Hanged at the Prison 4

 Of all the prisoners at St Albans County Gaol during its half-century existence, that of Mary Ansell arguably attracted the most publicity.  For the time, 1899, political, medical and social controversy ensured a widely covered debate over her fate.  

We are presented with the case of two sisters, one of whom used the life of the other for her own gain.  The brother of the sisters was also referred to by their father, but not of a further sister who also earlier died, leaving the parents with four children, all of whom pre-deceased them.  Mary had no connection with St Albans, but it is her incarceration at the prison which brought her name to our attention.

Teenaged Caroline Ansell had been committed to the London Asylum Board's mental asylum at Leavesden, though there is little information about her condition or illness.  At the time of the trial Caroline was 26 years old.

Her older sister, Mary, was in the employment of a wealthy Bloomsbury family in Great Coram Street.  She and her fiancé intended to marry but their financial circumstances prevented them from affording the cost of a licence.  Mary therefore devised a means of acquiring the required funds at the expense of Caroline.  The lever was Mary's purchase, on 6th September 1898, of an insurance policy, costing £22. 10s (£22.50) on the life of her sister at the rate of one penny per week.  She then purchased a quantity of rat poison, mixing some of it in cake mix, and send the resulting cake to Caroline as a gift at the asylum.

Leavesden Asylum

Caroline shared the cake with a few other inmates, although she ate more than her friends – by ensuring her slice was much larger!  The outcome was that, while her friends became ill, Caroline died.  At the time there had been a typhoid outbreak at the asylum, so the staff took minimal notice of such an unusual death until an autopsy had revealed a case of poisoning.

Within a short time the parcel wrapping in which the cake had arrived was recovered, as was the rat poison, and the insurance policy document.  The subsequent trial of Mary Ansell appeared to be straightforward, although a growing conversation in public ensured that for a time the outcome appeared uncertain.   Among the voices was a body of around a hundred members of Parliament who were uneasy at being responsible for the state death of a young woman having, they believed, an uncertain state of mind.  Petitions were also sent to the Home Secretary.

The Daily Mail, led a campaign in support of Mary and ran its own readers' petition.  This did not succeed in overturning the court decision, and it also failed on the law pertaining to mental instability. [see extract below].

Mary Anne Ansell

Even to the final moment Mary had firmly believed something would happen to save her from her fate, but her execution was carried out in St Albans, where about 2,000 members of the public gathered at the prison gates.  The execution of women was by no means uncommon, around half of them for murder by poisoning.  However, Mary was the youngest and the last to be hanged in the 19th century.

Mary's father is on record as stating "emphatically, there is no insanity in the family".  As to Caroline, he held the belief that "she was as right as you are until her brother was killed, and she then fretted so much that her mind gave way."

For the completeness of this article, some years later an unidentified man came forward to confess to the poisoning of Caroline, which, if correct, would have proved Mary innocent, resulting in a miscarriage of justice; it would also have given an opportunity for the Daily Mail to state the newspaper was right all along.  But this did not happen.

The Pall Mall Gazette (July 17th 1899) carried an extended editorial on the case:

Judge [Justice Mathew] expressed himself as absolutely convinced of the prisoner's guilt; on that point there cannot be two opinions.  Clearer evidence, a more connected sequence in the stages of a crime have seldom been produced by counsel for the prosecution in a criminal case.  The excuse now made for her, therefore, falls back on the argument that Mary Ansell is insane.  Now madness, in the accepted sense of the word, implies an inability to calculate the results of actions.  The poisoning of her imbecile sister was, on the contrary, one of the most deliberately contrived murders that are recorded in the annals of crime.  The sending of the phosphorus through the post and the forging of the letter from her mother protesting against the post mortum examination, stamp it as a masterpiece of perverted calculation.  Admitted to give evidence on her own behalf, she adopted the extremely devious line that she had insured her sister's life to give her a nice funeral, thereby appealing to what is a strong motive with the poorer classes, and the poorer they are the stronger it is.  So far then as a capacity for coherent thought goes, Mary Ansel must be pronounced entirely responsible for her own actions and their terrible consequences.

The full editorial can be retrieved and viewed on the British Newspaper Archive.

A reporter from the Herts Advertiser was present outside the prison and noted attempts by individuals to gain a view of the scaffold from the railway embankment, but were removed by police officers.  The bell of St Peter's Church rang, and the significant crowd remained subdued.

Thus completes the series of four accounts of three men and one woman whose lives were taken by the state at St Albans for the crimes they had committed.  As indicated at beginning of the series their bodies were buried within the prison grounds directly after the hanging, but their remains were transferred to a common grave plot at Hatfield Road Cemetery in 1931.

The final resting place, to the left of the tree, of Charles Coleman, Thomas Wheeler, George
Anderson and Mary Ansell.

Hanged at the Prison 3

 Quite how the residents living around the railway station felt about a prison on their doorstep we cannot tell.  Of course, when the prison opened there were no houses anywhere nearby, although within a few years of the St Albans Midland Station opening for business, and certainly by the mid 1880s, there were homes in Stanhope Road, Alma Road, Cavendish Road and Clarence Road.  It should also be observed that several homes nearby were occupied by employees of the railway and of the prison.

This week we learn of another prisoner with apparently no connection with St Albans, other than the event at which he met his end.  The crime in which George Anderson was involved took place at Waltham Cross. He too was unique in the roll call of prisoners at the county prison, in being the last man to be hanged in Hertfordshire, not, it needs to be said, because society had come to understand that the practice of capital punishment needed to undergo a change, but due to the expediency of this particular gaol closing its doors – or perhaps it should be expressed as opening its doors!  So, the prison's closure determined the final man in the county: George Anderson.

The crime took place in the summer of 1914, and to fully understand the events we need to connect related characters in the story.  Married couple Harriet and Joseph Whybrow were living at 213 High Street, Waltham Cross, with their five year old son Joseph.  (I know, these households containing members with the same personal names make for a difficult telling!). 

A classic image of old High Street, Waltham Cross

Also resident were Harriet's mother, also Harriet, and her stepfather, the above 56 year old George Anderson.  It is important to mention that George's wife – that is, Harriet's mother – had recently died.  George, a general labourer, had found coping with the loss of his wife difficult to manage, and as a coping mechanism was drinking excessively.  He was known as a hard worker, but with a short temper.  We seem to have all of the ingredients for something to go disastrously wrong.  Introduce an over-inquisitive next-door-neighbour and several other witnesses.

Anderson threatened his son-in-law Joseph Whybrow with an axe. Joseph and Harriet were young marrieds.  We are not informed of the reason for the axe threat, but we presume it is connected with the next fact, that Anderson was intimately associated with his step-daughter Harriet.  Their inquisitive neighbour had observed them "lying down facing each other"; presumably in some public place.  Anderson's behaviour had, since that point, become irrational and violent.

Harriet left the house to walk into the town, presumably of Waltham Cross.  Not far behind Anderson followed her.  Along one street in which he had been observed he took out a knife and cut Harriet's throat, subsequently walking away as if nothing had happened.  He later claimed that the incident was "an accident."

Anderson was remanded to Brixton Prison while evidence was collected. thence to St Albans Prison to await his trial, an event which lasted no more than four hours in total.

Execution took place on 23rd December 1913, without any crowd gathering outside.  The bell of St Paul's Parish Church rang on this occasion, and the only witnesses to the sound were a number of soldiers billeted at the prison under its new guise as a military establishment.

Hanged at the Prison 2

 The County Prison in Grimston Road was completed and opened shortly before the railway station next door.  The field in which it was built was considerably larger than the boundary wall of the prison, and was known thereafter as the Gaol Field.  Subsequently purchased by Frederick Sander, the orchid breeder, Gaol Field was sold on for residential development following Sander's death.  The roads are now Edward Close, Breakspear Road, Flora Grove and Vanda Crescent, and more recently Ulverston Close.

The yellow road at the top of the map is Victoria Street over the railway, leading to Grimston
Road and the prison Gatehouse (in pink).  The perimeter wall is shown as a black line, but
none of the buildings within is marked.  OS 1872 map.
COURTESY NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

The first housing, however, took advantage of the nearby railway station location, many of their residents being the among line's first commuters.  When you research an Ordnance Survey map dating from the period when the prison was open, you will find the boundary wall and gatehouse drawn but a blank space within the wall.  In the interests of security the cell blocks and other buildings within the perimeter wall were not published.

The original perimeter wall at the south-east corner remains, but buildings occupying the inside space are replacements for modern use.

The prison's first capital prisoner was recorded in 1880, and as with Charles Coleman (previous post) Thomas Wheeler had received a string of convictions prior to the crime for which he was hung.  Possibly to demonstrate the rarity of successful capital offences the county prison was designed without a specific cell for prisoners whose lives had been condemned.  Nor was there any physical method by which a hanging could be carried out – the apparatus itself.  This equipment would presumably have been taken to the prison from the nearest alternative jail which was so equipped.

The 1841 census shows Ellen Wheeler living at Gustard Wood with her four children including 6 year old Thomas.  So he was from a local family and undoubtedly grew up acutely familiar with the villages and countryside around him.

Once again we are provided with trial documents from newspapers; further, we were able to discover more about the prisoner's character, possibly because Wheeler attracted the attention of the Press and in the days before press photography a good journalist was able to pencil a character sketch in words.  Wheeler, we are informed was five foot and one inch tall and in his mid forties.  His hair was light brown, already turning grey, and he sported a moustache.  At the trial he wore a bowler hat, which, at the time was generally known as a billycock. A short brown jacket and brown corded trousers completed his description.  Other features were often not referred to, although one witness had observed that Wheeler's voice was "extremely peculiar".  This, on its own, does not tell us much, but the witness might have been hearing a stammer, damaged vocal chords or a hair lip.  We don't know.

Wheeler was born in Wheathampstead but had spent an extended period of time in London, where he had, the court was informed, a considerable amount of money taken from him and was determined to recover it.  Of course, the use of the word "taken" instead of stolen might lead us to believe that the money may not have been his to begin with.

In returning to his home patch, Wheeler had visited a number of farms near St Albans, perhaps because of the remoteness of the buildings, at each of which he had broken in and stolen cash or other property.  A pattern of behaviour had been established about which  the police had been aware.

A pencilled sketch of Marshalswick Farm, previously known as Wheeler's Farm. Drawn by
Jane Marten c 1826.  The farm lay behind today's The Quadrant shops.
COURTESY HISTORIC ENGLAND

One summer Saturday it appeared to be the turn of Marshalswick Farm – coincidentally previously named Wheeler's Farm after an earlier tenant farmer.  Now, however, in this summer of 1880 the tenant was Edward Anstee.  Wheeler managed to gain access via an upstairs window, probably the warm summer weather encouraged the occupiers to leave one or more windows open for ventilation.

Wheeler's arrival on the upper floor attracted Anstee's attention.  Certainly, if previous activity was anything to go by, Wheeler was intent on acquiring money and or possessions, but he was willing and prepared to take a life, or lives, if necessary.  We will never know what conversation, if any, took place between the two men, but the result was a total of 37 gunshots in the farmer's body which, the court was informed, greatly disfigured his face.  The violence also frightened two women in the house at the time, but we are not informed of their identities.

Property from Wheeler's visit was later discovered and recognised on Deadwoman's Hill, now known as Sandridge Road (near the Beech Road junction).  Other locations were Evan's Farm (now the former Jersey Farm), and hidden in piles of straw on Ninefields.  Today the latter would be just north of Brampton Road.

The front building was St Peter's Farm, now Conservative Club. Beyond is the little house where
Sarah Gray lived in 1880 when she worked at the Chain Bar Toll just down the hill at
The Crown.  Thomas Wheeler called in at the house on the evening of his crime.

After leaving Sarah Gray's cottage Wheeler walked to Catherine Lane (now Catherine Street) and visited this building which, in 1880 was the Pine Apple public house.  He was apprehended here by
the police.

One of the witnesses was identified as Sarah Grey who lived in the cottage next to St Peter's Farm – today this is part of the Conservative Club.  Sarah was a toll collector at the Chain Bar Tollhouse, a tiny building at the Crown Junction, where Chilli Raj is today.  Wheeler had called at the cottage, presumably for food.  From there he walked over the new railway towards St Peter's Street and Catherine Lane, now renamed Catherine Street, where he was apprehended at the Pine Apple public house.

The police had called on Thomas Cooper of London Road to take photographs of the crime scene.  His son was Arthur Melbourne Cooper who became well known as an early film maker.  However, Arthur thought the pictures his father had taken didn't reflect the measure of the gruesome scene, and "doctored" some of the negatives accordingly.  Which today would presumably have been referred to as tampering with the evidence, putting him in line to receiving a fine himself!

Wheeler was committed for trial at Chelmsford, was found guilty and executed at the prison in St Albans.  Throughout, he had expressed his innocence – "not me guv, you've got the wrong bloke" may have been his defensive approach; however, he wrote a letter of apology to Mrs Anstee in which he admitted his guilt.  It appears that Edward Anstee's wife was absent from the farmhouse on the night of the attack on her husband. She was, it is thought, visiting a relative and would probably have returned home the following day.

Nick Connell, in his book about Hertfordshire murders adds three footnotes: first, the cost on public funds of the execution was £20.  Second, the traditional tolling of the parish church bell was at St Peter's.  It would be another 20 years before the little church would be open at Stanhope Road and nearly thirty years before the new parish church of St Paul's in Blandford Road.

And finally, it was revealed that Wheeler had a daughter, Mary, who was fourteen at the time of her father's execution.  She was seemingly much affected by the events surrounding her father and attempted to hang herself at a tree in her garden.  Around ten years later she too was executed for the murder of another young woman.  It was reported there had been a jealous relationship battle between them over a mutual male.