5

‘What is to become of me?’

Ipswich, Suffolk, 1858

Henry Rolfe Studd ran a successful bakery in St Mary at Elms, Ipswich. Initially, he and his family lived in a house adjoining the business but in April 1858 they moved to a small cottage around 300 yards away. Henry shared his home with his forty-seven-year-old wife, Susan, and four of the couple’s seven children. Fourteen-year-old Emily and twelve-year-old Eleanor both had jobs and came home only to eat their meals and sleep, while eight-year-old Henry and five-year-old Charles attended school.

Some years earlier, Henry had engaged a young man named Ebenezer Cherrington to help him in the bakery. Cherrington, who was then about eighteen years old, worked and lodged with Studd for almost a year then left to work for another Ipswich baker. He held his new job for around nine months, before agreeing to return to Studd’s employ at a higher rate of pay but during Cherrington’s second period of employment, Studd began to suspect that Susan and the young baker were becoming rather too friendly and gave Cherrington the sack. Having been dismissed from his job, Cherrington went off the rails and seemed to be in almost constant trouble with the law, to the extent of serving a couple of prison sentences.

At the beginning of 1858, Studd arrived home from work one evening to find his wife and Cherrington scuffling in his front room. It looked to Studd as if Cherrington was trying to get something from a cupboard, while Susan tried to prevent him from doing so.

‘Good God! What does this mean?’ Studd exclaimed, at which Cherrington rounded on him.

‘Damn your heart! I’ll murder you,’ he shouted, picking up a heavy teapot and throwing it at Studd, cutting his head open. The police were summoned and Cherrington was taken before magistrates and sentenced to another six weeks’ imprisonment, although it later emerged that, while he was locked up in the police cells, Susan Studd sometimes cooked and delivered hot meals for him.

Whenever Cherrington was not incarcerated, he seemed to treat the Studds’ home as a hotel, coming and going as he pleased. He would arrive unannounced, staying for two or three days, sleeping on the living room floor and expecting to eat his meals with the family, making no contribution towards the cost of his board. Whether these visits were at Susan’s invitation is not clear but what is certain is that nobody ever consulted Henry about whether or not Cherrington could stay. Henry tried to put his foot down and gave strict orders that Cherrington was not welcome in his house and Susan swore to him that she didn’t want the young man there either. Yet Cherrington turned up time and time again and his presence caused such arguments and unpleasantness between the Studds that Henry eventually took to sleeping on the bake house floor, refusing to come home and getting his daughters to bring him his meals at the bakery.

On 29 April 1858, Cherrington arrived just as the family were finishing lunch. ‘You may walk out again – I won’t have you here,’ Susan told him but Cherrington ignored her and sat down ready to eat. ‘You shall not have another morsel of food here in this house,’ Susan insisted and she and the children got up, leaving him alone at the table. The children then went back to work or school, leaving their mother and Cherrington alone and, although they had no way of knowing what took place in their absence, by the time the family came home for supper, there was no sign of their visitor. ‘I would not let him have any food,’ Susan told her daughter, Emily, who was later to say that her mother seemed absolutely positive that they had seen the last of Cherrington.

Susan spent two hours that afternoon helping her husband in the bakery but unfortunately the couple argued continually about Cherrington and Henry refused to come home that night, choosing instead to sleep at the bakery. Thus, Susan and the children were alone when Cherrington barged into the house at 10.40 p.m. He was drunk and Susan immediately put on her shawl and told him that she was going to find a policeman to put him out of the house. Cherrington gave her a shove that sent her flying into the fireplace but he was quite a small man, while Susan was a big, strapping woman and, once she had righted herself, she easily pushed past him and went out into the street. Cherrington followed and ten minutes later, Susan returned alone.

She locked the doors and the family retired to bed but shortly after midnight, Cherrington came back and began pounding on the door for admittance. Susan opened an upstairs window and told him to go away but no sooner had she finished speaking than he broke down the front door and ran upstairs to the bedroom, where Susan and Emily were sitting talking. When Cherrington burst into the bedroom, Susan calmly told him to leave, saying that if he didn’t she would have to fetch a policeman.

‘You are going nowhere,’ Cherrington growled, leaning his back against the door to prevent her from leaving. He held up a heavy walking stick belonging to Henry and threatened to break her head with it if she tried to leave. ‘I’ll murder you before this morning – you shall not go out of this room alive,’ Cherrington swore at Susan, so beginning a stand-off that was to last for several hours.

Cherrington stood with his back braced against the room’s only door until the next morning, all the while cursing and threatening Susan and Emily, both of whom spent the entire night standing by the bed. At 5.30 a.m. on 30 April, Cherrington suddenly opened the bedroom door and left the room. Susan followed and, ignoring Cherrington, who was pacing around downstairs, went about her normal routine, part of which involved walking to the bakery to get kindling and a light for the fire.

Susan arrived at the bakery at 5.40 a.m. Following her argument with her husband the previous day, neither she nor Henry spoke to each other as she took what she needed and left almost immediately to go back home. Emily, who was upstairs, heard her return and start the process of lighting the fire but the next thing she heard was her mother saying, ‘Lay it down’. The words were followed almost instantly by the sound of a blow and a scream and Emily raced downstairs to find her mother slumped unconscious on the floor by the fire in the front room, bleeding heavily from an injury to the back of her head.

Emily sent her sister to fetch their father and set about trying to staunch the flow of blood from her mother’s head. Eleanor ran all the way to the bakery and told her father, ‘Pray, dear father, come home directly for mother has fell down in the room and is dying’ [sic]. Henry ran home as fast as he could, finding Emily crouching on the floor, bathing her mother’s wounds.

Henry spoke to his wife and tried to rouse her but she was completely insensible, so he sent Eleanor to ask a neighbour to sit with Susan while he fetched a doctor. Having called on surgeon William Partridge Mills, Henry made a slight detour to inform Susan’s sister of the tragedy, before returning home.

By the time Mr Mills arrived, Susan had been lifted from the floor and was sitting in a chair supported by her neighbour, Mrs Hazell. Susan was deeply unconscious and breathing noisily and although Mills tried to give her some brandy as a stimulant, she was unable to swallow it. Mills found a long, black mark on Susan’s throat and a deep laceration on the back of her head, both of which the surgeon believed had been caused by blows with a blunt instrument. Because the black mark appeared to be soot, Mills surmised that Susan had been hit with the poker, which had been dropped by the door between the front room and the kitchen and appeared to be very bent. Recognising that Susan was on the verge of death and that there was nothing he could do to help her, Mills stayed with her for about thirty minutes then went to notify the police of the incident. By the time the surgeon returned, Susan was dead.

As soon as the police heard what had happened, PCs Bullenthorpe and Emmerson went in search of Cherrington, eventually finding him about twelve miles away at his parents’ home in Walton. Although the policemen arrived at around lunchtime, Cherrington was in bed, still dressed in his trousers and waistcoat, having removed only his boots and coat.

‘Is she dead?’ he greeted the constables, who promptly reminded him that they had not yet told him the purpose of their visit. ‘I suppose it is all up with me now,’ Cherrington said, as he was taken to The Angel Inn, to be handed over to Superintendent Mason.

‘I understand that on your apprehension, you asked the constables a question,’ Mason said to his prisoner when they met.

‘I did,’ Cherrington admitted.

‘The answer to that question is yes, she is dead,’ Mason informed him.

‘Is she? I am sorry. I did not think it was as bad as that,’ Cherrington sighed, adding, ‘this will be the death of my poor old people; this is a very bad job indeed. We had some words and she took up the poker and was going to strike me with it. I took hold of it to take it away from her.’ Cherrington pointed out a mark between his eyes, which he claimed was caused by a blow from the poker, wielded by Susan.

An inquest was opened into Susan Studd’s death by borough coroner Mr S.B. Jackaman, at which the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Ebenezer Cherrington, who was committed for trial at the next assizes. He appeared at Ipswich before Mr Justice Williams on 26 July 1858, the case prosecuted by Mr Keene, Mr J.H. Mills and Mr Marriott, with Mr Dasent acting as defence counsel.

Keene opened the case by repeating the charge against Cherrington to the jury, stressing that the murder of Susan Studd was committed ‘feloniously, wilfully and with malice aforethought’. He argued that there was no question that Susan’s death was felonious, since it was neither justifiable nor excusable. It was done intentionally and was not death by misadventure, meaning that it was wilful and on the evidence they were about to hear, there was little doubt that the accused had a wicked and depraved mind and had killed Mrs Studd with a bad purpose and so with malice aforethought.

By the time Cherrington was tried, the police had discovered what happened between his visits to the Studd house at 10.40 p.m. and midnight on 29 April. After his first visit, Susan had gone to the police as she had threatened. She spoke to Superintendent Mason at the police station, telling him that Cherrington was at her house causing trouble and asking for a police officer to be sent to deal with him. Mason sent PC William Spinks, who was very familiar with the complex relationship between Cherrington and Susan, having been the officer who arrested the young man after he attacked Henry Studd with the teapot.

Spinks told the court that, at the time of his assault on Henry, Cherrington had resisted arrest until Susan stepped in and persuaded him to go quietly with Spinks, promising to go down to the police station immediately and see if she could get bail for him. Spinks and Mason both confirmed that, later that evening, Susan had sent Eleanor to the police station with a hot meal of cooked sprats for Cherrington. Both policemen were also well aware of what they described as ‘an unfortunate connexion’ between Susan and Cherrington, stating that the illicit intercourse between them was the talk of the town and that Susan seemed to actively encourage Cherrington’s attentions.

The prosecution called Susannah Studd, the eldest daughter of Susan and Henry, who worked as a dressmaker. Susannah was so disturbed by the constant rows between her parents about Cherrington that she left home and went to live with her employer. Susannah testified that, at around 11 p.m. on 29 April, there was a loud knocking on the door at her lodgings and when her employer Miss Samson opened the window and asked who was there, a man’s voice asked if Miss Studd lived there. Miss Samson asked the man what he wanted and he replied that Susannah must come home as her mother was ‘very bad’. The man claimed to be Susannah’s father, but she recognised Cherrington’s voice and refused to go. Cherrington became angry and threatened to murder her if she didn’t go with him and only left when he was told that the police had been sent for.

PC Thomas Hewes had indeed been summoned and met Cherrington walking away from the house. Hewes asked why he had been rapping on Miss Samson’s door so late at night but Cherrington denied having done any such thing. At the time, Cherrington was carrying something described as a ‘bludgeon’, which Hewes took from him. However, since Cherrington appeared sober, Hewes declined to arrest him and merely sent him on his way with a warning.

The exchange between Hewes and Cherrington was watched by groom George Fairweather, who knew Cherrington and persuaded him that, since he had only just come out of the lock-up, he should avoid any more trouble. As the two men walked away together, Cherrington opened his heart to Fairweather, claiming that Susan Studd had ruined his life and threatening to murder her before morning. ‘If I were a policeman, I would have taken him into custody,’ Fairweather told the court, adding that, in his opinion, Cherrington was far from sober.

When the men neared the Studds’ house, Cherrington tried the door, finding it locked. He began to knock on the door and before long Susan called, ‘Who’s there?’ from upstairs.

‘An officer,’ Cherrington shouted, at which Susan came out. ‘It’s you, you good-for-nothing villain,’ she cried on recognising Cherrington and then asked him to return her house key.

‘I do not have it,’ Cherrington told her.

‘You rascal. You do have it and you shall never come into my doors no more,’ she protested, before asking him what had become of the walking stick he had taken from her house earlier that evening.

At that point, Susan spotted Fairweather in the shadows and asked who he was. George Fairweather told her and Susan complained to him, ‘I’m afraid he’s been up the Norwich Road to upset my poor daughter.’

‘I have not,’ Cherrington said indignantly, only to be contradicted by Fairweather, who told Susan that Cherrington had indeed been there causing trouble and that a policeman had been called and had taken the stick away. At this, Cherrington suddenly vaulted the palings around the house and nipped inside through the back door.

Fairweather heard him running upstairs towards the attic where the children slept, shouting, ‘Come out you little bastards!’

Susan turned to Fairweather in desperation, asking him to help her get rid of Cherrington. Not wanting to get involved, Fairweather initially refused but Susan implored him to help her, so he went into the house, finding Cherrington hanging half in and half out of the attic window, threatening to jump.

‘Either in or out right quickly, for out you are going,’ Fairweather told him, seizing him by the collar and marching him downstairs. When they met Susan, Cherrington asked her for money and food but she refused to give him anything and signalled to Fairweather to put him out of the house. As soon as he was released, Cherrington rushed at Fairweather, who hit him and knocked him down. He immediately scrambled to his feet only to be knocked down again, until eventually Fairweather took Cherrington to a nearby inn and told him to take a bed there for the night, even offering to pay for his room. However, Cherrington was having none of it and managed to dodge Fairweather and run off into the night.

Fairweather turned back towards the Studds’ home, stopping a policeman on his way. PC Redgrave accompanied Fairweather to the Studds house, where they found that the back door had been completely broken down and now lay flat on the ground.

Redgrave and Fairweather went to the bottom of the stairs and called out to Susan, asking if she was aware that her house had been broken into.

‘Yes, I am aware,’ Susan replied calmly.

‘Is the man with you now?’ Fairweather asked her, adding that he had a policeman with him and suggesting that she gave Cherrington into his charge. Fairweather and the policeman heard hushed voices from upstairs, before Susan shouted down that everything was all right. The two men left the house, although Redgrave stood outside for a further twenty minutes before finally resuming his beat and heard or saw nothing untoward.

‘Did you not think of going for the husband?’ the defence asked him in court but Redgrave explained that, although Fairweather had already testified to hearing a male voice from upstairs, he had only heard Susan speaking and had not realised that she was in any danger.

After calling surgeon Mr Mills, neighbour Mrs Hazell and several police officers as witnesses, the prosecution rested, leaving Mr Dasent to speak on Cherrington’s behalf.

Dasent began his impassioned speech by describing the now twenty-seven-year-old Cherrington as ‘an unfortunate young man’, saying that although there was no dispute that Susan Studd forfeited her life at Cherrington’s hands, it was an act done without premeditated malice, committed when the prisoner had ‘no command over himself.’

‘To whom is that young man’s fall from virtue, from innocence, from chastity, perhaps from honesty, from temperance and sobriety – to whom is that fall to be attributed, if not this woman?’ asked Dasent.

He painted a picture of a naïve eighteen-year-old youth from a small country village, for whom the world was full of promise as he first started out on his chosen career as an apprentice baker. If Cherrington conducted himself steadily, he might rise to any position in life, claimed Dasent. However, Susan Studd, who was twice his age, was a married woman with a family. Not content with her husband, how long did the jury think this unfortunate boy had been in the house before Susan cast ‘The eyes of lust’ upon him, asked Dasent rhetorically? ‘She seduced Cherrington from the paths of righteousness and tempted him to become the partner in her guilt, robbing her husband of the affection that he was entitled to and robbing that boy of the innocence and virtue that he then possessed and would have preserved to this hour from all contamination but her, Dasent maintained, warming to his subject. ‘I will not say that he was more sinned against than sinning,’ promised Dasent, before proceeding to say precisely that. At the moment this woman met her death, ‘The lad’ was not actuated by any design to take her life or even to do her any serious mischief. He was a mild man and, had she treated him more quietly and properly, this terrible occurrence might never have happened. This man is not to be looked upon as a demon, in whom there exist no signs whatsoever of humanity, Dasent urged the jury, informing them that, when free from Mrs Studd’s ‘vice, contamination and fearful example’, the defendant’s manner and conduct were entirely different.

Think of his demeanour when he was taken into custody, Dasent reminded the jury. His first question to the police was ‘Is she dead?’ and when informed that she was, the very next words out of his mouth were, ‘I am sorry.’ These weren’t the words of someone who just hours earlier, committed a foul murder by striking his paramour with a weapon, fully intending for her to die. Had she not incited him, he might have become a happy, respectable, honest, industrious tradesman of this town.

Did he murder that woman, asked Dasent, or did he strike her, not intending to kill her? If you, the jury, come to the conclusion that Cherrington deliberately picked up that poker and struck those blows, intending to injure her or terminate her life then unfortunately you must come to the conclusion that he is guilty of murder. But I shall submit to you that in the absence of any decided testimony as to what did take place, you may reasonably adopt the milder conclusion and say that if it was not done accidentally, it was done under the circumstances of provocation and excitement received during the quarrel and scuffle. What was done was illegal but unless you can be positive beyond reasonable doubt that he really intended to injure her to that extent – or any extent – you might conclude that he is only guilty of manslaughter.

Latterly, Cherrington has become addicted to intemperance, continued Dasent. That class of society uses oaths and epithets without knowing their true meaning and they threaten to murder each other without the slightest hesitation. When they speak untruths, they call freely upon God to witness that they are speaking the truth, asking that they may drop down dead if not. All these habits abound in a certain class and I daresay that my client may have used such expressions in anger and passion. But how did he act? If he meant Susan harm, didn’t he spend all night in her bedroom, armed with a heavy stick, with only a weak and fragile fourteen-year-old child standing between him and his intended target?

Cherrington was obviously a man with an easily excited temper but also one who was easily pacified, said Dasent. He asked the jury to think back to the assault on Henry Studd with the teapot, reminding them that Cherrington was resisting arrest until Susan mollified him, after which he went quietly with the police constable. What influence she had over him, remarked Dasent, asking if this didn’t go to prove what a meek and mild man Cherrington was when not inflamed by drink or passion.

The key to the case is this, hypothesised Dasent, proceeding to outline a probable scenario for the jury. Cherrington formed an intimacy with Susan Studd, which continued against her husband’s wishes for several years, almost until the last moment of her life. This relationship was very beneficial to Cherrington, who became almost master of the Studd household, his very presence having driven the true master away. Only recently did Susan show any desire for the relationship to end, continued Dasent. Maybe Cherrington became obnoxious in drink, maybe he lorded it over her and her family too much or maybe she just tired of him, nobody knew. Yet, without Susan, what was Cherrington? He was an outcast, hardly able to get a day’s work and wholly dependent on her for his very existence.

Susan Studd ruined Cherrington’s life, Dasent stressed and then her passion came to an unfortunate end. After spending all night with Susan and Emily in the bedroom, Dasent reminded the jury that Cherrington walked away. The defence counsel asked the jury if they thought it likely that, on following him downstairs, Susan had physically tried to put Cherrington out of the house, asking is it not a natural state of affairs that there should be some quarrel between them then?

Although Fairweather stated that he hit Cherrington twice and knocked him over, Cherrington himself told the police that the marks on his face were caused when he and Susan struggled for possession of the poker. Under the influence of drink and passion, it was possible that Cherrington was confused about exactly what occurred that night but the defence concluded that, given that Cherrington did not know that Susan was dead when he was first apprehended by the police, it was reasonable to suppose that he did not know what he was doing, at the time that it was done. There was no intent and no malice aforethought but, in the scuffle between them, the defendant was provoked into inflicting a blow and unfortunately death ensued.

After Dasent had finished speaking, Mr Justice Williams told the jury that there were only two possible justifications for reducing the charge against Cherrington from murder to manslaughter and both were fraught with difficulties. The first would be if the jury could reasonably conclude that Cherrington meant to do Susan no serious injury when he hit her, although the fact that he used a weapon, the strength of the blows and his previous threats towards her made this problematic. Alternatively, the killing could be classed as manslaughter if there was sufficient provocation – in other words, if Susan actually struck Cherrington with the poker immediately before the fatal blows. Although there was no evidence of any physical fight between the victim and the prisoner, it must be said that no human eye witnessed the occurrence thus the jury must infer what happened from the evidence before them. It was quite clear that Susan Studd had tired of her relationship with Cherrington and wished to end it and it was therefore quite possible that she might have used violent means to get rid of him. Yet, according to the judge, there was absolutely no evidence to suggest that this was the case.

The jury retired for seventy-five minutes, returning to pronounce Cherrington guilty of wilful murder and it was with some difficulty that Williams pronounced the death sentence, becoming so overcome by emotion that he struggled to form words.

As he waited in the Suffolk County Gaol for his date with the executioner, Cherrington showed great remorse for his part in the death of Susan Studd. He paid great attention to the ministrations of his spiritual advisors, expressing a heartfelt wish that his case might prove a warning to others.

In a written confession made to Reverend J.E. Daniel, Reverend J. Raven and the prison governor, Cherrington claimed to recall very little of the events before leaving the bedroom early in the morning. As he was putting on his boots downstairs, Susan Studd came into the room and told him to leave the house, saying that she wanted nothing more to do with him. ‘What am I to do?’ Cherrington asked her. ‘What is to become of me? Where am I to go? You have ruined me, body and soul, and now you want to get rid of me.’

According to Cherrington’s confession, this angered Susan and she picked up the poker and told him, ‘If you say that again, I will hit you over the head’. The couple struggled and Susan did indeed hit Cherrington, who snatched the poker from her and hit back. ‘I did not wait a moment but ran out of the house directly,’ he continued. ‘I never intended to kill her. I can honestly state before any earthly judge and my Heavenly one that I never intended to kill her and had I waited but a moment in that house and seen the result of my actions, I should have cut my throat at once.’ Cherrington’s prediction to Superintendent Mason on his arrest, ‘This will be the death of my poor old people’ proved accurate, since Cherrington’s mother died shortly after the murder, for which he blamed himself.

A petition for clemency was raised by the people of Ipswich but it proved fruitless and on 17 August 1858, Cherrington was hanged in front of the County Hall at Ipswich by executioner William Calcraft. According to the contemporary newspapers, his instantaneous death was watched by a crowd of almost 5,000 men, women and children, the majority of whom ‘commiserated his fate as the victim of a bad woman but felt that he was justifiably punished for his crimes.’