The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective (21 page)

The superintendent’s report of events above is dated and timed ‘20th December 1867 12 Midnight’, enabling one to visualise a less-than-happy senior officer waiting in Scotland Yard to receive a late report from a less-than-sweet-smelling Reimers! However, the events do not seem to have had any adverse impact on his career, as Sergeant John William Reimers (born in Germany and by then a policeman for eight years) became a detective colleague of Clarke some eighteen months later.
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Once the Clerkenwell trial had finished, political and public concerns about the Fenians slowly started to quieten. Ricard Burke, Joseph Casey and a third man Henry Shaw (aka Mullady) were tried for treason-felony at the Old Bailey at the end of April. The case against Casey was withdrawn by the prosecution but both Burke and Shaw were found guilty; Burke was sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude and Shaw to seven years. Amongst the witnesses for the prosecution were three Fenian informers, John Joseph Corydon, Godfrey Massey and John Devany, all of whom were soon to be ‘paid-off’ by the authorities for services rendered.
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Shortly before the Clerkenwell trial and Burke’s trial, arrangements had been made for a royal visit to Ireland in mid-April by the Prince and Princess of Wales, to help ease tensions. The visit included an investiture in St Patrick’s (Roman Catholic) cathedral, a Great Ball and (for the prince) an inescapable opportunity to attend the Punchestown Races on 16 April. The visit was regarded as a considerable success.
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Williamson and four other (unnamed) detectives from Scotland Yard were sent out to Ireland for the races, apparently ‘in case any of the swell mob from this side of the channel should seek a new field of operation’, though it would be surprising if their remit was entirely restricted to this function.
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In view of his extensive experience of policing English racecourses, and his working relationship with the Irish police, it is almost certain that Clarke would have been one of those detectives attending. If so, he would have been keen to return home in time to attend the wedding of his eldest son, George, to Louisa Beake at St Margaret’s, Westminster, on Saturday 25 April. Louisa was the daughter of a former policeman employed by the Great Western Railway, and would prove to be a useful ally for Clarke towards the end of his career.

When the Prince of Wales was in Ireland he would probably not have known that his brother Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, had been shot and wounded in Australia on 12 March 1868. As commander of the Royal Navy frigate HMS
Galatea
, Alfred had started a round-the-world voyage in 1867. He was shot in the back at a beachfront suburb in Sydney while picnicking, a wound from which he recovered and later resumed command of his ship. The assailant was Dublin-born Henry James Farrell who was arrested at the scene and, despite probable insanity, was tried, found guilty and hanged on 21 April.
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The Irish connection initially suggested that this was a Fenian plot and that there may have been accomplices. Thus, on 9 May, Clarke was sent to Liverpool to organise observation of the passengers arriving from Australia on the SS
Great Britain
to establish whether any Fenians might have been on board. Clarke reported to Mayne that there was no reason to suppose that any accomplice of Farrell was amongst the passengers. Clarke’s task cannot have been an easy one as the ship could carry substantial numbers of passengers: in 1861, when carrying the first English cricket team to Australia, there were 544 passengers and 143 crew.
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By May 1868 the Fenian conspiracy had essentially ebbed away; senior Fenians were either in prison, had fled into exile in France or America or had simply had enough. For Clarke, however, his involvement with the Fenians continued a bit longer. On 11 July 1868 he emerged from his more recent ‘behind-the-scenes’ role to arrest two suspected Fenians at the tavern and eating house, His Lordships Larder in Cheapside, accompanied by Sergeants Sunerway and Meiklejohn. The two men arrested were James Williamson (aka Cooke) and John Blake, who were charged at Bow Street with treason-felony. After their arrest Clarke searched the residences of the two men, locating a loaded revolver at both properties, about a quarter hundredweight of ammunition at James Williamson’s address and some Fenian documents hidden behind the fireplace. However, the main evidence against these men came from informers. Corydon identified James Williamson as Centre of the largest Fenian circle in London, who he had seen in the company of leading Fenians, including Kelly, Halpin, O’Donovan Rossa and thirty to forty others. Patrick Mullany also thought that Blake had been a Centre, but compromised this statement somewhat when saying that he ‘believed that Blake wished to be a Fenian, but he had not got the necessary pluck’. Despite further evidence presented by the chief constable of the Irish Constabulary, the magistrate hearing the case, Mr Vaughan, freed Blake and gave the prosecution two days to obtain evidence of any specific act linking James Williamson to the conspiracy. This was not forthcoming and James Williamson was also released.
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This failed prosecution essentially concluded Clarke’s involvement with the Fenians during the 1865–68 conspiracy. Nevertheless, it was not the last time that he would have to deal with the impacts of Irish republicanism. He was drawn into two further major incidents in 1870, which would have a more successful outcome for the authorities, and continued to be called on from time to time until he retired, particularly when co-operation between the Irish police and London Metropolitan Police was required.

Undoubtedly, the challenges faced by the police at this time were essentially new to them, and it showed. As Phillip Smith concluded:

… the Fenians challenged the police in a variety of ways, brought out deficiencies in the force and its leadership, and revealed their inexperience and lack of knowledge in dealing with urban terrorism … The police were not without some highly capable and intelligent men … Unfortunately, Commissioner Mayne did not take advice readily, and thus did not draw enough on the expertise his men gained in the streets … Criticism of the police properly fell on the head of the remote and aged Commissioner.
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During this period the detective department had to take on board nationwide information-gathering and surveillance operations of a nature and on a scale that they had never encountered before. They had to try to liaise effectively with police in Ireland and at the same time they had to sustain a detective capacity to deal with more routine criminal cases, both in London, and when called upon, in the provinces. It should not be forgotten that there were only ten detectives at Scotland Yard (until late November 1867) and each of them probably liked to see their families on occasion. Criticism of Mayne is appropriate, but it should not be forgotten that the Metropolitan Police was accountable to the government through the Home Office, and Mayne was poorly served by his political masters. If the government wanted a different approach from the police, politicians should have done more to deliver it. During the earlier part of his career as a commissioner, Mayne had delivered outstanding public service but had undoubtedly been allowed to stay in post too long. On at least one occasion (and probably more), by offering his resignation, Mayne had provided his political masters with an opportunity to bring in a new man at the top. That opportunity was not taken. Mayne was probably a difficult person to deal with, and also held firm viewpoints on issues. However, instead of ‘grabbing the bull by the horns’, the politicians criticised Mayne behind his back and established a separate ‘secret service department’. Even then, the politicians failed to show any long-term commitment, dismantling the new department soon after its formation; though that, at least, was consistent with the prevailing attitude of the time, to renounce domestic intelligence-gathering as a political strategy.
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In May 1868, a Home Office Departmental Committee Report on the Metropolitan Police was issued, which included the following comments and recommendations:

The detective police, having regard to their number, appear to the Committee to be very efficient for the detection of ordinary crime, but their numbers are wholly inadequate to the present requirements of the metropolis, and their constitution scarcely adapts them to cope with conspiracies and secret combinations … the detective police should form a separate division under the immediate command of the head of police.
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The committee also commented on pay and expenses: ‘The pay of the detective police is insufficient to attract very skilful men…’
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It took a year before any of these comments were acted on, by which time Mayne had worked himself into the grave. Fortunately for the government, the Fenian conspiracy ran out of steam, compromised by the posturing, arrogance and procrastination of its first leader, Stephens, and the recklessness of the second, Kelly; undermined by informers; combated effectively in the field by the military; and haunted by a determined, if not always effective, police presence.

From the incomplete jigsaw of Clarke’s role in the Fenian conspiracy, it seems that his main responsibilities between 1865 and 1868 were to assemble information on the identities and descriptions of the principal Fenians and the locations in which they might be found; to undertake surveillance of Fenians and their associates in London and work with provincial police forces in this regard (including Manchester and Liverpool); and to liaise with the Irish police on Fenian matters. It is probable that this period of Clarke’s career, more than any other, was responsible for the refinement of the skills that Superintendent Williamson later attributed to him: ‘Clarke is a man of about as much shrewd common sense as any man in London, and is quite as able to track out anybody. It is his native gift.’
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The last three years had thrown up considerable new challenges for Clarke. His performance, and that of the Metropolitan Police, had not been free of errors. Yet in the view of his superiors he had shown sufficient ability as a detective to be promoted to inspector, and to take on greater responsibilities. Now, with the Fenian conspiracy on the back burner, he also had an opportunity to return to the basics of crime detection.

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BACK TO BASICS

1868–71

In England’s felon garb we’re clad

And by her vengeance bound

Her concentrated hate we’ve had –

Her justice, never found

Her laws, accurs’d, have done their worst, -

In vain they still assail

To crush the hearts that beat for thee,

Our own loved Innisfail

Michael Davitt
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Suspicious Death at Lymm

After the political focus of much of George Clarke’s work between 1865 and early 1868, the opportunity to return to crime detection must have provided a refreshing change or, at least, rather more variety. Although the Fenian cause lingered on and still expressed itself in poetry and the acquisition of arms, the focus of Clarke’s cases in the next three years switched back to the criminal and social ills of the nation, including suspicious death and murder, burglary, bribery, betting, baby farming, abortion and arson. Life had already started to get back to ‘normal’ in April 1868 when, shortly before the Clerkenwell explosion trial was due to begin, Clarke headed northwards to Lymm, Cheshire, at the request of the commissioner to investigate his first suspicious death since being appointed inspector. He was asked, belatedly, to investigate the suspicious death of a rich widow, Mrs Elizabeth Brigham, whose son-in-law, Monsieur Henri Perreau, alleged had been accidentally shot. Perreau was the only witness to the events leading up to her death, and claimed that he had been showing his mother-in-law his new revolver at home one morning when it had accidentally discharged. He had handed the loaded gun to her at her request and, upon her returning it into his hand, it had gone off at such an angle that she had been shot in the head.

One immediate question is why Clarke was called in to investigate Mrs Brigham’s death at all, as a verdict of accidental death had already been recorded by an inquest jury several days prior to his arrival. The clue probably lies within his recorded comments that ‘there are various rumours afloat’ and that two of Mrs Brigham’s cousins had instructed a solicitor ‘to act on their behalf’. It is probable that one of these individuals had contacted Scotland Yard, unhappy with the inquest verdict. The press also alluded to these issues: ‘Rumour’s busy tongue has thrown considerable doubt upon the purely accidental nature of the occurrence, and has attributed the death to interested motives; but the decision of the jury, after a patient and minute investigation, that it was a case of accidental death, will, of course, dispense these doubts.’
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The cousins may have been concerned that the recently married Perreau might gain control of Mrs Brigham’s estate (an impressive £40,000). Clarke’s report suggests that he regarded this as a legitimate concern, Mrs Brigham ‘being the only existing obstacle to Monsieur Perreau having absolute control over the property’. However, the report of the inquest proceedings suggest that the coroner thought otherwise, and that Perreau could not benefit under the existing will. The grounds for the coroner taking this view were that Mrs Brigham’s estate was held in a trust, and her only daughter’s inheritance would therefore not automatically become the property of her husband.
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