Geoffrey Howse - Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Sheffield

TRUE CRIME FROM WHARNCLIFFE

Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Series

Barking, Dagenham & Chadwell Heath

Barnsley

Bath

Bedford

Birmingham

Black Country

Blackburn and Hyndburn

Bolton

Bradford

Brighton

Bristol

Cambridge

Carlisle

Chesterfield

Colchester

Coventry

Croydon

Derby

Dublin

Durham

Ealing

Folkstone and Dover

Grimsby

Guernsey

Guildford

Halifax

Hampstead, Holborn and St Pancras

Huddersfield

Hull

Leeds

Leicester

Lewisham and Deptford

Liverpool

London's East End

London's West End

Manchester

Mansfield

More Foul Deeds Birmingham

More Foul Deeds Chesterfield

More Foul Deeds Wakefield

Newcastle

Newport

Norfolk

Northampton

Nottingham

Oxfordshire

Pontefract and Castleford

Portsmouth

Rotherham

Scunthorpe

Southend-on-Sea

Staffordshire and The Potteries

Stratford and South Warwickshire

Tees

Warwickshire

Wigan

York

OTHER TRUE CRIME BOOKS FROM WHARNCLIFFE

A-Z of Yorkshire Murder

Black Barnsley

Brighton Crime and Vice 1800-2000

Durham Executions

Essex Murders

Executions & Hangings in Newcastle and Morpeth

Norfolk Mayhem and Murder

Norwich Murders

Strangeways Hanged

The A-Z of London Murders

Unsolved Murders in Victorian and Edwardian London

Unsolved Norfolk Murders

Unsolved Yorkshire Murders

Yorkshire's Murderous Women

Please contact us via any of the methods below for more information or a catalogue

WHARNCLIFFE BOOKS

47 Church Street - Barnsley - South Yorkshire - S70 2AS

Tel: 01226 734555 - 734222 - Fax: 01226 734438

Email: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk

website: www.wharncliffebooks.co.uk

This book is dedicated to

ANN HOWSE

& in fondest memory of

JOSEPH HOWSE

First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Wharncliffe Local History

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

Copyright Geoffrey Howse 2009

ISBN 978 1 84563 108 6

eISBN 978 1 78303 759 9

The right of Geoffrey Howse to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photo copying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Typeset in 11/13pt Plantin by
Mac Style, Beverley, East Yorkshire

Printed and bound in the UK by
by the MPG Books Group

Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Pen & Sword
Aviation, Pen & Sword Maritime, Pen & Sword Military, Wharncliffe Local
History, Pen and Sword Select, Pen and Sword Military Classics and
Leo Cooper.

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact
PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED
47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England
Email: enquiries@pen-and-sword.co.uk
Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Contents

Banner Cross Terrace and the Banner Cross Hotel. Charles Peaces shot Arthur Dyson here on 29 November 1876. The author

Introduction

T rue crime, foul deeds and sinister goings on seem to hold a fascination for a large number of people. This is my sixth book involving true crime as well as being my seventh book about Sheffield and its surrounding area. My first four true crime books concerned crimes within London, two of which were in this series, my fifth was Foul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in & Around Barnsley . A second Barnsley volume is in preparation and will be followed by a South Yorkshire book in this series. For this book I have selected a wide cross-section of crimes and events surrounding the darker side of mans existence in and around Sheffield from the middle of the eighteenth century until the early 1920s.

There is so much source material concerning crime to scrutinize that from the veritable feast one is offered, it is often extremely difficult to select what to use. I am most grateful to Brian Elliott who very kindly handed over the assignment to me, along with a considerable amount of research material. I have added to this and included a varied array of not only the most heinous of crimes but also some quirky incidents. When simply to be poor was almost a crime in itself in the eyes of some, I have found it difficult to decide where the foul deed lies, particularly when one considers the harsh penalties that were meted out for comparatively trivial crimes or indeed mere misdemeanours.

At several stages during its rich and varied history, Sheffield, like many other places in England, experienced periods of both prosperity and hardship. When leaner times came, they were more often than not felt most severely by small tradesmen, artisans and the labouring classes. Such times often resulted in an increase in criminal acts. Some unscrupulous individuals took to stealing from others to enable them to continue to live an accustomed (or indeed enhanced) lifestyle, while no longer having to work for a living. Prolonged shortages, starvation, unemployment and a general lack of money, to buy even the essentials of life, or sometimes just the fear of that possibility or eventuality, could induce some individuals to take their own lives. The closing years of Queen Victorias reign saw some hard times for many Sheffielders. I have selected suicides from just one year, 1892, to include in a chapter comprising eighteen cases, which is only a smattering of the suicides that occurred in and around Sheffield that year. There is also an attempted murder and suicide, which also occurred in 1892, which appears in a separate chapter, The Bath Street Shooting Case.

A view of central Sheffield in the late Victorian period. High Street, seen here in 1892. David J Richardson Collection

In my efforts to present an interesting account of each case presented here, during my research I have made every effort to cross-reference my source material. I apologise unreservedly for any errors or omissions.

Acknowledgements

I am particularly grateful to John D Murray who has assisted me over several years; and to Keith Atack, Vera Atack, Iris Ackroyd, Michael Barber, Susan Barber, Joan Bostwick, Norma Braddick, Cherrie Conlon, Robert (Bob) A Dale, Kathleen Dale, Iris J Deller, Joanna C Murray Deller, Ricky S Deller, Tracy P Deller, Brian Elliott, Doreen Howse, Joy Howse, Kathleen Howse, Dr Hidayat Hussein, Brenden E McNally, Raymond Mellor-Jones, Pamela Mott, Eleanor Nelder, Stanley Nelder, Anthony Richards, David J Richardson, Helen Vodden, Katie Vollans, Adam R Walker, Anna Walker, Christine Walker, David Walker, Emma C Walker, Ivan P Walker, Suki B Walker, Kate Ward, Helen Weatherburn, Clifford Willoughby, Margaret Willoughby, the staff of Barnsley Central Library, Doug Hindmarch, Senior Local Studies Librarian at Sheffield Central Library and the staff at Sheffield Central Library, the staff of the British Library and the staff of the British Library Newspaper Archive at Colindale.