The Penge Mystery

Harriet Richardson, later Harriet Staunton

Harriet Richardson likely had learning difficulties. She had inherited £5000 from a great-aunt, equivalent to around £500,000 in today's money, and lived a comfortable lifestyle with her mother. In 1873, things became rather complicated. Harriet had a cousin named Thomas who had married a widow and gained two step-daughters. The elder step-daughter, Elizabeth, had married a man named Patrick Staunton and Patrick Staunton had a brother, Louis. Elizabeth's younger sister was fifteen-year-old Alice Rhodes and twenty-three year old Louis was in love with her. Thus there were in effect two couples/ pairs of siblings - Patrick and Elizabeth Staunton, and their respective brother and sister, Louis Staunton and Alice Rhodes. But when Louis Staunton met Harriet Richardson through Harriet cousin, Alice Rhodes' step-father, he began to form a plan.

Harriet's mother, who had remarried after the death of her husband and now went by the name Mrs Butterfield, had never expected to see her vulnerable daughter get married and begin to live independently. When she realised that Harriet had become the object of Louis Staunton's attention she was deeply concerned, to the extent even that she attempted to have her daughter placed under the protection of the court of chancery as a lunatic. This was unsuccessful and when Harriet married Staunton on 16th June 1875, Mrs Butterfield was not present.

Following the marriage, Mrs Butterfield enjoyed one civil visit with the couple at their address in Brixton, but she later received two letters - the first, from Harriet, told her that she ought not visit again, as Louis did not like it and it had caused a row. The second letter was from Louis himself, informing her that she was not welcome to visit again. Mrs Butterfield was left bereft.

In the March of 1876, Harriet gave birth to a son, Thomas. Later in that year, having heard of the birth of her grandson and also having heard strange rumours about Alice Rhodes, Mrs Butterfield began to make enquiries about her daughter. In the February of 1877 she saw Alice Rhodes herself at London Bridge station. Mrs Butterfield asked Alice where Harriet was living, and Alice told her that she did not know. 

"You must know where she is," pleaded Mrs Butterfield, "You do know where she is". 

Still, Alice denied knowing, eventually telling Mrs Butterfield a lie, stating that Harriet was with her husband and son in Brighton. Then, Mrs Butterfield noticed the brooch that Alice was wearing - the very same brooch that she herself had given to Harriet twenty years before and that had been treasured by her daughter ever since. 

"You have got my daughter's brooch, Alice," she said carefully. 

"Yes," Alice replied, "You can take it if you like, but she gave it to me". 

"I will not take it if she gave it to you, but I really do not understand her giving it to you as it was her favourite brooch..." 

Mrs Butterfield went on to ask if her daughter was ill and was told by Alice that Harriet had in fact been very ill but was now much better. Concerned, Mrs Butterfield asked for the address of Harriet's doctor but Alice said she did not remember, and instead offered to write to Mrs Butterfield with the information. Mrs Butterfield handed over the address of another daughter with whom she was staying but she never heard from Alice Rhodes.

Mrs Butterfield was nothing if not determined. She continued her hunt for her daughter and was eventually given some information by a charwoman in the Walworth Road which directed her to Louis Staunton's home in Halstead - Little Gray's Farm. At 4pm on 5th March 1877, she arrived at his front door. Louis was furious, swearing at Mrs Butterfield and declaring that she would not see her daughter, he would not allow it. But Mrs Butterfield stood firm.

"If you will only let me hear her voice or see her hand on the bannisters, I shall then go away content that she is in her proper place, with her husband"

At this point, Louis called her a dirty old bitch and began to threaten her with a knife, only stopped by Elizabeth Staunton, Louis' sister-in-law. 

It was to her that Mrs B now turned, telling her, "some day you will want to see your children and you will be denied," to which Elizabeth simply replied, "your daughter is well cared for". 

Soon, Mrs Butterfield had been bundled out of the house. Over the next month she made further attempts to discover the whereabouts of her daughter, including making an application to the magistrate, but nothing was successful.

On 15th April, a Sunday, Mrs Butterfield received a telegram from the landlady of Little Gray's Farm, a woman called Mrs Urridge, summoning her urgently to 34 Forbes Road, Penge. Harriet was dead.

Harriet had only arrived at Penge three days before, on 12th April, carried by the two Staunton brothers onto and then off of a train, and thenceforth by cab to the new house. A porter at the railway station would later recall that 'she was not able to walk; she - was dragged - her feet dragged on the ground' before railway staff provided a chair in which she could be carried. She was, the porter continued, shaking violently and it was impossible to tell whether she was even conscious. Another resident of number 34, Emma Chalklin, let a room to Alice Rhodes, and Louis, Patrick, and Elizabeth Staunton, for the use of what they described as 'an invalid lady'. Alice was to serve as nurse. Emma Chalklin saw little of Harriet at first, but when she eventually did see her she was shocked to find that she was so young. "She made a kind of gurgling noise and moaned a great deal," Emma would later tell the Old Bailey, recalling that at the time she had exclaimed "how shocking it is to see anyone lying here so ill". This comment had not garnered a response from the others present.

On the morning of 13th April, a doctor was called to Forbes Road, but Harriet died later that afternoon. A nurse employed by the doctor, who attended Harriet in her final hours, later testified at court.

"When I went to wash the body I found it in such a filthy state I could not wash it - I had never seen anything so dirty before - the head was alive with lice, and the dirt on the body was like the bark of a tree, as though it had been on for a long time and not washed at all"

The doctor, meanwhile, certified the death, based on the information that had been given to him by Louis Staunton and the others; namely, that Harriet was of "weak intellect" and had had a fit; the cause of death, he wrote, was cerebral disease and apoplexy. Her family, however, were not willing to let the matter rest and wasted no time in contacting the police. An inquest was held and a new cause of death recorded: at only 5 stone 4lbs, Harriet had died of starvation and neglect. Within a short time, Louis Staunton had been arrested, along with his brother and sister-in-law, and his young lover, Alice Rhodes. On 17th September 1877, their trial opened at the Old Bailey.

The medical evidence was extensive, confusing and contradictory. The defence were attempting to argue that Harriet's malnourishment had actually been caused by alcoholism, and further evidence was presented to suggest she had died from either meningitis or tuberculosis. The prosecution, meanwhile, alleged that Harriet had been locked in a bare room with her infant son, with no furniture or washing facilities, and prevented from leaving by Louis' brother, Patrick. Louis Staunton and Alice Rhodes, meanwhile, had lived together elsewhere. It was further alleged that when Harriet had attempted to escape, Patrick had assaulted her.

Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, 30th September 1877

The four were found guilty; upon hearing the verdict, Alice Rhodes fainted and Patrick Staunton began to cry. The Jury recommended both women to mercy, which Justice Hawkins stated he would pass on. Reflecting on the nature of their crime, Hawkins said that

"It is even more incredible to think how cruel was your conduct in relation to her death, day by day, and hour by hour, gradually sinking into her grave that poor unhappy creature whom you sent to her rest"

The story was far from over, however. A article was published in the medical journal, The Lancet, expressing extreme discomfort around the way in which medical evidence had apparently been ignored at the trial, and even suggesting that Justice Hawkins himself had demonstrated bias against the defendants. A campaign was launched to save them from the noose, and in the end, the Home Secretary, R.A Cross, intervened; Alice Rhodes received a pardon and was immediately released, while the other three had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment.

The Grantham Journal, 20th October 1877

The Illustrated Police News, 27th October 1877

In his memoir, Henry Hawkins' mention of the Penge case is notable for its brevity - it is, he declares, 'best left in the obscurity of the newspaper files'. A distinguished advocate, according to Hawkins, could be quoted as saying that 'we felt, and the Bar felt, that a great power had come upon the Bench; he summed up that case as no living man could have done. Every word told; every point was touched upon and made so clear that it was impossible not to see it'. Another apparently 'distinguished advocate', curiously anonymous in Hawkins' retelling, said 'there was no other Judge on the Bench who could have summed that case up as Sir Henry Hawkins did'. Rebuffing the accusations that he had not behaved fairly during the trial, Hawkins wrote 'the responsibility cast upon me was great. The case was as difficult as it was serious [...] No duty more arduous has ever since been imposed upon me, and I performed it in my honest conscience, without swerving from what I believed, and believe still, to be my strict line of duty [...] I did my duty according to the best of my judgment and ability'.

Hawkins demonstrated his feelings on responsibility towards the vulnerable, including, presumably, children, in his summing up at the Penge trial. "Every person," Hawkins said, "who is under a legal duty, whether such duty was imposed by law or contract, to take charge of another person must provide that person with the necessaries of life. Every person who had that legal duty imposed upon him was criminally responsible if he culpably neglected that duty, and the death of the person for whom he ought to provide ensued". 

Louis and Harriet's son, Thomas, a one year old infant, had died of malnutrition at Guy's Hospital on 8th April 1877, just over a week before his mother, a fact that does not get much of a mention at trial. Certainly, infant mortality was high at this time, and the fact that he was taken to hospital suggests that there was not a complete disregard for his wellbeing. Nonetheless, he had not been properly cared for and the legal ramifications of such neglect were, in the 1870s, various and often minimal. The founding of the NSPCC in the following decade began to change this, and that will be the topic for next week's post.