The infirm ward at Devizes Workhouse was normally a peaceable place, its seven or eight elderly occupants given to sitting around the fire smoking their pipes and chatting. On 24 November 1881 it was a particularly cold day and the seat closest to the fireplace in the ward was very much sought after.
At about nine o’clock in the morning, two inmates started an argument about which of the two of them should occupy a stool by the fire. Sixty-nine-year-old Charles Gerrish, a former labourer, had the upper hand, being in actual possession of the stool at the time. However, seventy-seven-year-old Stephen Coleman was anxious that everyone should have his turn sitting close to the fire. ‘You old *******,’ he eventually shouted at Gerrish. ‘It shall go near the fire and all shall have a hand.’ With that, he withdrew to the other side of the room and lit his pipe.
Gerrish meanwhile pushed the poker between two bars of the grate, using it to lift the coals and encourage the fire to burn brighter. He too lit his pipe and sat brooding quietly and smoking for about five or six minutes.
Suddenly, without any warning, Gerrish seized the red-hot poker from the fire, rushed across the ward to where Coleman was still sitting smoking and plunged the poker into his neck. Richard Hayward, with whom Coleman had been quietly chatting, tried to grab Gerrish, who immediately pulled the poker out of Coleman’s neck and thrust it at Hayward. Fortunately for Hayward, the poker passed through his clothes without making contact with his body. Hayward and Gerrish struggled for a few minutes, with Hayward sustaining some burns to his hands from the still hot poker before finally managing to disarm his assailant.
With Gerrish subdued and Coleman lying dreadfully injured on the floor, blood pouring from his mouth, someone was sent to fetch workhouse master Henry Hassall and surgeon Mr Waylen. The former arrived at the ward to find an unrepentant Charles Gerrish who told him, ‘I have done it. You had better lock me up.’
The assize court in Northgate Street, Devizes, c. 1920. (Author’s collection)
The surgeon arrived within ten minutes of being summoned, but was sadly too late to save the life of Stephen Coleman. At a post-mortem examination it was found that the poker had entered Coleman’s neck about three quarters of an inch below the angle of his jaw, leaving a single wound three quarters of an inch long and half an inch wide. The red-hot instrument had penetrated to a depth of several inches, severing some of the main arteries and, as a result, the old man had bled to death.
The police were sent for and Inspector Bull escorted Gerrish to the local police station, where he was charged with the wilful murder of Stephen Coleman. Gerrish seemed totally indifferent to the charge and was described as being ‘little affected’ by what had occurred. At an inquest held the following day, the coroner’s jury recorded a verdict of ‘wilful murder’ against Charles Gerrish, who was committed on a coroner’s warrant to stand trial at the next Wiltshire Assizes.
His trial opened at Devizes before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge in January 1882. Mr Lopes prosecuted and Mr Mathews was requested by the judge to watch the case on behalf of the defendant.
The prosecution began by relating the events of 24 November, calling Richard Hayward as the first witness. Hayward’s testimony was corroborated by George Porter, Thomas Butt and Richard Abrahams, three other inmates of the workhouse who had been present in the ‘old man’s ward’ at the time of the murder. The court then heard from Mr Hassall and the surgeon, followed by Inspector Bull of Devizes who had arrested and charged the defendant. At this, the prosecution rested their case.
Mr Mathews argued for the defence that no quarrel was known to exist between the two men prior to the murder. Coleman, who was a long-term inmate at the workhouse, was said to have been of an amicable disposition while Gerrish, who had been a resident for only three months, was also not known to ‘be addicted to fits of passion’. Mathews maintained that, immediately before the murder, Charles Gerrish had been greatly provoked by the victim and because of this the jury would be justified in returning a verdict of manslaughter rather than one of wilful murder.
In summing up the case for the jury, Lord Chief Justice Coleridge told them that, in order to reduce the charge from murder to manslaughter, it was necessary that the blow that caused Coleman’s death should follow closely after the alleged provocation and that such provocation must be active and not passive. Mere words between the two men would be classed as passive provocation and there was evidence that Gerrish had deliberately waited for five or six minutes to allow the poker to become red hot before his fatal attack on Coleman. The facts of the case, continued Coleridge, were very clear and very simple and the jury should have no difficult in arriving at a verdict. They had a painful duty to perform, but it was a duty that they owed to the general public and they should perform it to the best of their ability.
After a short consultation, the jury returned a verdict of ‘Guilty of wilful murder’ against Charles Gerrish and, putting on his black cap, the judge addressed the prisoner, telling him that he had been justly convicted. He had sent an old man out of this world into the next without any preparation by a very cruel death and that the act had, on Gerrish’s part, been deliberately premeditated. Sentencing Gerrish to be executed, the judge remarked that, unlike his victim, Gerrish would at least have the chance to prepare for his end.
Gerrish accepted his sentence without emotion and was executed at Devizes by William Marwood on 31 January 1882.
[Note: In various accounts of the murder in contemporary newspapers, the name of the doctor originally called to attend Mr Coleman is given as Mr Carloss, Mr Swithin Waylen and Mr George Waylen. Records show that a Mr George S.A. Waylen, with the middle name of Swithin, was practising medicine in Devizes at the time of the murder. Pauper Richard Hayward is also alternatively named Richard Hartward.]