway. Although Polly didn’t actually see him leave the hotel, Cooper went out at around 9.30 a.m. Polly later went in to check on Edith, who had not yet got out of bed and declined the cup of tea that the maid offered to make for her, saying that she felt too ill and claiming to be still feeling the motion of the boat.

While Polly got on with servicing the neighbouring rooms, chambermaid Jane Cowin came to find her and said, ‘I think Mr and Mrs Cooper are quarrelling’. Polly stopped working to listen and faintly heard raised voices coming from room sixteen. ‘I think they are,’ she agreed, then, having decided that it was none of her business, she carried on with her work.

A little later, Polly heard what she described as ‘a slight scream’ from the Coopers’ room, closely followed by a thud and concerned that Edith may have fainted or fallen out of bed, Polly went to see if she needed help. She bent down and peered through the room’s keyhole and saw Edith Cooper lying naked on the floor, her husband bending over her with a towel in his hand.

Polly told Jane to fetch help and the manageress sent bookkeeper Mary Keeling to investigate. Miss Keeling knocked on the door of room sixteen and asked the occupants to please keep the noise down as they were disturbing the other guests. The response from inside the room was a faint, ‘Yes, sorry.’ Fifteen minutes later, hotel manageress Sarah Ann Jones came upstairs herself and knocked on the Coopers’ door. When George opened the door a crack, Mrs Jones asked him what was going on and George replied that his wife had fainted but he was dealing with it and didn’t need any assistance. He then quickly closed the door before the manageress could ask any more questions or see what was going on in the bedroom.

Moments later, Polly heard another thud from the room and, when she reported it to the hotel manager William Welden (or Weldon) he decided that it was time to intervene. He and porter Gilbert Connock rushed upstairs and demanded entrance to room sixteen, where Edith Cooper lay dead on the floor, her bloodstained and torn nightdress nearby, along with a pair of wet drawers and numerous wet towels and handkerchiefs.

A doctor was called to the hotel and found twenty-four-year-old Edith on her right side, naked apart from a cloth draped over her lower body, which had been placed there by the hotel staff to preserve her modesty. After checking for signs of life and finding none, Dr David Joseph O’Malley asked for the body to be lifted onto the bed, so that he could better examine it. Mrs Cooper had a deep three-inch-long cut on her chest, just above her left breast which, in the doctor’s opinion, had been made by a sharp object, such as the open and bloodstained penknife found in the bedroom. Cooper was immediately arrested on suspicion of having murdered his wife.

As he was taken into custody, he began to sob hysterically, crying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, let me go back and kiss her before I am taken away.’ Interviewed by the police, he claimed to have been to the bank and to have returned to find his wife insensible on the floor. Unaware that she had been stabbed, he was under the impression that she had merely fainted and was trying to revive her with water when he was interrupted by Welden and Connock.

An inquest was opened at The Regent Hotel on the afternoon of Mrs Cooper’s death and adjourned by coroner Mr S. Harris, so that a post-mortem examination could be conducted. It took place at the island hospital that evening, where it was discovered that a single stab wound had pierced Edith’s left lung and pulmonary artery, nicking the outer covering of her heart and causing her death from internal bleeding. The three doctors present at the examination also noted bruises of various ages on her arms, legs and trunk, as well as discolouration around her eyes, suggesting that she may have been beaten. It was highly unlikely that the fatal wound could have been self-inflicted and, crucially, the doctors recorded that all of Mrs Cooper’s organs were healthy and showed no signs of excessive drinking.

After the first day of the inquest, Cooper was permitted to send a telegram to his father, asking him to come immediately to the island ‘on a matter of great importance’. When the inquest reopened, the coroner informed the jury that hotel manager Mr Welden had received telegrams from Cooper’s father and father-in-law, both asking for a further adjournment as they wished to attend. The jury agreed to reconvene the next morning, to give them a chance to travel to the island.

When the inquest resumed the next day, the chief witnesses were members of the hotel staff, as well as Dr O’Malley and the doctors who had assisted him with the post-mortem examination. Of particular interest was the evidence of barmaid Matilda Yeaman, who described a conversation with George Cooper the night before the discovery of his wife’s body in their bedroom.

According to Matilda, she remarked to Cooper that his wife looked terribly ill, asking him jokingly, ‘What have you done with her?’ Cooper told Matilda that, the previous night, he had given Edith a ‘damned good thrashing’ with a horsewhip.

Matilda recoiled in horror and disgust, asking Cooper why he didn’t just divorce his wife if they couldn’t get along. ‘Oh, no, I won’t do that,’ Cooper insisted, ‘I’ll pay the little devil out.’

On the fourth day of the inquest, the first witness was John Alexander Clarke, a steward on the Mona’s Queen, the boat on which the Coopers crossed to the island. Clarke stated that the couple had dined on board, although Mrs Cooper had not eaten anything but had ordered two small brandies, which were taken to her cabin. Clarke confirmed that it had been a very rough crossing.

After hearing from the arresting officers, the coroner began to sum up the case for the jury. He pointed out that they had heard in great detail an account of the last sixteen hours of a woman’s life. The medical evidence suggested that the deceased was of temperate habits and, although she drank two small brandies on the boat, the jury should not presume that she was drunk. On the contrary, those who witnessed the Coopers’ arrival at the hotel seemed in agreement that she was ill rather than intoxicated. The coroner wished to dispel a vicious rumour that Mrs Cooper had left her hotel bedroom and been seen carousing in the company of several young men.

It was not disputed that George Cooper had left the hotel on the morning of his wife’s death. He and a friend and business acquaintance, Mr John Champion Bradshaw, went to the bank together, where Cooper settled an outstanding account with Bradshaw. The two men returned to the hotel and Cooper asked Bradshaw if he would like some champagne. Bradshaw agreed and went into the hotel Smoke Room, while Cooper slipped upstairs to his room, but when Cooper didn’t return, Bradshaw eventually tired of waiting for him and left.

There were several anomalies for the jury to consider, continued the coroner. Firstly, it seemed inconceivable that any husband would leave his wife naked on the bedroom floor, exposed to anyone who opened the door, without at least protecting her modesty with a sheet. The coroner commented that he could not think of a more brutal and more inhuman thing than a husband leaving his wife so exposed. Next, if Edith Cooper’s fatal wound was either self-inflicted or if somebody else had caused it, surely her husband would have called for help on finding her. On searching the Coopers’ room after his arrest, a police constable found a wet shirt hanging in the wardrobe, with recent bloodstains on the cuffs. Also, the penknife, which was apparently the murder weapon, undisputedly belonged to Cooper.

There was a sudden commotion as Cooper fainted. He was revived with smelling salts and given a glass of water and the inquest was adjourned for an hour to allow him to get some fresh air. Eventually, the hearing resumed without Cooper present and before dismissing the jury, the coroner commented on the extensive bruising found on Mrs Cooper’s body. Whereas some of it was old and had no bearing on the current investigation, some was fresh and, together with the torn nightdress and a hank of hair found on the bed, this suggested that there may have been a violent struggle.

The jury retired for twenty-five minutes, returning to tell the coroner that they had unanimously agreed that the deceased died from a wound in her left breast that was inflicted by her husband. The coroner asked them if they believed the wound was inflicted feloniously or not. The foreman of the jury, Mr Hannay, said that the jury hadn’t realised that they had to decide that and asked if they might retire again.

After two hours, they returned but before they could deliver their revised verdict, Mr Kneen, who had been watching the inquest on behalf of Mr Cooper, made an official protest that the jury’s original conclusions should not be amended. The jury were also worried because although they had agreed to change their verdict slightly, this agreement was not unanimous but only by a majority. There followed a lengthy argument between the coroner, the jury and Kneen on what the precise wording of the verdict should be, which culminated when the coroner decided that he was justified in recording a verdict of wilful murder against Cooper. A magisterial inquiry followed and the magistrates also committed Cooper for trial.

Awaiting the start of the proceedings, Cooper’s wealth ensured him preferential treatment in the prison in Douglas. He was housed in an apartment rather than a cell and his food was provided by a nearby hotel and was often accompanied by his favourite champagne. He was kept segregated from the other prisoners and was allowed books to read and a supply of the finest cigars.

Before the trial began, it was rumoured that there would be ‘startling new evidence’ presented but the hotel staff gave much the same evidence as at the inquest, although there was general disagreement between the witnesses as to whether or not Cooper had been under the influence of alcohol on the morning of his wife’s death. There was also disagreement about the state of the couple’s marriage.

John Champion Bradshaw knew the Cooper’s well and insisted that George was always ‘affectionate and deferential’ towards his wife. In contrast, Edith was ‘vexatious’ in her conduct towards her husband, so much so that Bradshaw challenged her about it. Bradshaw also testified that Cooper had a habit of trimming and cleaning his fingernails with his penknife and, when it was pointed out to him that he hadn’t thought to mention this before, he replied that he had been thinking very carefully about his evidence ever since the inquest, to ensure that he told the absolute truth at the trial.

Edith’s sister, Louisa, told the court that she had personally witnessed incidences of brutality between her sister and brother-in-law and swore that Edith was terribly afraid of George and convinced that he was going to kill her one day. On one occasion, Cooper had bitten his wife’s arm, leaving teeth marks in her wrist. Edith’s brother had also heard George swearing and shouting at his wife and had seen him punch her. William Cooper told the court that he had punched George and also beaten him with a horse whip in an effort to protect his sister. An inspector from the Manchester police force also gave evidence that the police had broken up several domestic disturbances between George and his wife, during which George waved a gun around.

Yet, at the same time, there were also witnesses to a generous financial settlement that George had made for his wife and to the expensive presents he had bought for her, such as a sealskin jacket costing 100 guineas. Not only that but there were witnesses who had known Edith before she was married, one of whom described her as alternatively very nice and exceedingly exasperating, so much so that people would leave the hotel where she was working to avoid her.

The defence then managed to produce several people who were prepared to swear that Edith Cooper was a drunken, dissipated woman, who led her poor husband a dog’s life. Thomas Kinnish recalled being engaged to drive the Coopers around the island in March of that year and stated that Mrs Cooper was a heavy drinker with a particular liking for brandy and, on one occasion, was so drunk that she had to be held in the trap by her husband to prevent her from falling out.

A former colleague of the dead woman stated that she was frequently drunk and that he had personally seen her drink half a pint of brandy at one sitting. She was usually ‘more drunk than sober’ while working, stated Allen Pearson, adding that Edith had a nasty, vicious temper. Several of the couple’s servants from their home were called as witnesses, including housemaid Emmie Rowles, who described the deceased as ‘a quarrelling, nagging, drunken woman’, who was intoxicated almost every day and frequently struck her husband. The prosecution produced letters in court that Emmie had written to Edith’s sister and mother, in which she spoke fondly of Edith, but nevertheless Emmie’s testimony was corroborated by cook Jane Milnes, who described Edith as ‘constantly drunk’. Other servants recalled Edith’s drunken habits and outrageous displays of violent temper, while James Lamb – a doorman at Cooper’s place of business – told the court that Mrs Cooper had twice come to the warehouse drunk.

Mary Keeling, the bookkeeper at The Regent Hotel, was asked about the bill on the couple’s last visit to the hotel. Copies of the account were produced in court and it was shown that a large quantity of alcohol was consumed, particularly expensive champagne. Although Mrs Keeling admitted that several people had visited the Coopers at the hotel and the cost of their drinks were included on the bill, she also revealed that when the Coopers left the hotel they asked for two large flasks to be filled with brandy.

After producing yet more witnesses to describe George Cooper’s habit of paring his fingernails with his penknife, the defence called Cooper to the witness box.

He first described travelling from Fleetwood to the Isle of Man on 2 September, saying that there was no quarrel or dispute between them on the journey, during which he and Edith were ‘on the usual happy terms’. Cooper agreed that his wife had suffered terribly from sea-sickness and went straight to bed on reaching the hotel and he also agreed that she had drunk brandy and champagne. In fact, his account concurred with those of all of the other witnesses, until it came to the morning of Mrs Cooper’s death.

After ordering the champagne for his wife, Cooper said he breakfasted in the hotel dining room and drank a glass of milk with rum before going to the bank with Mr Bradshaw. On returning to the hotel, he asked Bradshaw to stay for some champagne, excusing himself momentarily to visit the lavatory and to check to see if his wife was up, as he intended to take her with him on an excursion to Sulby later that day.

According to Cooper, his wife flatly refused to go out with him and made some particularly sharp, nasty and hurtful remarks, which angered him. The couple argued and having washed his hands after using the toilet, Cooper sat down on the bed and almost automatically picked up his knife to clean his nails. He tried to persuade his wife to have some breakfast, since she had eaten no food for almost forty-eight hours.

Mrs Cooper flew into a rage, accusing her husband of slighting her. ‘You call me then a drunkard?’ she screamed. Cooper admitted that angry words were exchanged ‘in high temper’ but was then surprised by his wife unexpectedly thumping him on his right temple and knocking his glasses off. ‘I had no idea it was coming,’ he explained, adding that he completely forgot that he had a knife in his hands and lashed out in retaliation.

Mrs Cooper recoiled and instantly complained that her husband had cut her. Retrieving his glasses, Cooper examined the wound but thought it little more than a scratch. However, his wife almost immediately fainted and he half dragged, half carried her to the washstand so that he could bathe the wound. ‘I tore what I could of her nightdress then cut the rest away to get at the injury,’ he explained, claiming to remember nothing more until Mr Welden burst into the room.

Cooper freely admitted that he was addicted to drink and that it made him irascible and hot-tempered. He was even prepared to admit that, while in drink, he may have hit his wife, although he had no real recollection of ever doing so. ‘She told me afterwards and she generally spoke the truth,’ he conceded.

‘Is your version of the quarrel in the bedroom correct?’ he was asked.

‘Yes.’

‘There were irritating words on both sides and you were equally to blame?’

‘Yes.’

When asked why he had not given this evidence at the inquest or magisterial hearings, Cooper stated that he was acting on the advice of his advocate.

Counsel for the prosecution then produced letters that Cooper had written from prison after his arrest. To his father he wrote: ‘You must not let me hang, whatever expense the law costs, as I am perfectly innocent of causing her death by thought, word or deed. Pray for me that I do not lose my reason and that I may have justice and not be committed as I am not guilty.’ The letter went on to explain that, in a hurry to take off her nightdress, Edith had decided to cut it open rather than undoing it and had ‘accidentally’ cut her neck or upper breast.

Cooper agreed that he had written the letter, explaining that he wished to ease his father’s mind, him being ‘an old man’.

The prosecution also produced a letter that Cooper had written to his former lover Mrs Hunt and it became obvious that, although married, Cooper’s association with her had never ceased. The letter was addressed to Harold Cooper at an address in Liverpool, which proved to be owned by Mrs Miranda Jackson, who testified that she had let the house to a Mrs Cooper and her son, Harold, who was around five or six years old. On several occasions, she had met Mrs Cooper’s husband, who she identified as George Cooper, saying that the last time he had visited his ‘wife’ was on 1 September, just two days before Edith’s death. Shockingly, the letter intimated that Cooper had been hoping to take Mrs Hunt to the Isle of Man rather than his wife.

On the sixth day of the trial, counsel for the defence Mr Ring addressed the court on his client’s behalf, speaking for three hours. He stated that he believed that he had two things to accomplish, the first being to convince the jury that Edith Cooper was not the ‘gentle, patient loving woman, void of all offence’ portrayed by the prosecution but a drunken, quarrelsome, violent woman. Given that Cooper had variously stated that his wife had committed suicide, or that someone else had stabbed her and he found her on returning from his outing with Mr Bradshaw, or that she had accidentally cut herself while trying to undo her nightie, Ring’s second task was to justify the different explanations his client had given for his wife’s death. In accounting for the anomalies in Cooper’s accounts, Ring simply dismissed them as the acts of a ‘half insane man’ rather than of a ‘designing villain’.

The contemporary newspaper accounts of the trial describe Ring as being ‘burdened with the prisoner’s own falsehoods’ as he tried to persuade the jury that, despairing of his wife’s persistent drunkenness and cruelly provoked by her harsh words and the blow to his forehead, Cooper simply lashed out, forgetting that he had the knife in his hands. According to Ring, at very least the charge against his client should be reduced from murder to manslaughter.

Mr Gell then spoke for the prosecution. He reminded the jury that the majority of people who had testified to the victim’s dissipated lifestyle and foul temper, blackening and besmirching her character, were in the employ of Cooper or his father. Wasn’t it strange, he asked the jury, that of all the people who had contact with Mrs Cooper at home, only three paid servants could testify to her daily drunkenness? Gell then moved on to attack Cooper’s account of his wife’s death, pointing out that the so-called ‘truth’ had not emerged until after the inquest and the magisterial hearing, when Cooper knew exactly the strength of the case against him. While in gaol, he had told other tales, which he repeated in his letters to his father and Mrs Hunt and only when he knew precisely what evidence he faced did he fabricate an explanation of being provoked by a blow, before lashing out in a passion and killing his beloved wife almost accidentally.

The letters written by Cooper suggested that he had expected to be accompanied to the Isle of Man by Mrs Hunt and that Edith Cooper had somehow found out about his intentions and insisted on going with him. The rosecution contended that it was on account of this discovery that the couple were arguing and, in the course of their quarrel, Cooper stabbed his wife, with intent to do her harm. If this was the truth of the matter, then Cooper was guilty of murder and Gell urged the jury to disregard the fact that there was a mandatory sentence of death for conviction and do the right thing by finding the defendant guilty.

In Manx law, the Deemster is the equivalent of a judge in British criminal trials and Deemster Drinkwater, who presided over the trial, spent five hours summarising the case for the jury. The killing of Edith Cooper had been admitted, he stated and it was for the jury to determine whether the fatal stabbing was with intent to kill or do grievous bodily harm, which would be murder, or whether Cooper was provoked by his wife’s blow and lost his discretion, striking out at her without realising that he had a knife in his hand, in which case, depending on the severity of the blow she had given him, the offence could be manslaughter. He advised the jury to treat the evidence given by the Coopers’ servants with caution, since they might possibly be classed as interested parties, who may have gone a little beyond the truth in order to save their master’s son.

Drinkwater gave Cooper credit for not trying to blacken his wife’s character and noted that he had also apparently been very frank about his own problems with alcohol and the effect it had on his temper. Yet, at the same time, there were aspects of his conduct that were less favourable, such as the fact that he had not called for help, although even that was understandable if, as Cooper maintained, he had not realised the severity of his wife’s injury until she was pronounced dead by the doctor. Dealing with Cooper’s differing stories, the Deemster stressed that it was perhaps a natural impulse on the prisoner’s behalf to initially explain his wife’s death as suicide, until it was shown that the medical evidence discounted such an explanation. Only then, with the benefit of the best legal advice and fully understanding the difference between murder and manslaughter, did Cooper come up with the explanation he had given in court. He has practically pleaded guilty to manslaughter said Drinkwater, before dismissing the jury to decide if they accepted this or if they found that there was sufficient malicious intent to convict Cooper of the capital crime.

The jury retired to deliberate their verdict at around 4.30 p.m. and were absent for almost two hours before returning to pronounce Cooper guilty of manslaughter. Commenting that the jury had taken ‘a most merciful view of the case’, after a few minutes’ consideration, Drinkwater sentenced him to ten years’ penal servitude. Cooper paled on hearing the verdict and sentence and seemed on the verge of fainting but was clearly heard to comment to his counsel, ‘In seven years I’ll be out of it.’

The spectators in court seemed incredulous, both at the verdict and at the leniency of the sentence and, as the jury and judges left the court they were greeted with boos and hissing and had to be given police protection. Over the following days, national and local newspapers alike expressed their disgust. ‘Certainly, no more repulsive criminal could be imagined than this drunken bully and coward, all the more disgusting for the command of money which gave him a hold over better men and women than himself,’ reported the Manchester Guardian. ‘Money means power of a kind and such power in the hands of a man totally unfit to use it is the most intolerable and hateful thing on this earth, since it means drunkenness, debauchery, full-fed insolence and all abominable things.’

The newspaper suggested that, ‘The Douglas Court has taken upon itself a terrible responsibility in advertising to the world that a man may persistently ill use his wife and finally kill her, whether from deadly malice or mere drunken violence and indifference to a human life and then get off with such a punishment as this.’ Cooper indisputably stabbed his wife, whether in passion, in retaliation for a blow or otherwise and, although there was a great deal of blood, Cooper did not call for help. Twenty-four minutes after his wife’s first scream was heard, he was asked whether he needed help and answered no. A further twelve minutes passed before the hotel manager gained access to the room, during which time Edith Cooper was either dead or dying.

Cooper’s first story was that his wife had committed suicide; his second was that he had found her injured on his return; his third that she had accidentally stabbed herself while trying to unfasten her nightdress. It was only at his trial, when it became evident that neither suicide, other person nor nightdress accident would satisfactorily explain his wife’s death, that he advanced the explanation that she had provoked him into lashing out by hitting him, relying on the element of provocation to reduce the charge against him from murder to manslaughter.

There was testimony from Edith’s family of brutality towards her at her husband’s hands, and a precedent of spousal abuse evidenced by his first marriage. Cooper had even been warned by the police about his conduct and had bragged to a witness at The Regent Hotel that he had given his wife ‘a damned good thrashing with a horsewhip’.

The servants’ evidence was absolutely vital to Cooper’s case and, in all probability, saved him from the gallows. ‘That evidence smells ill’ stated the Manchester Guardian, concluding that it may have sufficed to save Cooper’s ‘worthless skin’ but it did not suffice to blacken his dead wife’s character and change public opinion that she was ‘a good woman and a good wife, most foully wronged and still more foully slandered.’ Meanwhile, in December 1892, Cooper was taken back to Liverpool, en route to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where he served his sentence.

Note: Some accounts give the defendant’s full name as George Barker James Cooper, others as George James Barker Cooper.