Reports of Trials for Murder by Poisoning; / by Prussic Acid, Strychnia, Antimony, Arsenic, and Aconita. Including the trials of Tawell, W. Palmer, Dove, Madeline Smith, Dr. Pritchard, Smethurst, and Dr. Lamson, with chemical introduction and notes on the poisons used

by G. Lathom Browne; active 19th century C. G. Stewart

Coming then to the question of motive the Judge gave a brief history of the connection between the prisoner and the deceased, and, after detailing its commencement, commented on it as showing her extraordinary affection and devotion to the prisoner.

“With striking self-devotion,” said Baron Parke, “she had said, that, in order not to prevent the union of the prisoner with the lady to whom he was about to be married, she would go out of the world, and be dead to the world, even to her own mother, from that day forth; and the jury had heard from that very mother that from that time she had never heard of her unfortunate daughter until after her death. She kept her promise. She did go out of the world, and went from place to place till she went to reside at Slough. It appeared that there she received from the prisoner an allowance of £13 a quarter, and on the day in question it was seen that he was to have taken her her quarterly allowance. When taken into custody, the sum of £12 10s., besides silver, was found in his pocket; and it was proved that he had drawn a cheque for £14 that morning. From that fact it might be inferred that he had gone down with a sort of mixed feeling, either of paying her the money or, if he had the opportunity of accomplishing his purpose, of poisoning her. But as to motive for destroying her, it had been suggested that no man would commit such a dreadful crime for the sake of getting rid of expense. That, he should say, was not a matter to be easily judged of.”

His Lordship then touched upon all the evidence regarding his alleged pecuniary circumstances, and read the letter from his wife, in which allusion was made to his anxiety to have the papers from Sydney. “As to the feeling appeal made upon that affectionate letter by his counsel, it only proved that the prisoner had been very kind to and enjoyed the affection of his wife, which was not at all incompatible with the commission of the crime with which he stood charged towards another woman.”

As to the alleged previous attempt to poison the deceased in September last, the Judge considered that there was no sufficient proof that he then administered prussic acid to her. It was, however, remarkable that after drinking porter with the prisoner on the 30th September, she should have been so ill, and that after drinking porter with him on the 1st of January she should have been taken ill and died. The strong facts against the prisoner, in his opinion, “were his presence at the woman’s house at the time she died; his declarations before and after his arrest, and the fact that prussic acid was found in her stomach.”

The Judge then read over the whole of the material evidence, and, with the usual caution, left the case in the hands of the jury. On Mr. Gunning reminding him of the evidence to the prisoner’s character which had been produced, Baron Parke said—“Such evidence was admissible in cases of this kind, because it went to show the general impression of the habits and feelings of a person. The prisoner was reputed to be a kind-hearted, benevolent man. It was admitted that he had been transported for some offence, the nature of which they had not been told, but it was said that it was not one to affect his character for kindness of disposition.” The Judge then read over the evidence to character, and left it to the jury to decide in reference to its value to the prisoner in his present position.

On the conclusion of the Judge’s charge, which lasted from eight in the morning until half-past eleven, the Jury retired, and in about half an hour returned a verdict of Guilty. In a few impressive sentences, in which he spoke of the hypocrisy that had characterised the prisoner’s life in the assumption of the garb of a virtuous, peaceful, benevolent, and religious body of persons, the Judge passed on him the dread sentence of the law, which he suffered on the 28th of March. Previously to his execution Tawell handed a written confession to the jail chaplain, that he committed the murder for fear that his wife should discover his connection with the deceased, and that the previous attempt was not made with prussic acid. He never imagined that Sarah Hart had spoken of him to her neighbours, to whom he believed that he was personally unknown, and so more likely to escape detection.

At the Easter Quarter Sessions of the County, held subsequently to the execution of Tawell, an ineffectual attempt was made by a section of the magistrates to compel the jail chaplain to deliver to the visiting justices this written confession, which the chaplain refused to hand over, on the ground of its having been received under the seal of confession, and on the promise that it should not be published. All that was known of it rested on the statement of the governor of the prison, and the general admission of the chaplain that it was a full confession of the prisoner’s guilt.

A difficult legal question arose, after Tawell’s death, with reference to his Australian land, which the Crown re-granted to his widow and family, after its forfeiture by his conviction; whether this re-grant should prevail over the claims of a previous purchaser, a retired auctioneer, who had houses on it, who alleged that he had purchased it for a bonâ fide consideration, under a sufficient power of attorney, executed before Tawell’s conviction. “The affixing the seal of the colony to this grant by Sir W. Denison, created a serious difference between that governor and his chief minister, Mr. Cowper. The seal was affixed pursuant to the instructions of the Secretary of the Colonies, who only acted in the matter in accordance with the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor-General of England. A part of the sworn duty of a colonial governor is to obey the instructions of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.”[19] The governor, therefore, sent his private secretary for the great seal of the colony and himself executed the new deed. On this being done the owners of the property found the ground cut from under their feet, and it never came before the law courts, but it is believed that some compromise was effected with the family of Tawell, and so the matter ended.

TRIAL OF GEORGE BALL FOR POISONING HIS MOTHER WITH PRUSSIC ACID.