George Joseph Smith

George Joseph Smith is known as the ‘Brides in the Bath’ murderer. He married women bigamously, insured them, and then drowned them in the bath. 

Smith was born in Bethnal Green in London on 11 January 1872. His father, Thomas Smith, was an insurance agent and the family was reasonably well off.  When he was 9 years old George Joseph Smith was caught stealing. Smith was sent to a reformatory for 7 years. 

In the 19th century, reformatories were established as an alternative to sending children to prison. In them, discipline was very harsh but boys were supposed to be taught a trade to help them live useful lives when they left.

However, it seems such a severe punishment embittered Smith and left him with a deep resentment of society when he was an adult. He certainly wasn’t reformed.

Like many murderers, Smith had a record of stealing before he turned to murder. He persuaded a woman, who worked as a domestic servant, to steal things for him. However, he was caught in 1896 and sentenced to a year in prison.

After he was released from prison, he used stolen money to open a bakery shop. In 1898, he married Caroline Thornhill. Eventually, his business failed, and he persuaded his wife, who was a servant, to steal from her employers. She was caught and imprisoned, while Smith disappeared. However, when Caroline was released, she spotted Smith by accident, and she called the police. Smith was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to two years in prison. 

Smith then began bigamously marrying women. He would persuade them to give him his savings and then he would disappear. Smith found it easy to find victims because, at that time, many men had emigrated to North America and Australia, hoping for better lives. At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a shortage of eligible bachelors. 

Some women were very keen to get married, as life for a single woman was harder then than it is now. There were far fewer career opportunities for women and not having a husband made life difficult. No doubt, Smith could be charming when he wanted and he beguiled several women.

Eventually, Smith turned to murder. In 1910, he met a woman named Bessie Mundy in Bristol. She had inherited a considerable sum of money from her father. Bessie was in her 30s and, no doubt, was very keen to get married. 

Smith married her using a false name, Henry Williams, in Weymouth. However, Smith could not steal her fortune because her father had left it in the hands of trustees. (Perhaps he feared, rightly, that his daughter was naive and might be cheated out of her fortune). 

However, Bessie did have a relatively small amount of money of her own. Smith persuaded her to give it to him, after which he disappeared. He wrote Bessie a letter accusing her of giving him an STD. It was a pointlessly cruel accusation. 

Attitudes to sex and STDs were, of course, very different in the early 20th century and making such an unkind and shocking accusation shows that Smith was a vicious man.

Unfortunately, Bessie met Smith again in 1912 in Weston-Super-Mare. It was probably by accident that she saw him again. She spoke to Smith, who claimed it was all a misunderstanding. He thought it best to leave her when he found he had an STD, as he didn’t want to infect her. He also claimed he had been looking for her for a long time. Unfortunately, Bessie believed him. Sadly, Bessie was probably a gullible woman.  

The couple moved to Herne Bay in Kent. Smith realised that he could not steal Bessie’s fortune as it was held by trustees, as long as she was alive. However, if she made a will leaving it all to him and then died, he would inherit it. He could not obtain her money except by killing her. So Smith persuaded Bessie to make a will in his favour. He thought of an ingenious (and horrendous) way to murder Bessie and make it look like an accident. Smith went to an ironmonger and purchased an iron bath. He also sought out a doctor and told him Bessie had suffered an epileptic fit, although Bessie said she had only suffered headaches. 

On 12 December 1913 Bessie drowned in the bath. It’s thought that Smith grabbed her legs and pulled them upwards. The unfortunate woman’s head was submerged and the water rushing into her nostrils caused instant unconsciousness. Smith then held her until she drowned. There were no injuries to the body and no signs of a struggle. 

Smith summoned the doctor who found Bessie on her back in the bath with her legs protruding over the edge. 

The doctor assumed it was an accident, Bessie, he thought, had suffered a fit and had drowned in her bath. Subsequently, Smith inherited her fortune. 

Incredibly, Smith then took the iron bath back to the ironmonger and asked for a refund. He also arranged the cheapest possible funeral for Bessie. Such callous behaviour was likely to alienate people. If Smith had any sense, he would have tried to appear distraught over the death of his wife. In some ways, Smith was a very stupid man. Smith inadvertently left one vital clue. 

Bessie was clutching a bar of soap tightly in her hand when she died. The doctor noted that and later it was a useful piece of evidence against Smith.

Nevertheless, having got away with murder and made a great deal of money, Smith was bound to try it again. In 1913, he met a 25-year-old woman named Alice Burnham. He married her in November. Alice had some savings and Smith insured her life. 

Smith took the unfortunate woman to Blackpool and they stayed in a boarding house owned by Mrs Crossley. Once again, Smith summoned a doctor for his wife, claiming she was suffering from headaches. Smith drowned the unfortunate woman in a bath. Smith discovered the victim, and an inquest found that Alice accidentally drowned while having a fit. Smith inherited some money from her. He also pocketed her life insurance money. Once again, Smith shocked and alienated people by refusing to spend more than the bare minimum on a funeral. Mrs Crossley, who owned the boarding house, was suspicious of Smith but could not prove anything. An inquest was held but it found that Alice had drowned accidentally. 

The next victim was Margaret Lofty. Smith met her in Bath in 1914 and he persuaded her to marry him. This time, he called himself John Lloyd. Once again, Smith insured the woman and he persuaded her to make a will, leaving all her money to him. 

The couple married on 18 December 1914 and went to stay in a boarding house in London. On her wedding night, Smith called a doctor and told him his new wife was ill. Smith then told the landlady he was going to buy some tomatoes for his wife’s supper. 

On returning, he rang the doorbell. That was odd because he had a key. Smith had probably already drowned his wife but he wanted the landlady to know he was going out and when he returned. No doubt he hoped that when the death was discovered, the landlady would think Smith’s wife had drowned while he was out. 

However, this time, Smith’s luck ran out. The two previous deaths had been reported in local newspapers but this time the death of a woman on her honeymoon made it into the national press. The News of the World reported the story in some detail. Luckily, Mrs Crossley, the landlady of a boarding house in Blackpool where Smith murdered a previous victim, read it. So did Thomas Burnham, the father of Alice Burnham, whom Smith murdered in 1913. Both of them were struck by the similarities in the death of Margaret Lofty in December 1914 and that of Alice Burnham in 1913. Both suspected that  ‘John Lloyd’ was Smith using a different name. They urged the police to investigate. 

The police did. They quickly found that the last victim, Margaret Lofty, had been insured only three days before she died. She also made a will leaving everything to her husband, just hours before she died. They also found out that Alice Burnham had been insured shortly before her death.

The police waited for Smith to claim the insurance money for his last victim, Margaret Lofty. When he did, a detective asked him if he was John Lloyd. Smith said he was. The detective then asked if he was George Smith. At first, Smith denied it but eventually he was forced to admit it. He was arrested on a charge of bigamy.

The police then found that a similar suspicious death had taken place in Herne Bay, Kent, in 1912. It was the first victim, Bessie Mundy. However, the police could not explain why there were no signs of a struggle or injuries on the bodies. 

Surely if Smith grabbed a woman’s head and held it underwater, she would have struggled desperately? The brilliant pathologist Bernard Spilsbury provided the answer. If someone grabbed a woman’s legs and pulled them upward, her head would be submerged and she would instantly lose consciousness. 

A nurse volunteered for an experiment. She lay in a bathtub and a man pulled up her legs. As Spilsbury predicted, she almost instantly lost consciousness. 

The brave woman had to be revived by a doctor. Nevertheless, the police could now prove how Smith had drowned his victims, with no signs of a struggle. 

It was also remembered that the first victim, Bessie Mundy, was tightly gripping a bar of soap in her hand when she was found. If she had suffered a fit, her hand would have relaxed and let it go. It was evidence that the loss of consciousness must have been sudden. 

Smith was charged with murder, and he went on trial on 22 June 1915. Not surprisingly, he was found guilty and he was hanged on 13 August 1915.

Edward Pritchard the Human Crocodile

 Edward Pritchard was born in Southsea, Portsmouth, on 6 December 1825. His father was a naval officer. At the age of 21, Edward became an assistant surgeon. In 1851, he married Mary Jane Taylor, a woman from a wealthy family. The couple moved to Hunmanby in Yorkshire. They had 5 children. 

However, Pritchard had a reputation for being a liar. He was also a womaniser. In 1858, he moved with his family to Glasgow. Pritchard continued womanising. Then, in 1863, a servant girl named Elizabeth McGirn died in a fire at his home. Strangely, the girl had not attempted to escape; she was found lying on a bed. Nothing was ever proved, but it’s possible Palmer drugged her and then started the fire. Perhaps Pritchard made her pregnant, then decided to kill her to get rid of her. 

In 1865, Pritchard poisoned his mother-in-law, Mrs Taylor, and his wife. Pritchard’s wife, Mary Jane, fell ill, and her mother moved in to nurse her. Mrs Taylor fell ill and died on 28 February 1865. Her daughter died on 18 March 1865. A Dr Paterson, who attended the sick woman, refused to sign a death certificate, so Pritchard signed one himself.

However, someone (probably Dr Paterson) wrote an anonymous letter to the police accusing Pritchard of murder. The bodies of both victims were exhumed and were found to contain antimony. The police also discovered that Pritchard had purchased large amounts of poison shortly before the two women died.

Pritchard was charged with murder, and he went on trial in July 1865. He was found guilty and he was hanged in front of a large crowd in Glasgow on 28 July 1865. 

It was the last public execution in Glasgow. (Public executions were banned in Britain in 1868).

Fanny Adams

 Fanny Adams was an 8-year-old girl who was murdered in Alton, Hampshire, in 1867. Fanny was born on 30 April 1859. Her father was a bricklayer named George. Her mother was named Harriett. Fanny was the fourth of six children. She had three sisters and two brothers.

Fanny was tall for her age. She looked, it was said, older than her age. She was also a bright girl. People who knew Fanny described her as a happy and talkative child.

In the mid-19th century, Alton was a small town with a population of about 4,000. There was a brewing industry in the town and fields of hops. Fanny lived in Tanhouse Lane. Near her house was an open place named Flood Meadow, through which the River Wey flowed. The river sometimes flooded, giving the meadow its name. Next to it was a hop garden.

On 24 August 1867, Fanny asked her mother for permission to go and play in Flood Meadow with her 5-year-old sister Lizzie and her best friend, Minnie Warner, aged 8. Her mother agreed. There was little crime in Alton, and Mrs Adams was not worried.

Between 1 pm and 2 pm, the girls had the misfortune to meet a 29-year-old solicitor’s clerk named Frederick Baker. He was from Guildford but had recently moved to Alton, where he worked for a solicitor named William Clements in the High Street. The girls had seen the man before. 

Frederick Baker gave Minnie and Lizzie three half pennies to buy some sweets. He also gave Fanny a half penny. 

For a time, the girls played while Baker watched the girls playing while he smoked his pipe. He also picked some blackberries for them.

Minnie and Lizzie eventually decided to go home. Baker then asked Fanny to come with him on her own along the Hollow, a road that led to the nearby village of Shalden. Fanny refused. 

Baker then grabbed the child and carried her off. Minnie and Lizzie ran and told Mrs Warner, Minnie’s mother. But she was unconcerned, and the girls went off to play again. 

It may seem incredible that Mrs Warner did not immediately raise the alarm, but attitudes were very different then. Mrs Warner may have thought it was some sort of game.

About 5 pm, the two girls, Minnie and Lizzie, went home again. A neighbour, Mrs Gardener, saw them and asked where Fanny was. The two girls told her what had happened. Mrs Gardener was worried, and she told Fanny’s mother, Mrs Adams. The two women went off in search of the missing child.

Within a short time, they met Baker near a gate separating the hop garden from the Meadow. Mrs Gardener asked him, ‘What have you done with the child?’. Baker replied ‘nothing’. Mrs Gardener then asked if he had given Minnie Warner money. Baker admitted he had given her money. But he claimed that he often gave money to children. Not surprisingly, Mrs Gardener was suspicious. She told Baker ‘I have a great mind to give you in charge of the police’. Baker replied, ‘You may do as you like’.

The two women went home, no doubt hoping Fanny would turn up. But, of course, she didn’t. By 7 pm, her mother was growing very worried, and she and a group of neighbours went in search of her. 

A man named Thomas Gates found the head of a child stuck on two hop poles. The eyes had been cut out, and the right ear was missing. It was the head of Fanny Adams.

More of the remains of Fanny Adams were found that evening. But as it was growing dark, the search had to be called off until the next morning. The next day, searchers found one of Fanny’s arms, a foot, and her intestines. Her eyes were eventually found in the river.

At the trial of Frederick Baker, Dr Leslie said: The remains were that of a female child, the head, arms, and legs were separated from the trunk’. The doctor also said: ‘A deep incision divided the chest between the ribs. The right leg was torn from the trunk, and the whole contents of the pelvis and chest were completely removed. Five incisions had been made on the liver, the heart cut out and missing, a dislocation of the spine, and the vagina was missing’.

A man named William Henry Walker found a stone with flesh and hair sticking to it. He thought it might be the murder weapon. At the murder trial, Dr Leslie said that in his opinion it was.

Meanwhile, Fanny’s mother, Harriet Adams, was naturally very distraught. She went to tell her husband, George, who had been playing cricket. He got his shotgun and was going to shoot the murderer but was persuaded not to.

At 9 pm on Sunday, 25 August 1867, the police went to the office of Clements, the solicitor. Superintendent Cheney asked Baker if he had heard of the murder. Baker replied, ‘Yes, they say it’s me’. The Superintendent told him, ‘Well, you are suspected’. Baker replied, ‘I am innocent’. 

Despite his denials, Baker was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Fanny Adams. An angry crowd had gathered outside the office, so the police had to smuggle him out the back door.

Baker was found to be carrying two small knives (they were too small to have carried out the mutilation. It was believed a larger knife was used, but it was never found). Baker’s trousers were wet, presumably from an attempt to wash off blood stains. The police also found bloodstains on Baker’s shirt cuffs. Baker could not account for them. He said ‘Well, I don’t see a scratch or cut on my hands to account for the blood’.

The next day, the police searched the solicitor’s office. They found Baker’s diary in his desk. An entry read: ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot’. Baker admitted it was his handwriting but claimed he was intoxicated at the time.

Baker made another very incriminating remark on the day of the murder. At 7 p.m., he went to a pub with a colleague. An employee of the pub said he was moving and claimed he could turn his hand to anything. Baker said he might join him, but admitted there were only a very limited number of jobs he could do. But he then added, ‘I could turn butcher’.

An inquest into the death of Fanny Adams was held at the Duke’s Head Inn in Alton on 27 August 1867. Minnie Warner gave evidence. So did Mrs Gardner. In 1867, the jury at an inquest could not only find that a person was a victim of murder, but they could also name the person who they believed had committed the murder, even though that person had not been tried. The jury found that Frederick Baker murdered Fanny Adams. The law was changed in 1977.

The trial of Frederick Baker for murder began on 5 December 1867. The defence claimed that it could not be proved that Baker killed Fanny. But at the same time, they tried to argue that if he did do it, he was insane.

Minnie Warner and Mrs Gardener gave evidence. Other witnesses said Baker had left the solicitor’s office after 1 p.m. (Shortly before the murder was committed). He returned at 3.25 p.m. Baker left the office again at 4.30 p.m. (At which time he met Mrs Adams and Mrs Gardener near the murder scene).

More witnesses described seeing Baker in the vicinity of the murder on the afternoon of 26 August. A woman named Eliza White said she saw a man with three children at about 2 p.m. She identified Baker as the man. Mrs White said that afterwards, she heard ‘a girl cry out, not a cry of pain, as in play, trying to get away from someone’. A witness named William Alder was walking back from the nearby village of Lasham at about 2 p.m. He also saw Baker, who he knew. He also saw three children.

Both Mrs Gardener and Mrs Adams saw Baker after 5 p.m. A woman named Mary Ann Porter also said she saw Baker in the area between 5 and 6 p.m.

 There was also the fact that Baker wrote in his diary, ‘Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot”. The defence claimed that what he meant was ‘a young girl was killed’ not ‘I killed a young girl’. They also tried to cast doubt on Minnie Warner’s identification of Baker, and they said the two knives found on Baker were too small to have carried out the mutilations. (They may very well be true, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that Baker had a larger knife that was never found).

The defence also tried to argue that even if Baker did do it then he was insane. They claimed that Baker’s father was violent and had once tried to kill his son and daughter with a poker. They also claimed that Baker had tried to commit suicide after his fiancée broke off their engagement in 1865. Baker’s sister had died of a ‘brain fever’. Also, Baker’s cousin was in a lunatic asylum and was violent. But none of this impressed the jury.

The judge advised the jury that three verdicts were possible – guilty, not guilty or not guilty on the grounds of insanity. The jury took only 15 minutes to find Baker guilty of murder. The judge then sentenced him to death. While awaiting execution, Baker confessed to killing Fanny.

At that time, executions were carried out in public. Frederick Baker was hanged outside Winchester prison, in front of a crowd of about 5,000 people at 8 a.m. on 24 December 1867. His body was buried within the precincts of the prison.

Meanwhile, Fanny Adams was laid to rest in Alton Cemetery on 28 August 1867. In 1868, a gravestone was erected, paid for by public subscription. An inscription on the gravestone reads ‘Sacred to the memory of Fanny Adams, aged eight years and four months, who was cruelly murdered on Saturday, August 24, 1867’ and ‘Fear not them which kill the body are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell Matthew 10 v28’.

George Chapman

 George Chapman was born in Poland on 14 December 1865. (His real name was Severin Klosowski). He trained to be a barber-surgeon. He married in London, but he later left his wife. He moved to London probably in 1888. Klowoski was a barber in London. He eventually started calling himself George Champman.

Chapman lived with women whom he called his wives, although he was already legally married. He physically abused his ‘wives’. He also poisoned three of them. The first victim was Mary Spink. Chapman gave up barbering and leased a pub. However, his ‘wife’ fell ill and died on 25 December 1897. 

Her death was ascribed to natural causes (many people died of diseases with symptoms similar to poisoning in those days, so it was often possible to poison someone without arousing suspicion). 

The second victim was Bessie Taylor. While Chapman was the landlord of a pub, he employed her as a barmaid, and she moved in with him. She, too, was abused by Chapman. She, too, fell ill and she died on 13 February 1901. Unfortunately, her death was thought to be due to a disease. 

Chapman’s third victim was Maud Marsh, whom he employed as a barmaid. He persuaded her to move in with him. However, Maud’s family did not trust Chapman. Maud fell ill in 1902. Her mother suspected her daughter was being poisoned, and when Maud died, the doctor refused to issue a death certificate. An autopsy showed that Maud had been poisoned with antimony. The bodies of the first two victims were exhumed, and they too were found to have been poisoned.

Chapman went on trial for murder on 16 March 1903. Not surprisingly, he was found guilty and he was hanged on 7 April 1903. 

It’s not clear why Chapman poisoned women. Maybe he grew tired of them and decided it was a convenient way of getting rid of them. Maybe he also got some satisfaction from poisoning people.

It has been suggested that Chapman was Jack the Ripper. However, there is no evidence to link Chapman to the Whitechapel murders. The murders he committed were different. Jack the Ripper killed strangers by cutting their throats and then mutilating them. Chapman married women and then poisoned them. Furthermore, at the time of Jack the Ripper, Chapman was only 23, which makes him younger than the man eyewitnesses saw.

History of Trade Unions

 I wrote a history of trade unions in Britain 

The White Feather Campaign

 I found a very good video about white feather shaming during the First World War  

End of the Middle Ages Day

 29 May is End of the Middle Ages Day. On 29 May 1453, the Turks captured Constantinople (now named Istanbul). Many people regard that as the end of the Middle Ages. When I was a boy, the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 was regarded as the end of the Middle Ages (Henry VII became king of England and began the Tudor dynasty). However, that was an Anglo-Centric view! A change of dynasty in England made little or no difference to the rest of Europe.