This book features the cases of six London women, each very different in temperament, age and status, who resorted to murder. Their reasons were varied: in the case of the surly maid Kate Webster, sheer temper seems the likely cause; avarice seemed to spur Catherine Wilson to murder an estimated seven times; desperation to pay for the upkeep of her two-year-old son lay behind Sarah Drake's crime; seductive young cook Eliza Fenning was accused of serving poison with her dumplings; evil mistress Elizabeth Brownrigg whipped her servant to death in a home-built dungeon; and finally, the vicious Catherine Hayes persuaded two lovers – one of whom was her own son – to decapitate her husband in an orgy of violence. This fascinating study explores these cases in depth, and reveals whether these women were tragic, misunderstood or just plain wicked.
This book features the cases of six London women, each very different in temperament, age and status, who resorted to murder. Their reasons were varied: in the case of the surly maid Kate Webster, sheer temper seems the likely cause; avarice seemed to spur Catherine Wilson to murder an estimated seven times; desperation to pay for the upkeep of her two-year-old son lay behind Sarah Drake's crime; seductive young cook Eliza Fenning was accused of serving poison with her dumplings; evil mistress Elizabeth Brownrigg whipped her servant to death in a home-built dungeon; and finally, the vicious Catherine Hayes persuaded two lovers – one of whom was her own son – to decapitate her husband in an orgy of violence. This fascinating study explores these cases in depth, and reveals whether these women were tragic, misunderstood or just plain wicked.
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This book features the cases of six London women, each very different in temperament, age and status, who resorted to murder. Their reasons were varied: in the case of the surly maid Kate Webster, sheer temper seems the likely cause; avarice seemed to spur Catherine Wilson to murder an estimated seven times; desperation to pay for the upkeep of her two-year-old son lay behind Sarah Drake's crime; seductive young cook Eliza Fenning was accused of serving poison with her dumplings; evil mistress Elizabeth Brownrigg whipped her servant to death in a home-built dungeon; and finally, the vicious Catherine Hayes persuaded two lovers – one of whom was her own son – to decapitate her husband in an orgy of violence. This fascinating study explores these cases in depth, and reveals whether these women were tragic, misunderstood or just plain wicked.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752497235 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 09/01/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 240 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
| Age Range: | 12 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Bad Companions
Six London Murderesses who Shocked the World
By Kate Clarke
The History Press
Copyright © 2013 Kate ClarkeAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9723-5
CHAPTER 1
Catherine Hayes
'A vile woman, scarcely to be paralleled'
On Saturday, 7 May 1726, two days before Mrs Catherine Hayes was due to be executed, a brief but damning summary of her life was published in the Ipswich Journal. It stated that, in 1690, Catherine Hayes (née Hall) 'was born of an Adulterous and Wicked Mother, who dropt her, (a Branch of her Lustful Embraces) near Birmingham, in Warwickshire'.
When she was fifteen Catherine left home, intending to make her way to London. She was a good-looking girl and, it would seem, sexually mature, for before she had travelled far she met a group of army officers who persuaded her – with the promise of some gold pieces – to go with them to their quarters at Great Ombersley, in Worcestershire. She remained in their company for some time, mainly supplying sexual services but occasionally working as a general housemaid. When the officers grew tired of her she went back to Warwickshire, where, it was said, she 'ran about the country like a distracted creature'.
At the age of twenty-three she met a gentleman farmer, Mr Hayes, who, ignoring the advice of his wife, took her into his house as a domestic servant. Mrs Hayes was right to be wary of Catherine, for she soon began an affair with one of the farmer's two sons, twenty-one-year-old John Hayes, and they were secretly married at Worcester in 1713.
The article in the Ipswich Journal continued its account of the events that followed:
... but the Father endeavour'd all he could to prevent it, but to no effect, for she threaten'd to cut her Throat if he (John Hayes) did not marry her; on the Day they were marry'd she fell into the water and had been drowned if her husband had not waded after her. That same night, as soon as they went to bed, some officers, by her appointment, had him impressed (press-ganged) but his father got him his liberty, but she prevailed upon him to enlist and go with those officers to Spain, where she attended him, whether more for the love of the Officers than for him.
Whilst in Spain, the article concluded, 'she acted all manner of Debauchery and Wickedness.'
Another account states that John Hayes enlisted and was sent to the Isle of Wight; it was then that his father paid £60 'to buy him out'. Although impressment – press-ganging – was a common form of enforced naval recruitment, the army also targeted the 'able-bodied, idle and disorderly Persons', usually men aged between eighteen and fifty-five 'without lawful trade'. 'Incorrigible rogues', who had left their wives and children to the care of the parish, were also considered fair game.
Army life, however, ended when Mr Hayes, senior, bought his son's freedom and provided the young couple with a cottage on his farm and a generous allowance.
However, by 1719, Catherine, after six years of marriage (during which, it was said, she took numerous lovers), grew restless and convinced her husband that they should move to London:
They came to London, and his Father dying left them some money, which they lent out in interest, but he found her guilty of many slippery tricks, never trusted her with the keys of the drawers, but she by many cunning stratagems often got some of his gold to supply the wants of those she liked best and this way she continued till the committing of the horrid fact.
John Hayes worked hard and prospered in London. He bought a house – part of which he rented out to lodgers – and set himself up as a chandler and coal merchant. The business proved profitable and, furthermore, Hayes continued to supplement his income as a pawn-broker and money-lender. Catherine was given a generous allowance – and yet she still berated her husband for not providing her with enough money to keep a carriage and employ servants. She was never satisfied, and reportedly nagged him constantly. Yet her harassment resulted not in more money but in her husband resorting to violence: he began beating her, and thereafter reduced, not increased, her allowance. She later complained that he 'half-starved her'. Resentment continued to build in Catherine and she often cursed her husband, saying that 'it was no more a sin to kill him than to kill a mad dog. Some time or other I will give him a jolt!'
Whether or not her scorn was well-deserved – he may well have been a thoroughly unpleasant person – it soon became evident that Catherine Hayes was a foul-mouthed scold who often belittled her husband in public and, moreover, quarrelled constantly with her neighbours. Perhaps to escape the ill-feeling his wife generated, they moved to premises in Tottenham Court Road, and from there to Tyburn Road, now known as Oxford Street.
In 1725 an eighteen-year-old tailor, Thomas Billings (who, it was later discovered, was actually Catherine's illegitimate son), came to live with them – and he and Catherine soon embarked on a sexual relationship. Not only were the couple cuckolding John Hayes whenever he was away on business, but also the neighbours noticed that Catherine and Billings lived lavishly at his expense, indulging in riotous parties and prolonged drinking sprees. When he returned they wasted no time in telling Mr Hayes about his wife's behaviour, and a fierce fight ensued. John beat her so violently that she was confined to bed for several days. This, no doubt, brought to a head Catherine's hatred of her husband and engendered talk of 'getting rid of him' so that she and Billings could continue their incestuous relationship without restraint or censure.
It was at this point in the story that the third figure in the ensuing drama appeared. A butcher named Thomas Wood, a friend of John Hayes, arrived from Worcestershire (escaping, it seems, from the efforts of the army officers to get him to enlist). John Hayes gave him lodging, unaware that, within days, Catherine would not only be sleeping with him but also trying to persuade him to join in his murder. As a friend of John Hayes, Wood at first refused to become involved in their heinous plan – until, that is, Catherine told him that her husband was 'an atheist, and had already been guilty of murdering two of his own children, one of whom he had buried under an apple-tree, and the other under a pear-tree'. He had also, she said, murdered a business rival. As an added incentive, Catherine promised to give him and Billings the £1,500 which she claimed she would inherit once her husband was dead.
On 1 March 1725, when Wood returned to London after a few days away, he found John Hayes, Catherine and Thomas Billings drinking together, already having consumed a guinea's worth of liquor between them – though John Hayes boasted that he was not at all drunk. As part of the plan, Billings suggested that Hayes should prove to them that he could drink six bottles of mountain wine without getting drunk. If he did so, Billings promised, he would pay for the wine. The wager was agreed and the three went out to buy more drink, determined now to use this opportunity to carry out their murderous plan.
Catherine Hayes paid half a guinea for the wine for her husband while she and her two accomplices drank beer. Before long, John Hayes, well inebriated, began to dance around the room. Then he drank the remainder of the wine. Determined to render him completely helpless, Catherine sent out for another bottle of wine and watched him drink it before he fell senseless to the floor. He lay there for a while and then somehow managed to crawl into 'another room and [throw] himself on a bed'.
It was at this point that Thomas Billings entered the bedroom and attacked John Hayes with a hatchet, striking him so violently that his skull was broken. Hayes's legs were hanging over the edge of the bed as the blow fell and, as the blows registered in his brain, his feet thumped repeatedly on the floor. This sound brought Wood into the room. Taking the hatchet from Billings, he delivered vicious blows (two); these blows finally killed the husband.
A fellow lodger, Mrs Springate, living in the room above, heard the thumping of Hayes's feet on the floor and came down to complain that the noise had woken her and her family. Catherine managed to placate her by saying that they were entertaining some rowdy visitors: as they were just about to leave, the noise would soon stop.
By the time Catherine returned to the bedroom her husband was dead, and the room was extensively splattered with blood. The killers were now faced with a dilemma: what to do with the body? If they deposited it somewhere – as it was – someone might inconveniently identify him. It was Catherine who suggested that, to avoid detection, they should cut off his head. Her two collaborators were sickened by the dreadful prospect of beheading their former friend. However, as there seemed to be no alternative, they finally agreed to carry out this plan.
Catherine remained remarkably calm throughout the events that followed: she fetched a bucket, lit a candle and then watched as Billings supported her dead husband's head while Wood began to saw through the neck with a kitchen knife. Catherine even positioned the bucket so that the severed head – and all the copious amount of blood issuing from it – would fall into it, thus reducing the staining to the floor. Once the head was in the bucket, they poured off all the blood into a sink. They then poured down several pails of water to sluice it out so that no trace of blood remained.
To further prevent identification of the remains, Catherine suggested that they boil the head to separate the flesh from the bone, but the three eventually decided that this process would take too long. Instead, it was agreed that their best option would be to throw the head into the River Thames and allow the tide to carry it away. With Billings carrying the severed head in the bucket, and accompanied by Wood, they made their way out of the house. While they were about their grisly business, Catherine made several trips down to street level and up again to the second floor, carrying buckets of water for scrubbing away all evidence of the murder.
At this point Mrs Springate, still annoyed by the noise from below, called out to ask what was going on. Catherine replied that her husband was just leaving the house to embark on a journey; she then pretended to carry on a conversation with her husband, commiserating with him about having to set off at such a late hour. Mrs Springate heard her say, as though addressing her husband, 'Watch out for brigands and dress warmly against these bitter March winds.' While this deception was under way, Billings and Wood were clear of the house and making their way through the darkened streets to the banks of the River Thames, anxious to get rid of the head before daybreak.
It was their intention to dump the head in the river at Whitehall but, as the gates were shut, they hurried to the wharf at Horse Ferry, in Westminster. On seeing a watchman approaching, they panicked. While Billings held the bucket, Wood lifted out the head of John Hayes and threw it into the river, expecting it to be carried away by the tide – but it was not to be. They soon realised that in fact the tide was ebbing – and the head had landed in the mud. The two killers fled while the watchman, hearing the thud of something landing on the mud-bank, came to see what it was. He retrieved the head and took it to the authorities.
This account is from The British Gazetteer, dated 5 March 1726:
Last Wednesday morning at day-light, there was found in the dock before Mr Paul's brewhouse, near the Horse-Ferry at Westminster, the head of a man, with brown curl'd hair, the Scull broke in two blaces [sic], and a large cut on each cheek; judg'd to be upwards of 30, and, by all circumstances, appearing to have been newly cut from off a living body; but by whom, or on what account, is yet a secret. There was found near it, a bloody pail; and some bargemen have since affirmed, that they saw two Ruffian-like fellows bring that pail to the water-side, and throw the head into the dock, and then run away. The head was the same day set up, and expos'd to publick view in St Margaret's Church-Yard; to the end, that any one knowing the features, might give some Account of the person. Several houses in Tuttle Fields, and about Westminster, have likewise been searched for the body ...
Billings and Wood, no doubt believing they had effectively disposed of the head, returned to the house where Catherine was waiting to commence concealment of the headless body. She suggested burying it but a box brought for that purpose was found to be too small. Wood used his butchering skills to dismember the body and pack it into the box, which was then left under the bed during the remainder of that night. The next morning, fearing to arouse suspicion if they were seen carrying a heavy box, they decided to transport the chopped-up corpse in a blanket. It must have been with great relief that Catherine watched as her lovers left the house with the remains of John Hayes; she was no doubt anticipating a life of new-found wealth, unfettered by a brutal and parsimonious husband. Once clear of the house, Billings and Wood hurried to a field in Marylebone and threw the bundle of body parts into a pond.
* * *
Meanwhile, the severed head that had been discovered by the watchman stuck on a mud-bank at Horse Ferry wharf had been appropriated by the local magistrates. They ordered that 'the head should be washed clean, and the hair combed.' It was then placed on top of a wooden spike in the churchyard of St Margaret's, in Westminster, in the hope that someone would recognise the face and inform the constables. Many in the crowds that flocked to witness this grim sight thought they recognised the head of John Hayes. Some even mentioned their suspicions to Thomas Billings, but he assured them that Hayes was still alive and had gone away on business.
After four days, it was decided to halt the decomposition of the head by storing it in a large glass jar at the premises of a barber-surgeon, and a chemist, Mr Westbrook, was called upon to fill the jar with cheap gin as a preservative.
For some reason, Catherine Hayes then decided to move to new lodgings in the same street, accompanied by Mrs Springate (presumably with her husband and child), Thomas Billings and Thomas Wood. From there, she set about gathering all the monies owed to her husband and spent lavishly on both her lovers. This did not go down well with her neighbours, or with friends of John Hayes. Mr Ashby, a business colleague who had known Hayes well, called on Catherine and demanded to know where her husband was. Her husband, she told him, had got into a fight with another man and killed him; unable to bribe the man's widow with enough money to ensure her silence, he had fled London. Mr Ashby then asked if the head on the spike had been that of the man killed in the fight – but Catherine cleverly denied this, saying that the man her husband had killed had been buried whole. Where was John now? He had gone to work in Portugal.
Mr Ashby was not satisfied with this explanation, and voiced his doubts to a distant relative of Hayes, a Mr Longmore. They hatched a plan whereby Mr Longmore would call on Catherine and inquire about the whereabouts of John Hayes, to see if her explanation differed from the one given to Mr Ashby. As there were some discrepancies in her story, Messrs Ashby and Longmore (and another friend called Mr Eaton) decided to inspect the severed head more closely.
After carefully poring over the gruesome remains, they became convinced that the head had once belonged to their friend. They went straight to a magistrate, a Mr Lambert. On hearing their suspicions, he issued warrants for the arrest of Catherine Hayes, Thomas Billings, Thomas Wood – and Mrs Springate! The gentlemen went in person to the lodging house where the suspects lived and the landlord showed them to Catherine's room. Calling for her to come out, the magistrate threatened to break down the door if she didn't open it immediately. Catherine called back that she would open it as soon as she had put on her clothes. When she eventually opened the door, Thomas Billings was 'sitting on the side of the bed, bare-legged'.
One of the officers asked him: 'Have you been sleeping with this woman?'
'No, I've been mending my stockings,' came the facetious reply.
The magistrate and Mr Longmore then went upstairs and arrested Mrs Springate; Catherine, Billings and Mrs Springate (there was no sign of Wood) were taken into custody and questioned separately, at length, at the magistrate's house. They all, however, maintained their innocence and it was decided that they should remain in custody until the following day, when they would be questioned further by Mr Lambert and other magistrates. Catherine Hayes was taken to Tothill Fields gaol, at Bridewell, Thomas Billings to Newgate Prison and Mrs Springate to the Gatehouse.
* * *
The next day, when fetched from prison to face further questioning, Catherine expressed a desire to see the head, which was in the possession of a barber-surgeon. On seeing the head in the glass jar, she exclaimed: 'Oh, it is my dear husband's head! It is my dear husband's head!' She then put on an exaggerated show of wifely grief by crying bitterly as she cradled the glass jar in her arms. This dramatic display was intensified when Mr Westbrook suggested that he should take the head out of the jar so she might inspect it more closely, just to make sure. As she held the head in her hands, she kissed it several times and then pleaded with Mr Westbrook to let her have a lock of his hair. On being told by Mr Westbrook that she 'had had too much of his blood already', she fell into a faint. Once recovered, she was led to Mr Lambert's house, where she was questioned again by the magistrates.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Bad Companions by Kate Clarke. Copyright © 2013 Kate Clarke. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title,Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
One Catherine Hayes, 1726 'A vile woman, scarcely to be paralleled',
Two Elizabeth Brownrigg, 1767 'Wicked beyond belief',
Three Eliza Fenning, 1815 'Spiteful minx or tragic martyr?',
Four Sarah Drake, 1850 'The miserable creature in the dock',
Five Catherine Wilson, 1862 'A classic serial poisoner',
Six Kate Webster, 1879 'A truly appalling crime',
Bibliography,
Plates,
Copyright,