They Hanged My Saintly Billy
Copyright © Robert Graves 1957
All rights reserved.
FOREWORD
TODAY is the centenary of Dr Wm Palmer's public execution for the alleged poisoning of his friend John Parsons Cook; and all opponents of capital punishment should be wearing black. 'I am a murdered man, Dr Palmer told the Prison Governor after his twelve-day trial, one of the best attended, and most scandalous, ever staged at the Old Bailey; which was the truth. The medical evidence against him had broken down completely, and the circumstantial evidence conflicted, but the Lord Chief Justice and the Attorney-General were both out to secure a verdict of guilty from the handpicked jury.
Dr Palmer was, I grant, a scoundrel and spendthrift—though hardly in the class of Edwin James, Q.C., one of the Crown Counsel who helped to hang him and got disbarred five years later for frauds amounting to over £60,000—but he was also well known for his generosity to the unfortunate, and his remarkable stoicism when things went wrong. James, then a Member of Parliament, got safely away to New York, owing £100,000, and there not only resumed his legal practice but became a successful actor at the Winter Garden Theatre. Palmer had no such luck. His wax effigy appears in the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's Exhibition, among England's most notorious poisoners: doubtless as a warning to all who dare challenge the combined might of the police, the insurance companies, and the Jockey Club.
Mr James Hodge, editor of The Trial of Wm Palmer, in the 'Notable British Trials' series, is pleased to rank Dr Palmer among the 'mass-executioners'. To me, however, he recalls 'Hanging Johnny' in the sea-chanty:
They say I hanged my mother,
Away, boys, away!
They say I hanged my brother,
Then hang, boys, hang!
They say I hanged my Annie,
Away, boys, away!
I hanged her up so canny,
Then hang, boys, hang!
They say I hanged my daddy,
Away, boys, away!
But I never hanged nobody,
Then hang, boys, hang!
Palmer was similarly accused of murdering fourteen people: in particular his wife Annie, the last survivor of a suicidal family. That she poisoned herself to get him out of debt by her life insurance is the only theory that covers all the facts; but his deep grief has been unkindly dismissed as hypocritical. The case did not come up for trial. My conclusion is that 'he never killed nobody'.
My uncle, Dr Clifford Pritchard, M.D., to whom I dedicate this book in grateful acknowledgement of advice, and the loan of books, is my sole personal link with the Palmer case. He took over a medical practice at Highgate from his friend, the late Dr George Fletcher, J.P., Palmer's leading biographer, who as a boy met many of the characters in this story, including old Mrs Palmer, and once even carried John Parsons Cook's cricket-bag.
In reconstructing Palmer's story, I have invented little, and in no case distorted hard fact. But the case is so complex that to argue it out in historical detail would have made a very bulky and quite unreadable book. I worked from the following main sources:
' The Times' Report of the Trial of Wm Palmer, Illustrated (Ward & Lock, London, 1856). The Queen v. Palmer: Verbatim Report of the Trial, in two parts (J. Allen, London, 1856). The Queen v. William Palmer: Official Report of the Minutes of Evidence (George Hebert, London, 1856). Illustrated Life and Career of Wm Palmer of Rugeley (Ward & Lock, London, 1856). Last Hours and Execution of William Palmer the Poisoner (Taylor & Green, London, 1856). The Cries of the Condemned: Proofs of the Unfair Trial of Wm Palmer by Thomas Wakley, Esq., Coroner, London (C. Elliot, 1856). A Letter to the Lord Chief fustice Campbell by the Rev. Thomas Palmer (mainly written, it seems, by Edward Kenealey, Palmer's junior Counsel—T. Taylor, London, 1856). In Favorem
Vitae: A Letter to Mr Serjeant Shee on the Trial of Wm Palmer by Henry Conington (John Russell Smith, London, 1856). W. Palmer Exhumed: A Few Words on the Trial by L.B.—M.A. Cantab. (Palmer & Son, London, 1856). The Principles and Practice of Medical Jurisprudence by Professor Alfred Swaine Taylor (John Churchill, London, 1865 edition). Sixty Years on the Turf by George Hodgman (Grant Richards, London, 1901). The Life and Career of Dr Wm Palmer of Rugeley by Dr George Fletcher (Fisher Unwin, London, 1925). The Trial of Wm Palmer edited by E. R. Watson ('Notable British Trials' Series—Wm Hodge, London, 1952).
Unfortunately, the thirty-four 'lascivious' letters written by Dr Palmer to Jane Bergen have disappeared since 1933, when Dr Fletcher's collection of Palmeriana was dispersed at his death.
As usual, I have to thank Kenneth Gay for his constant help with this book at every stage.
ROBERT GRAVES
Deya, Mallorca, Spain. June 14th, 1956
Chapter I
THE OLD BAILEY: MAY 14TH, 1856
THE trial of William Palmer, aged thirty-one, surgeon and race-horse owner, began yesterday at the Old Bailey after a delay of nearly five months. He had been arrested on Friday, December 15th, 1855, by the police superintendent at Rugeley, Staffordshire—a town of which he is both a native and a resident —on a charge of having, three weeks before, feloniously, wilfully, and with malice aforethought, committed murder on the person of his friend and brother-sportsman John Parsons Cook. The arrest followed upon a verdict of wilful murder returned by a coroner's court at Rugeley. Palmer was thereupon committed to Stafford Gaol, of which he has since been an inmate.
Popular excitement rose to such a pitch, when he was further accused of several other poisonings, that in the view of the county audiorities he could not expect to meet with a fair trial at Staffordshire Assizes. An application for a trial in London having been granted, a special Act (19 Vict. cap. 16) was needed to regularize the procedure; and, this having been hurried through Parliament, the Crown resolved that the prosecution should be conducted by Attorney-General Cockburn himself, rather than by any private person.
Yesterday, May 14th, the case was at last called at the Central Criminal Court, Old Bailey, before Lord Chief Justice Campbell, Mr Justice Crcsswell, and Mr Baron Alderson; the other Commissioners present being the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor of London, two Sheriffs, two Under-Sheriffs, and seven Aldermen—including Mr Alderman Sidney, late M.P. for Stafford, who happens also to be a native of Rugeley and, we understand, was formerly well acquainted with the prisoner's family.
Supporting Mr Attorney-General for the Prosecution, were Mr Edwin James, Q.C., Mr Bodkin, Mr Welsby, and Mr Huddlcston.
Mr Serjeant Shee had been appointed to conduct the Defence, with the assistance of Mr Grove, Q.C., Mr Gray, and Mr Kenealey.
To judge by the very numerous applications for admission to the Court, which were made so soon as ever the trial was appointed, and by the vain endeavours of large crowds to force their way into the building yesterday, despite an unseasonable chilliness of the weather, the keen interest which this case excited when first called to public attention has in no degree abated. Every entrance was besieged at a very early hour, and even the fortunate holders of admission cards had to pass the scrutiny of many stern janitors before they could be accommodated in the body of the Court. Among the distinguished visitors were the Earl of Derby, Earl Grey, the Marquis of Anglesey, Lord Lucan, Lord Denbigh, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, with other peers of lesser rank. The Lord Advocate of Scotland sat beside the Attorney-General during the trial.