Trial of William Palmer

by Unknown

With the Lord Chief-Justice’s summing up I have dealt freely. It occupied two days, and the form of it, to a great extent, was this. Lord Campbell would say to the jury, “Now, gentlemen, I will take the witness So-and-So and read you his evidence. It is for you to say what the effect of this evidence is.” Then would follow comments directing the jury’s attention to this or that feature. What the jury thought is not important now, but what the reader thinks with the evidence before him. Where Lord Campbell made special comment on any particular evidence the passages are given. Nothing material is omitted, and the general effect of his address is preserved.

The events occurred in November, 1855, at Rugeley, in Staffordshire, where Palmer, who was about thirty-one years of age, had been a medical practitioner until two or three years previously, when he transferred his business to the Mr. Thirlby mentioned in the report. He had abandoned medicine for the turf, kept racehorses, attended race meetings, and betted. By the year 1853 he was in pecuniary difficulties, and was raising money on bills with moneylenders.

Mr. John Parsons Cook, whom Palmer was charged with poisoning, was a young man of about twenty-eight who had been articled as a solicitor, but he inherited some £12,000, and did not follow his profession. He also went on the turf, kept racehorses, and betted, and it was in this common pursuit that Palmer and Cook became acquainted.

Palmer’s pecuniary circumstances in 1854 are important. He had raised money on a bill for £2000, and discounted it with Padwick, a notorious moneylender and racing man of the day. He had forged his mother’s name as acceptor, and, as she was wealthy, the bill had been discounted on the security of her name. It was this bill and others similarly forged which, according to the prosecution, led to the murder of Cook.

Previously to this Palmer had only been able to pay off debts to the amount of £13,000 on bills which were in the hands of another moneylender, Mr. Pratt, who figures so conspicuously in the trial, out of money received on the death of his wife, whom he had insured for £13,000.

At the close of 1854 he took out another policy for £13,000 on the life of his brother Walter. This policy was deposited as security with Pratt to cover a series of bills which began then to be discounted. These, by November, 1855, amounted to £11,500. His mother’s name as acceptor had also been forged on these bills by Palmer.

In the month of August, 1855, Walter Palmer died, but the office refused to pay on the policy, and the question was still in dispute in November when the death of Mr. Cook occurred. If the policy were not paid Pratt would sue Mrs. Palmer, as Palmer himself had no means, so that Palmer was in the same peril of being shown to be a forger both by Pratt and Padwick.

This policy was never paid, and we may add that when Palmer was tried for the murder of Cook there were two other indictments against him for the murders of his wife and brother, but they were not proceeded with as he was convicted on the Cook charge.

What happened about the bills was this. On the 6th of November Pratt issued two writs for £4000 against Palmer and his mother, but withheld them from service pending arrangements that Palmer might make. Pratt wrote to him on the 13th of November, a memorable day in the history of the case, when “Polestar,” Cook’s mare, won the Shrewsbury Handicap, that steps would be taken to enforce the policy on Walter Palmer’s life; so that Palmer’s problem was to keep paying portions of the bills until the question of the policy was settled, and thus keep Pratt quiet.

The pecuniary position of Cook is quickly explained. He had practically nothing but what came to him through the winning of “Polestar” at Shrewsbury on the 13th of November. His betting book showed winnings which amounted, with the stakes, to £2050. It was proved that he had £700 or £800 in his pocket at Shrewsbury from the bets he actually drew there, and £1020 remained to be settled at Tattersall’s on the following Monday, the 19th November.