There Must Be Evil
There Must Be Evil
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NOVELS
The Godsend
Sweetheart, Sweetheart
The Reaping
The Moorstone Sickness
The Kindness of Strangers
Madeleine
Mother’s Boys
Charmed Life
Since Ruby
NON-FICTION
Cruelly Murdered: Constance Kent and the Killing at Road Hill House
Perfect Murder: A Century of Unsolved Homicides (with Stephen Knight)
Winner of CWA Gold Dagger Award 1987 Murder at the Priory: The Mysterious Poisoning of Charles Bravo (with Kate Clarke)
There Must Be Evil
The Life and Murderous
Career of Elizabeth Berry
Bernard Taylor
DUCKWORTH OVERLOOK
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© 2015 by Bernard Taylor
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This is for Jackie and Trevor
Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION
1
A Grave Suspicion
2
Early Days
3
Love and Marriage
4
Another Marriage, and a Death
5
Old Ambitions, New Beginnings
6
Another Death
7
And Yet Another Death
8
The Oldham Union Workhouse
9
Death in the Workhouse
10
The Doctor’s Suspicions
11
The Inquest Opens
12
The Wheels Turn
13
The Magistrates’ Hearing
14
Repercussions
15
New Developments
16
The Trial Opens
17
The Verdict
18
After the Trial
19
The Inquest at Castleton Concludes
20
‘A Very Small Heart’
21
The Earlier Deaths
22
‘How Great the Fall’
23
Final Days
24
Strange Reunion – After the Mazy Dance
25
Last Words
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES
INDEX
List of Illustrations
Elizabeth Berry and Edith Annie
Mary Ann Finley
Back Albion Street
Elizabeth Berry
The Oldham Union Workhouse
Edith Annie Berry
Edith Annie’s death certificate
The Blue Pits Inn, Castleton
Elizabeth Berry, artist’s impression
Edith Annie, pictured after death
Walton Gaol
Elizabeth Berry’s petition to the Home Secretary
James Berry, hangman
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all those who have helped me in the writing of this book. They have been unstinting in giving me their assistance. I must name among them Frank French, Dave Thomas, Mary Danby, Carolyn Caughey, Donald Rumbelow and Colin Crowe. My thanks also go to Sean Prins of HMP Liverpool, Debbie Brown of the Blue Pits Inn, Castleton, and those dedicated officers who staff the Oldham Archives, the General Record Office and the National Archives at Kew. I am also grateful to Stewart P. Evans; if he had not given me a copy of his excellent book, Executioner, this book would never have been written. In respect of certain illustrations used I have been unable to trace the author Jack Doughty, so if anyone could kindly help in this direction I would be most grateful. To anyone I have neglected to acknowledge, I offer my most grateful thanks now.
Bernard Taylor
2015
‘Where there is mystery, it is generally supposed there must be evil.’
Lord Byron
Introduction
Since the middle of the last century, known instances of poisoning in Britain have almost disappeared. Indeed, we would be surprised to find a case of murder by poison reported in our newspapers today. Only a century ago, however, such cases were not rare, while further back, in ancient times, poison was one of the most common means of disposing of another human being – for reasons domestic, political and even military.
The fact is, murder by poisoning was relatively easy to get away with. While it would be hard not to notice an arrow in the chest or a knife in the back, when death was due to a little antimony in a glass of sherry or arsenic in a cup of cocoa it was a different matter. With poison easy to come by, and the victim’s death often put down to natural causes, it was a situation that more or less continued until advances in medicine and forensic science made it all but impossible for a poisoner to escape detection.
Poison, it is said, is primarily a woman’s weapon. Certainly it is the most secretive. Not for the poisoner a lashing out with the poker or a shot to the heart. Murder by poison does not require energy or strength; in fact it might require nothing more than stealth and trust.
These qualities, along with a cool detachment, were owned in good measure by the attractive young widow Elizabeth Berry, a nurse who, over the bitter winter of 1886-1887, found notoriety, first in the northern town of Oldham and then throughout the nation. In her hitherto little-told story, much of the drama was played out within the bleak and banal walls of a Victorian workhouse. Here it was that the death of her daughter occurred, an act perceived by many to be the cruellest of murders, performed with an ice-cold callousness that was almost beyond belief.
The tale that began to emerge of Elizabeth Berry’s progress was, of course, meat and drink to the newspapers, and to some papers in particular. Telling her story would have been much more difficult for me without reference to the local Oldham papers, especially the Oldham Chronicle, the Oldham Evening Chronicle and the Oldham Standard. I am indebted to them, and impressed by the high quality of their journalism and their sheer, unwavering focus on their project – all the resulting coverage, unlike in today’s papers, appearing without the reporters being named.
In addition to the invaluable newspaper reports of the time, I have also been allowed to study the Home Office file relating to the case, the dreadful murder that brought Elizabeth Berry’s name to the fore. And in doing so I have been able to discover the most fascinating information from previously unpublished documents, documents that shone new light on the crime, and into the heart and mind of the victim’s mother.
There were of course those faithful individuals w
ho vociferously protested Mrs Berry’s innocence in the affair, but the constabulary were convinced that they had their woman. As it turned out, however, their work was by no means over. In the pursuit of their inquiries they heard murmured suspicions surrounding another death – and suddenly the investigators were faced with the possibility that the child’s murder – if such it was – was not a one-off, isolated killing. Elizabeth Berry’s dark story was beginning to appear darker still. Had there in fact been an earlier murder committed on her route into the dock?
The question would soon have an answer. And this answer in its turn raised further questions, gave rise to further suspicions. What, one feels compelled to ask, of those deaths that had occurred earlier, the deaths of those others in Mrs Berry’s immediate family – her loving husband and her two other young children? These deaths, I discovered, had all been accepted as due to natural causes. But were they indeed? I do not believe so. My investigations have convinced me that although Elizabeth Berry was indicted for one single, diabolical murder, she was in fact a cold-blooded serial killer of the cruellest kind.
1
A Grave Suspicion
The thick, smoky fog that had wrapped the town throughout the night had lifted by the afternoon, but the wind was still bitingly keen as the two men emerged from the main block of the workhouse into the bitter air. Curious inmates, peering out through the frost-etched windows, might have watched the men’s careful progress as they carried the pallet across the frozen yard. Perhaps they wondered at its burden; they could see that it was not a heavy one, for it took up little space under its cheap covering. It was in fact the body of a child, a girl.
Just a few yards on and the men were out of the wind and entering the block that housed the small mortuary – known in the workhouse as the ‘dead room’. Once inside, they laid the small body down and then went away to resume their usual duties.
By their very nature the nation’s workhouses were frequently the scene of death, of the young and old alike, and the Oldham Union Workhouse in 1887 was no different from the rest. That week it had been home to over a thousand inmates, of whom nine had died, the little girl being the last to go. And while the deaths of the other eight might have brought varying degrees of grief, they had not caused any great surprise or given rise to untoward comment.
Unlike this particular death. The death of the child that January day had quickly become the subject of much conversation. When word of it was first heard, the grim news ran through the place like wildfire. To employees and pauper inmates alike who had so recently observed the girl so happily at play, her end had come with a suddenness that was surprising. She had not been some frail, sickly inmate, but a guest; moreover on her arrival in the place just a few days before, she had appeared the picture of health.
Along with the general sadness felt at the child’s demise there was, in some quarters – and as might be expected – great sympathy for the mother. There were several in the place who had observed how she, Mrs Berry, had tended her daughter through the harrowing days of the child’s decline. And those who knew the bereaved woman better would have been even more sympathetic. Poor Lizzie, they must have sighed, shaking their heads – had she not already suffered more than her share of heartache and loss? It wasn’t fair. In the space of ten years most of her nearest and dearest had been taken from her, and now, adding to her agony, she had lost the last of her children.
But there was more to come. The initial feelings of sympathy were swiftly followed by amazement as further news was broadcast – news that marked a dark and sinister turn in the story.
The first published word of the new development came through an article in one of the local newspapers, the Oldham Evening Chronicle, a daily which, along with its sister weekly, the Oldham Chronicle,* was to follow the progress of the ensuing saga from its first to its last days some three months later.
The first report came on Friday 7 January in a single paragraph headed: SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A GIRL. It was a hurriedly written piece, containing several errors of fact, and clearly cobbled together at the last minute. The article said:
A girl named Ada Berry, about ten years of age, died at the Oldham Union Workhouse on Tuesday, under somewhat singular circumstances. She was on a visit to her mother, who is a nurse at the Workhouse, and on Saturday morning was taken ill. She died on Tuesday morning. On Wednesday Dr Patterson, the medical officer for the Workhouse, made a post-mortem examination of the body, the result of which will be made known at an inquest to be held at the Workhouse this afternoon. The mother, who is a widow, has not now her full liberty. These facts, coupled with the reticence of the police and of the Workhouse authorities on the matter, would seem to point to a grave suspicion being entertained as to the way in which the girl came by her death.
The next day the paper went on to correct the piece, giving the girl’s true name as Edith Annie Berry, and her age as eleven, following which it gave a brief account of the inquest’s opening. These reports would constitute the start of what would soon become a storm of reportage on the case and keep the newspaper-readers enthralled. For all its brevity, the Chronicle’s news that the mother had been apprehended could mean only one thing – that she was suspected of being implicated in the death of her child.
Could it be? There were many who denied such a possibility. This woman is a nurse, they argued, one who has devoted much of her working life to the care of the sick. How, then, could she set about engineering the death of her own daughter? It was beyond the bounds of nature. And, if in fact she had done so, then what could possibly have been her motive?
*
For the sake of brevity, these newspapers will henceforth be simply referred to as the Chronicle.
2
Early Days
It was once remarked by a writer on true crime that in order for a case of murder to truly enthral him, there must be a woman in the business. Well, the story of what became known as the ‘Oldham Poisoning’ certainly has such an ingredient. In the starring role, and filling the part so thoroughly, is Elizabeth Berry, the dead child’s mother, a woman reported variously as proud, intelligent, mendacious and highly excitable. In addition, notwithstanding that she was perceived by many as a cold-hearted monster, she is seen also as a most clever and fascinating woman. Undoubtedly, in her mysterious way, she was different.
Elizabeth Berry’s story began, as it was to end, in Lancashire, and rarely strayed outside Greater Manchester and its environs. And by anyone’s reckoning her tale is a remarkable one; not only for the fact that she should be accused of having committed the most vile of crimes, but also for the story of her dark and sinister progress.
Her birth certificate tells that she began life as Elizabeth Welch on 18 November 1853 in the Manchester inner-city district of Ancoats. On the certificate her parents are named as Joseph Welch and his wife Mary Ann, née Beven. These surnames, however, are not to be relied upon. In the various records that tell a little of the parents’ lives – the census records and records of births, marriages and deaths – the name of the father, Joseph, is not only given as Welch, but also sometimes as Welsh and Walsh. For the sake of consistency, however, I shall refer to him (except when quoting from documents) by the name given on his daughter’s birth certificate – that of Welch. It might be noted that varied spellings of family names are commonly found when making researches in the earlier parts of Britain’s history – due almost invariably to the fact that so many of the lower classes were illiterate. Unable to write their names themselves, the spelling of them as recorded in official documents would depend on how the name was pronounced at a particular time, and how it was heard and perceived by the clerk who happened to be writing it down.
At the time of the Welches’ wedding on 24 February 1852, Joseph was living at 5 Rowlands Buildings, Butler Street, Manchester, and it was there that the pair – he twenty-seven and Mary Ann twenty-six – set up home and where, a year on, their daughter Elizabeth was born.
F
rom then on, events in the Welch family are somewhat clouded in mystery.
It is reported that Elizabeth claimed to have been born one of twins, of whom her twin sister died soon after birth. If so, it might be said that her lie illustrates a phenomenon that was displayed throughout her life – a compulsion to glamorize her history and existence. There were indeed twins born to Joseph and Mary Ann, but they were boys, George and John, born 4 August 1856 while the family were living at Wheelhouse Court, Ancoats. Sadly, however, John died on 12 November that year, and his brother George on 6 June the following year. According to the infants’ death certificates, they both succumbed to convulsions. It is interesting to note that on John’s death certificate his surname is given as Welch, while George’s is given as Welsh.
We know also from the twins’ birth certificates that Joseph was there at their birth – he is the registered informant – but we do not know whether he was present at the time of their deaths. All we know for sure is that at some time during this period he left the household, never to return. Mary Ann said that he went away leaving her with a boy and a girl, which, if correct, suggests that he left in the period between the twins’ deaths. Whatever the facts, he was never to play any part in his family’s lives again. As for his reason for going, none has ever been given.
With her father having gone out of her life before she was three years old, Elizabeth had no first-hand knowledge of what had become of him, but it would appear that she was told that he had died – and died not only tragically, but heroically, killed fighting in the Crimean War. However, as she and her mother would later admit, there was not a word of truth in the story. No matter – in time, when it suited the abandoned Mary Ann, another romantic scenario would be invented to account for his absence.