22

‘If I have done wrong, I have got to put up with it’

Bristol, 1917

At 12.50 a.m. on 15 October 1917 Temple Meads Station in Bristol was already busy with soldiers travelling to re-join their regiments after leave. As they awaited the arrival of the early morning train to London on platform five, most snatched the chance to spend a few last precious moments with the wives and sweethearts who had come to see them off on their journey.

It was a time of great turmoil and uncertainty in England. The First World War, now in its third year, was ultimately to claim over 900,000 British lives. More than six million British men were mobilised to fight overseas and, as the men were sent to the front, women were encouraged to take over their jobs. This new role was a far cry from life before the war, when few women worked and any employment available for those that did was largely in domestic service. Many people felt at the time that this new way of life gave women far too much freedom and autonomy.

One woman who people believed to have enjoyed this new freedom was twenty-seven-year-old Bessie Cross who lived in Baptist Mills, Bristol. Bessie’s thirty-two-year-old husband had been serving in France but, in spite of his long absence, she was six months pregnant. Private Albert John Cross knew about the pregnancy, since the child’s father had spitefully written to him to tell him about his wife’s ‘carrying on’. In his letter to Cross, dated 23 August 1917, James King of Barton Hill stated that he had told Bessie that he would have nothing more to do with her, adding, ‘I do not know if your wife has written to you to let you know.’

Cross was understandably distraught at receiving this letter and immediately applied for compassionate leave to return to Bristol. He was told that he could not be permitted leave until October, so had to content himself with writing letters home.

He acknowledged King’s letter, asking him, ‘Why don’t you be a man and stand by the woman you have ruined?’ He continued, ‘So far as I am concerned I only live for my poor little boys. I am finished with her but I am not going to see her ruined by a coward like you. I am her husband and I love her and I mean to protect her.’ Albert signed his letter to King ‘from Mr Cross, whose home you have ruined’.

He then wrote to Bessie, enclosing a copy of his letter to King. His letter was vitriolic and bitter and was obviously intended to hit back at her for the pain her affair had caused him. He referred to Bessie as ‘a cruel, lying woman’ and wrote that he didn’t care if he never heard from her again. He threatened to have the children taken away from her, writing, ‘As regards the children, they will be far better off and will soon get used to being away from a cruel mother as you.’ His letter to Bessie ended, ‘You say that you can’t starve, look to Mr King for pity, love for my boys xxxx’.

Bessie’s reply was heartrending. ‘I confess I have done wrong,’ she wrote, ‘but only with one man. This is the revenge that he said he would have. As you said, there is no forgiveness, I must go into the workhouse until I am out of my trouble … If you are going to take my little boys away from me, that will break their little hearts and mine … all I hope is that I die while I am going through it for I got nothing to live for now.’ [sic]

Albert’s reply was equally poignant:

Well, Bess, you know I have not got a hard heart but I must look after the welfare of my little boys. You say I might be happy when you are gone but Bess I still love you more dearly than I can tell you. Have I not told you times we have been talking quietly together how those dirty blaggards go hunting for women who have got their husbands away and what they do when they get tired of them but you would not listen to me. I have prayed to god more than once for you and the children and asked him to guide you. I hope you don’t think, my dear I’m glad to hear this because I am broken hearted. I was hoping it was not true, but you confess it is true. I have taken steps to have my children taken away and you must know that I have shed many a tear as well as you and the children. You see, Bess, my love, if you listen to me I will be your friend as long as I live. If you knew what we have to go through you would have gone straight but the damage is done now, all the bitter feelings won’t do any good. Ask god to take care of you and I will pray for you as well. Bess, try to be a different woman for the children’s sake and mine. Love for my boys xxxx.

On 6 October 1917, Albert finally returned home and a lot happened during his ten-day furlough. Having expressed concerns about the moral welfare of his two young sons while in Bessie’s care, Albert arranged a visit from Walter Hart, an inspector from the NSPCC. Albert had also made another request, asking James King to call at the house along with his wife. Mrs King’s reaction to this visit can only be imagined, particularly as she and King had a family of nine children. James King, however, was later to say that he believed that Cross had forgiven him for his dalliance with his wife and that they parted on good terms.

Bessie and Albert had done a lot of talking during his leave and seemed to have largely reconciled their differences. Now Bessie had come to Temple Meads to say goodbye to her husband as he left Bristol to re-join the ‘Glosters’ after his ten emotion-filled days at home. Suddenly, a shot rang out and Bessie slumped to the ground dreadfully injured. After a moment’s stunned silence, people rushed to her aid from all over the station, including Frederick Whitelock, a military policeman who, seeing Albert standing with a rifle in his hands, promptly arrested him. Albert willingly handed over his rifle to an employee of the Midland Railway Company and as he was led away to the porter’s room to await the arrival of the civil police, blurted out, ‘I have shot my wife – she is in a certain condition by another man.’

Meanwhile, Ada Webb of the Women’s Police Patrol managed with assistance to lift Bessie onto a nearby seat. Webb, who had been just feet away from the shooting, had heard Bessie crying, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it’ and saw her raising her hands above her head. Webb also saw Cross repeatedly fingering the trigger of his rifle, as if making up his mind whether or not to fire, then heard a loud crack, at which Bessie spun half around and fell to the floor, crying out that she was hurt.

An ambulance was summoned and Bessie was rushed to Bristol General Hospital, being admitted to the casualty ward at just after 1 a.m. Although she was restless and ‘excited’, she was still fully conscious, even though she had already lost a great deal of blood. When Bessie’s clothes were removed, numerous small fragments of metal were retrieved. She was taken straight to the operating theatre, where attempts were made to locate the source of the bleeding and stop the flow of blood, but in spite of the efforts of the surgeons, she died half an hour later. A post-mortem examination revealed extensive internal injuries including a shattered left kidney and three broken ribs and the cause of death was determined to be blood loss, coupled with shock.

The inquest into her death was opened before Bristol City Coroner Mr A. Barker. The jury heard from Dr Cromie, senior house surgeon at the Bristol General Hospital, about the extent of Bessie wounds and the fruitless attempts to save her life. Cromie also confirmed Bessie’s pregnancy for the jury.

Bessie’s mother, Mrs Hedder, spoke of visiting her daughter at home a few days before her death and of making a comment about her pregnancy. ‘If I have done wrong, I have got to put up with it,’ said Bessie, adding that she had told her husband everything. When asked about the relationship between Bessie and Albert, Mrs Hedder stated that the couple lived together ‘very unhappily’. While both were good parents to their children, their marriage floundered because each partner was extremely jealous and suspicious of the other.

Mrs Hedder admitted to the coroner’s court that she had led an immoral life, but denied having been the one to introduce her daughter to James King. She stated that, having found out that King was a married man, she had asked her daughter to give him up but her request had not been heeded.

After Whitelock and Ada Webb had given their evidence, the jury then heard from Bessie Cross’s lodger, Mrs Parry, who testified to having overheard her landlord and landlady discussing the pregnancy until the early hours of the morning. The coroner then adjourned the inquest.

When it resumed, the jury heard from PC Tyler who had visited the Cross’s home two days after the shooting and retrieved a packet of letters from behind a picture in the fireplace of the back bedroom usually used by Albert Cross. The letters were admitted as evidence and read by the coroner, one of them being a letter from James King to Bessie Cross arranging a meeting.

King was called before the jury and identified the letter as one he had written. Questioned by Mr E.J. Watson, who was representing Cross, King admitted that he had been ‘carrying on’ with Bessie for about eight months and that he had bought her things. He was aware of her pregnancy and had written to Albert to tell him about Bessie’s infidelities.

Watson was moved almost to tears in defending Cross, stating that one of Albert’s letters to Bessie deserved to be preserved in gold. ‘I have never in my life heard such a noble act of forgiveness as Albert Cross displayed,’ he told the court, referring to the exchange of letters between the couple in which Bessie begged for forgiveness and Albert professed his continuing love for her, even knowing of her infidelity.

The coroner’s jury retired, deliberating for half an hour before returning with a most unusual verdict. In their opinion, they could only offer a verdict of wilful murder against Albert Cross, but stressed that the killing had been committed ‘under great provocation’. The jury placed the blame for the murder squarely on the shoulders of James King, saying that he was responsible for all Bessie’s troubles. They found his conduct most reprehensible and felt that he was deserving of the ‘severest censure’. Mr Barker called King forward and told him that he fully agreed with the jury’s sentiments. However, he had no choice but to commit Cross to be tried for the murder of his wife.

Cross’s appearance before magistrates at Bristol Police Court on 30 October was nothing more than a prelude to his trial at the Bristol Assizes, which opened on 21 November before the Right Hon. Lord Coleridge. Having heard the evidence as given before the coroner’s and magistrates’ courts, the trial jury listened to addresses from both the prosecuting and the defending counsels.

Mr F.E. Wetherley, for the prosecution, told the jury that, even if they didn’t consider that there was enough evidence to warrant a verdict of murder, there was certainly sufficient to show that Cross was guilty of culpable negligence, which equated to a verdict of manslaughter.

Mr E.H.C. Wethered, for the defence, stressed that Cross was a man of unimpeachable standing and, while he was serving in France, taking part in some of the most desperate battles fought there, King committed the basest action that a man could be guilty of in seducing Cross’s wife. Describing King as a ‘dastardly coward’, Wethered asked the jury to consider what sort of man Cross was, referring them to the exchange of letters between Albert and Bessie as an illustration of his good character. It was evident, said Mr Wethered, that Cross had forgiven his wife and also the man who had ruined his home. He conceded the seriousness of the words spoken by Albert Cross on his detention at Temple Meads, but maintained that ‘I have shot my wife – she is in a certain condition by another man’ could easily be the words of a man who was dazed with shock at what had just happened rather than those of a murderer. It was his opinion that a cartridge had accidentally been left in the rifle, which had no safety catch and that Cross had either forgotten about it or just didn’t know that it was there.

In his summing up of the case, the judge appeared noticeably favourable towards the prisoner. ‘The law is not the cold, callous, indifferent matter some people would have you believe,’ he told the jury. He declared that the letters produced in court would evoke sympathy for the accused in even the most callous of persons and advised the jury to make allowances for the soldier’s life that Cross had been living in reaching their decision. Feelings towards death and injury were blunted by service on the front line, he said, so they must apply different rules to the prisoner than they would to an ordinary individual.

Accordingly, after deliberating for approximately ninety minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty and his lordship ordered that Albert Cross be discharged immediately. Cross was freed to return to France and continue fighting for his country.

We will never know whether Albert Cross intended to shoot his wife on that October morning, or whether her death was a tragic accident or perhaps even a playful gesture that went terribly wrong. It is easy to imagine Cross saying jokingly to his wife as they parted that he would shoot her if she misbehaved again and raising his gun, unaware that it was loaded. Yet, at the same time, it is perhaps more difficult to believe that an experienced soldier and loving father, who was staying in a house with his two young sons, would not have made absolutely sure that his gun was safe while he was at home.