The Wicked Boy (36 page)

A record 35,000 people. . .
The
Essex Newsman
of 8 June 1895 reported that about 9,000 visitors rode the electric trams and 8,000 the steamboats that Whit Monday. At Pier Hill fairground a north London man died after being struck in the ribs by a swing boat, two girls were injured after falling out of swings, a man sustained a bullet wound in the shooting gallery and several children cut their feet on broken bottles on the beach.

They walked through the Pier Hill fairground. . .
Description of rides and stalls from the
Chelmsford
Chronicle
, 21 September 1894.

Little Elsie the Skirt Dancer. . .
The Era
of 13 July 1895 reported that a burlesque actress, a clown and a group of jugglers were also to appear in the Pavilion that night.

At low tide. . .
Account of the pier adapted from Walter Besant's description of a day trip to Southend in
East London
(1901).

the most notorious murderer. . .
Account of James Canham Read's crime and conviction from the
London Standard
of 27 June, 9 July and 8 December 1894,
Morning Post
of 10 July 1894,
Chelmsford Chronicle
of 13 July 1894,
Essex Standard
of 14 and 21 July 1894,
Illustrated Police News
of 7 July, 14 July and 24 November 1894,
Evening News
of 15 and 16 November 1894 and
Reynolds
'
s Newspaper
of 18 November 1894.

When Robert learned
. . .
In the Old Bailey, Robert's father said that Robert ‘went to Southend to see Read' without specifying a date. Read appeared in the Southend police court on 9 and 16 July. Robert was on the register of Stock Street school at the time, but according to his headmaster did not attend after 7 July, the day of Read's arrest.

The killer in
‘
The Bogus Broker
'
s Right Bower
'
. . .
The preposterously titled
The Bogus Broker
'
s Right Bower; or, Ralph Rolent
'
s (Felon 26) Tigress Shadower
was one of the tuppenny magazines in Robert's collection, a sixty-four-page Aldine O'er Land and Sea story originally published by Beadle's Dime Library in New York on 14 March 1894.

the Balaam Street recreation ground. . .
See McDougall (ed.),
Fifty Years a Borough
. The construction of the park cost £11,206, according to the
Chelmsford Chronicle
of 15 June 1894, and provided employment for some of the jobless labourers of West Ham.

games of knocking down ginger. . .
In
The Love of a Brother: From Plaistow to Passchendaele
(2011), Percy Cearns recalls his childhood in the 1890s and 1900s: ‘What terrors of Plaistow Park Road we lads must have been. I wonder how many fruitless journeys to open front doors we have caused ladies in the neighbourhood through our propensity to play a game, colloquially known as “knocking down ginger”. “Kick can”, “buttons”, “egg cap”, “leap frog”, “robbers and thieves” were among other famous sports which we young ruffians were wont to pass our evenings.' Percy and his brother Fred shared a bedroom, where at night they read the ‘forbidden fruit' of penny literature by candlelight. When their father found the magazines, he confiscated them and lectured his sons about their reading habits: ‘Dad . . . always told us there were plenty of books in the bookcase to read “instead of such trash”. I am afraid we neither of us took much notice of this advice however, as we would always replace the lost copies and impatiently await the next numbers.'

From the front of the house. . .
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper
of 21 July 1895 observed that Cave Road lay ‘in the open part of Plaistow, looking across the flats and the river to the Kentish hills'.

The German writer H. A. Volckers. . .
In Part XII of ‘A Journey to Europe',
Clarence and Richmond
Examiner,
31 July 1886.

As the eldest son. . .
For boys' chores, see Michael J. Childs,
Labour
'
s Apprentices: Working-Class
Lads in Late Victorian and Edwardian England
(1992) and Edward John Urwick (ed.),
Studies of Boy Life in Our
Cities
(1904).

There was no age restriction. . .
In
East London
, Besant observed that East London boys smoked cheap cigarettes, known as ‘fags', as a way of asserting their manhood. They also liked to read penny dreadfuls ‘featuring the likes of Jack Harkaway knocking down the ship's captain on the quarter deck', and to play cards, known locally as ‘darbs'. On boy smokers, also see Childs,
Labour
'
s Apprentices
.

When an overladen National Line vessel disappeared. . .
In
Cattle Ships: Being the Fifth Chapter of Mr. Plimsoll
'
s Second Appeal for Our Seamen
(1890), the MP Samuel Plimsoll reported that the widows of the lost
Erin
sailors told him that only the cashier had shown them kindness. Plimsoll recorded his name as ‘Euston', presumably a mishearing of ‘Hewson', since John Hewson was chief cashier of the National Line at the time.

Dear Sir. . .
A transcript of this letter is Exhibit A in TNA: CRIM 1/42/9.

The weather had cooled off. . .
See
London Daily News
, 15 July 1895.

Buffalo Bill. . .
The story found in Cave Road was probably
Buffalo Bill; or, Life and Adventures in the Wild West
, a reprint of a Beadle's Dime Library number, published in London in 1890 by the Aldine O'er Land and Sea Library. The young Billy's exploits are described in
Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood
, published in New York by Beadle and Adams in about 1882. Bill Cody staged his ‘Wild West' show at Earl's Court from June to October 1892.

Over the weekend, the election campaigning. . .
See
Stratford Express,
17 July, and
West Ham
Herald,
20 July 1895.

‘
to lift the weary load. . .
' From a speech at an open-air meeting by the docks in Silvertown on Monday 8 July 1895, reported in
West Ham Herald
, 13 July.

‘
feel that there is sunshine. . .
' From an article by the socialist MP Robert Bontine Cuninghame Graham in
The Workers
'
Cry,
July 1891.

In 1895 some 10,000 men. . .
See Stephen Inwood,
City of Cities: The Birth of Modern London
(2005).

Edward Leggatt had been prosecuted. . .
See
Essex Newsman
, 6 July 1895, and
Barking, East Ham &
Ilford Advertiser,
13 July 1895.

an activist had accidentally blown himself up. . .
This incident inspired Joseph Conrad's novel
The
Secret Agent
(1907).

A donkey. . .
See
Stratford Express,
17 July 1895.

‘
West Ham Workers – Attention!. . .
' See
Evening News
, 15 July 1895.

Robert
'
s novelette
‘
Joe Phoenix
'
s Unknown
'
. . .
Joe Phoenix
'
s Unknown; or, Crushing the Crooks
Combination
was an American detective story featuring East London criminals first published by Beadle's Dime Library in New York in 1892 and reprinted in London in 1894 by the Aldine O'er Land and Sea Library.

‘
I certify that Mrs Emily Coombes. . .
' A transcript of Griffin's note is Exhibit B in TNA: CRIM 1/42/9; the torn-off date is Exhibit C.

Dear Pa. . .
A transcript of this letter and of the bill from Greenaway are Exhibits E and F in TNA: CRIM 1/42/9.

‘
Sir,
'
wrote Robert. . .
A transcript of Robert's letter to the
Evening News
is Exhibit D in TNA: CRIM 1/42/9.

‘
£2 wanted privately. . .
'
Evening News
, 4 July 1895.

There was no running water. . .
See
London Standard
, 17 July 1895.

As the polling deadline of 8 p.m. approached. . .
Account of election night from
West Ham Herald,
Forest Gate Gazette
and
Leytonstone Express and Independent
of 20 July and
Stratford Express
of 17 July 1895.

along roads lit by gas lamps. . .
According to McDougall (ed.),
Fifty Years a Borough
, there were 1,831 gas lamps in West Ham in 1886, lighting sixty miles of streets. Charles Masterman in
The Heart of Empire
(1902) describes other lights in the neighbourhood: ‘At night long lines of barrows brilliant with flaring kerosene lamps contribute an element of weirdness. Past these drifts a continuous stream of tired women haggling for whelks and cauliflowers and other necessities of existence. Every corner sports the brilliantly lighted gin palace with its perpetual stream of pilgrims.' In
From the Abyss
(1903), he notices ‘the wildly flaring naphtha lamps from strings of stalls in the gutters'.

CHAPTER 3: I WILL TELL YOU THE TRUTH

The police discovered. . .
A list of the evidence gathered by the police is in TNA: CRIM 1/42/9.

PART II: THE CITY OF THE DAMNED

CHAPTER 4: THE MACHINE AND THE ABYSS

The courthouse in West Ham Lane . . .
See Clare Graham,
Ordering Law: The Architectural and Social History of
The English Law Court to 1914
(2003).

The
‘
Sun
'
. . . the
‘
Star
'
. . .
On 18 July 1895.

Ernest Baggallay. . .
See ‘Spy' caricature of Baggallay, captioned ‘A Popular Magistrate', in
Vanity Fair
of 13 July 1905 and obituary of Baggallay in
The Times
, 11 September 1931.

In Canning Town police court. . .
See
West Ham Herald
, 20 July 1895.

Despite the passage of the Children
'
s Act. . .
See Lionel Rose,
The Erosion of Childhood: Child
Oppression in Britain, 1860–1918
(1991) and George K. Behlmer,
Child Abuse and Moral Reform
in England 1870–1908
(1982).

The
‘
Stratford Express
'
approved. . .
20 July 1895.

a street vendor in Northern Road. . .
See
West Ham Herald
, 27 July 1895, which reported that on 23 July the vendor was sentenced to a month's imprisonment with hard labour.

Holloway gaol. . .
See Arthur Griffiths,
Secrets of the Prison House: Gaol Studies and Sketches
(1894); Philip Priestley,
Victorian Prison Lives: English Prison Biography 1830–1914
(1985); ‘In Holloway “on Remand”',
Pall Mall Gazette
, 27 October 1892; and evidence given in 1894 by George Walker (the Holloway doctor), Lt-Col Everard Stepney Milman (the governor) and Rev. George Purnell Merrick (the chaplain) in the Departmental Committee on Prisons'
Report
and
Minutes of Evidence
, PP, C7702 (1895).

Charles Carne Lewis. . .
For his appointment as coroner, see
Chelmsford Chronicle
, 18 August 1882. For Florence Dennis inquest, see
Chelmsford Chronicle
, 6 July 1894. For sewage works inquest, see
Morning Post
, 19 July 1895.

The room was furnished. . .
See
Evening News
, 29 July 1895.

a double coffin. . .
See
Cassells Household Guide, Volume I
(1880).

burial insurance. . .
See Maud Pember Reeves,
Round About a Pound a Week
(1913) and
Cassells
Household Guide, Vol. I
(1880).

Many of the headstones had fallen down. . .
See Mrs Basil Holmes,
The London Burial Grounds
(1896) and the page on Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park in
www.londongardensonline.org.uk
.

At 1 p.m. Emily
'
s body was lowered. . .
Burial details from
Daybook of Burials in Consecrated
Ground, City of London and Tower Hamlets Cemetery
, LMA: CTHC 01/056.

a fourteen-year-old boy had climbed a tree. . .
See
Illustrated Police News
, 8 and 15 July 1895.

The penny paper
‘
Lloyd's Weekly
'
. . .
The article was published on 21 July 1895, as was the
News of the
World
piece. The
Forest Gate Gazette, West Ham Herald
and
Stratford Express
ran their first pieces about the crime on 20 July 1895.