Charles Peace (May 14, 1832 - February 25, 1879) was a notorious British burglar and murderer, whose somewhat remarkable life—though terrifying at the time—later spawned dozens of romanticized novels and films.
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2 Career in London 3 Trial and Execution 4 References |
Charles Peace told a clergyman who had an interview with him in prison shortly before his execution that he hoped that, after he was gone, he would be entirely forgotten by everybody and his name never mentioned again.
Charley Peace stands out as the one great personality among English criminals of the nineteenth century. From the literary point of view Peace was unfortunate even in the hour of his notoriety. In the very year of his trial and execution, the Annual Register was seized with a fit of respectability from which it has never recovered: it ceased to give the excellent summaries of celebrated trials which for many years had been a feature of its volumes. Of the trial and execution of Peace the volume for 1879 gives but the barest
record.
Charles Peace was not born of criminal parents. His father, John Peace, began work as a collier at Burton-on-Trent. Losing his leg in an accident, he joined Wombwell's wild beast show and soon acquired some reputation for his remarkable powers as a tamer of wild animals. About this time Peace married at Rotherham the daughter of a surgeon in the Navy. On the death of a favourite son to whom he had imparted successfully the secrets of his wonderful control over wild beasts of every kind, Mr. Peace gave up lion-taming and settled in Sheffield as a shoemaker.
On May 14, 1832, there was born to John Peace in Sheffield a son, Charles, the youngest of his family of four.
He met with an accident in 1846 at some rolling mills, in which he was employed? A piece of red hot steel entered his leg just below the knee, and after eighteen months spent in the Sheffield Infirmary he left it a cripple for life. About this time Peace's father died. Of the circumstances that first led Peace to the commission of crime we know nothing. His first exploit was the stealing of an old gentleman's gold watch, but he soon passed to greater things. On October 26, 1851, the house of a lady living in Sheffield was broken into and a quantity of her property stolen. Some of it was found in the possession of Peace, and he was arrested. Owing no doubt to a good character for honesty given him by his late employer Peace was let off lightly with a month's imprisonment.
After his release Peace would seem to have devoted himself for a time to music, for which he had always a genuine passion. He taught himself to play tunes on a violin with one string, and at entertainments which he attended was described as "the modern Paganini."
Peace was at this time known as a "portico-thief," that is to say one who contrived to get himself on to the portico of a house and from that point of vantage make his entrance into the premises. During the year 1854 the houses of a number of well-to-do residents in and about Sheffield were entered after this fashion, and much valuable property stolen. Peace was arrested, and with him a girl with whom he was keeping company, and his sister, Mary Ann, at that time Mrs. Neil.
On October 20, 1854, Peace was sentenced at Doncaster Sessions to four years' penal servitude, and the ladies who had been found in possession of the stolen property to six months apiece. Mrs. Neil did not long survive her misfortune.
On coming out of prison in 1858, Peace resumed his fiddling, but it was now no more than a musical accompaniment to burglary. is operations extended beyond the bounds of his native town. The house of a lady living in Manchester was broken into on the night of August 11, 1859, and a substantial booty carried away. This was found the following day concealed in a hole in a field. The police left it undisturbed and awaited the return of the robber. When Peace and another man arrived to carry it away, the officers sprang out on them. Peace, after nearly killing the officer who was trying to arrest him, would have made his escape, had not other policemen come to the rescue. For this crime Peace was sentenced to six years' penal servitude.
He was released from prison again in 1864, and returned to Sheffield. Things did not prosper with him there, and he went back to Manchester. In 1866 he was caught in the act of burglary
at a house in Lower Broughton. He admitted that at the time he was fuddled with whisky; otherwise his capture would have been more difficult and dangerous. A sentence of eight years' penal servitude at Manchester Assizes on December 3, 1866, emphasised this wholesome lesson.
Whilst serving this sentence Peace emulated Jack Sheppard in a daring attempt to escape from Wakefield prison. Being engaged on some repairs, he smuggled a small ladder into his cell. With the help of a saw made out of some tin, he cut a hole through the ceiling of the cell, and was about to get out on to the roof when a warder came in. Peace knocked him down, ran along the wall of the prison, fell off on the inside owing to the looseness of the bricks, slipped into the governor's house where he changed his clothes, and there, for an hour and a half, waited for an opportunity to escape. He was recaptured in the governor's bedroom. The prisons at Millbank, Chatham and Gibraltar were all visited by Peace before his final release in 1872. At Chatham he is said to have taken part in a mutiny and been flogged for his pains.
On his liberation from prison Peace rejoined his family in Sheffield. He was now a husband and father. In 1859 he had taken to wife a widow of the name of Hannah Ward. The next two or three years of Peace's career would seem to have been spent in an endeavour to earn an honest living by picture framing, a trade in which Peace, with that skill he displayed in whatever he turned his hand to, was remarkably proficient. In Sheffield his children attended the Sunday School. Though he never went to church himself, he was an avowed believer in both God and the devil. As he said, however, that he feared neither, no great reliance could be placed on the restraining force of such a belief to a man of Peace's daring spirit. There was only too good reason to fear that little John Charles' period of waiting would be a prolonged one.
In 1875 Peace moved from Sheffield itself to the suburb of Darnall. Here Peace made the acquaintance of a Mr. and Mrs. Dyson. Dyson was a civil engineer. He had spent some years in America, where, in 1866, he married. Towards the end of 1873 or the beginning of 1874, he came to England with his wife, and obtained a post on the North Eastern Railway. His engagement with the North Eastern Railway terminated abruptly owing to Dyson's failing to appear at a station to which he had been sent on duty.
Peace had got to know the Dysons, first as a tradesman, then as a friend. To what degree of intimacy he attained with Mrs. Dyson it is difficult to determine. In an interview with the Vicar of Darnall a few days before his execution, Peace asserted positively that Mrs. Dyson had been his mistress. Mrs. Dyson as strenuously denied the fact. According to Mrs. Dyson, Peace was a demon, "beyond the power of even a Shakespeare to paint," who persecuted her with his attentions, and, when he found them rejected, devoted all his malignant energies to making the lives of her husband and herself unbearable. According to Peace's story he was a slighted lover who had been treated by Mrs. Dyson with contumely and ingratitude.
Sometime about the end of June, 1876, Dyson threw over into the garden of Peace's house a card, on which was written: "Charles Peace is requested not to interfere with my family." On July 1 Peace met Mr. Dyson in the street, and tried to trip him up. The same night he came up to Mrs. Dyson, who was talking with some friends, and threatened in coarse and violent language to blow out her brains and those of her husband. In consequence of these incidents Mr. Dyson took out a summons against Peace, for whose apprehension a warrant was issued.
Peace left Darnall for Hull, where he opened an eating-shop, presided over by Mrs. Peace. From Hull he went to Manchester on business, and in Manchester he committed his first murder. Entering the grounds of a gentleman's home at Whalley Range, about midnight on August 1, he was seen by two policemen. One of them, Constable Cock, intercepted him as he was trying to escape.
Peace took out his revolver and warned Cock to stand back. The policeman came on. Peace fired, but deliberately wide of him. Cock, undismayed, drew out his truncheon, and made for the burglar. Peace, desperate, determined not to be caught, fired again, this time fatally. Two brothers, John and William Habron, living near the scene of the murder, were arrested and charged with the killing of Constable Cock.
To get away from Peace the Dysons determined to leave Darnall. They took a house at Banner Cross, another suburb of Sheffield, and on October 29 moved into their new home. One of the first persons Mrs. Dyson saw on arriving at Banner Cross was Peace himself. "You see," he said, "I am here to annoy you, and I'll annoy you wherever you go." Later, Peace and a friend passed Mr. Dyson in the street. Peace took out his revolver. "If he offers to come near me," said he, "I will make him stand back."
For the moment Peace was interested more immediately in the fate of John and William Habron, who were about to stand their trial for the murder of Constable Cock at Whalley Range. The trial commenced at the Manchester Assizes before Mr. Justice Lindley on Monday, November 27. John Habron was acquitted.
The judge was clearly not impressed by the strength of the case for the prosecution. In spite, however, of the summing-up the jury convicted William Habron, but recommended him to mercy. The judge without comment sentenced him to death. Two days before the day of execution Habron was granted a respite, and later his sentence commuted to one of penal servitude for life.
Peace was present in court during the two days that the trial lasted. No sooner had he heard the innocent man condemned to death than he left Manchester for Sheffield. The next morning, Wednesday, the 29th, to his mother's surprise Peace walked into her house. The afternoon of that day Peace spent in a public-house at Ecclesall, entertaining the customers by playing tunes on a poker suspended from a piece of strong string, from which he made music by beating it with a short stick.
A little after eight o'clock Peace was watching the Dysons' house from a passage-way that led
up to the backs of the houses on the terrace. He saw Mrs. Dyson come out of the back door, and go to an outhouse some few yards distant. He waited. As soon as she opened the door to come out, Mrs. Dyson found herself confronted by Peace, holding his revolver in his hand. "Speak," he said, "or I'll fire." Mrs. Dyson in terror went back. In the meantime Dyson, hearing the disturbance, came quickly into the yard. Peace made for the passage. Dyson followed him. Peace fired once, the shot striking the lintel of the passage doorway. Dyson undaunted, still pursued. Then Peace, according to his custom, fired a second time, and Dyson fell, shot through the temple. Mrs. Dyson, who had come into the yard again on hearing the first shot, rushed to her husband's side, calling out: "Murder! You villain! You have shot my husband." Two hours later Dyson was dead.
After firing the second shot Peace had hurried down; the passage into the roadway. He stood there hesitating a moment, until the cries of Mrs. Dyson warned him of his danger. He crossed the road, climbed a wall, and made his way back to Sheffield. He then walked to Attercliffe Railway Station, and took a ticket for Beverley. Instead of going to Beverley that night he got out of the train at Normanton and went on to York. He spent the remainder of the night in the station yard. He took the first train in the morning for Beverley, and from there travelled via Collingham to Hull. He went straight to the eating-house kept by his wife, and demanded some dinner. He had hardly commenced to eat it when he heard two detectives come into the front shop and ask his wife if a man called Charles Peace was lodging with her. Mrs. Peace said that that was her husband's name, but that she had not seen him for two months. The detectives proposed to search the house. Some customers in the shop told them that if they had any business with Mrs. Peace, they ought to go round to the side door. The polite susceptibility of these customers gave Peace time to slip up to a
back room, get out on to an adjoining roof, and hide behind a chimney stack, where he remained until the detectives had finished an exhaustive search. So importunate were the officers in Hull that once again during the day Peace had to repeat this experience. For some three weeks, however, he contrived to remain in Hull. He shaved the grey beard he was wearing at the time of Dyson's murder, dyed his hair, put on a pair of spectacles, and for the first time made use of his singular power of contorting his features in such a way as to change altogether the character of his face.
The hue and cry after him was unremitting. There was a price of £100 on his head, and the following description of him was circulated by the police:
"Charles Peace wanted for murder on the night of the 29th inst. He is thin and slightly built, from fifty-five to sixty years of age. Five feet four inches or five feet high; grey (nearly
white) hair, beard and whiskers. He lacks use of three fingers of left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly as though his tongue were too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster. He is a picture-frame maker. He occasionally cleans and repairs clocks and watches and sometimes deals in oleographs, engravings and pictures. He has been in penal servitude for burglary in Manchester. He has lived in Manchester, Salford, and Liverpool and Hull."
This description was altered later and Peace's age given as forty-six. As a matter of fact he was only forty-four at this time, but he looked very much older. Peace had lost one of his fingers. He said that it had been shot off by a man with whom he had quarrelled, but it was believed to be more likely that he had himself shot it off accidentally in handling one of his revolvers. It was to conceal this obvious means of identification that Peace made himself the false arm which he was in the habit of wearing. This was of gutta percha, with a hole down the middle of it into which he passed his arm; at the end was a steel plate to which was fixed a hook; by means of this hook Peace could wield a fork and do other dexterous feats.
During the closing days of the year 1876 and the beginning of 1877, Peace was perpetually on the move. He left Hull for Doncaster, and from there travelled to London. On arriving at King's Cross he took the underground railway to Paddington, and from there a train to Bristol. At the beginning of January he left Bristol for Bath, and from Bath, in the company of a sergeant of police, travelled by way of Didcot to Oxford. From Oxford he went to Birmingham, where he stayed four or five days, then a week in Derby, and on January 9th he arrived in Nottingham.
Here Peace found a convenient lodging at the house of one, Mrs. Adamson, a lady who received stolen goods. It was at her house that Peace met the woman who was to become his mistress and subsequently betray his identity to the police. Her maiden name was Susan Gray. With characteristic insistence Peace declared his passion by threatening to shoot her if she did not become his.
In the June of 1877 Peace was nearly detected in stealingsome blankets, but by flourishing his
revolver he contrived to get away, and, soon after, returned for a season to Hull. Here Mrs. Thompson (Susan Gray) and he lodged at the house of a sergeant of police. Peace had some narrow escapes, but with the help of his revolver, and on one occasion the pusillanimity of a policeman, he succeeded in getting away in safety. The bills offering a reward for his capture were still to be seen in the shop windows of Hull, so after a brief but brilliant adventure Peace and Mrs. Thompson returned to Nottingham.
Here, as the result of further successful exploits, Peace found a reward of £50 offered for his capture. On one occasion the detectives came into the room where Peace and his mistress were in bed. After politely expressing his surprise at seeing "Mrs. Bailey" in such a situation, one of the officers asked Peace his name. He gave it as John Ward, and described himself as a hawker of spectacles. He refused to get up and dress in the presence of the detectives who were obliging enough to go downstairs and wait his convenience. Peace seized the opportunity to slip out of the house and get away to another part of the town. From there he sent a note to Mrs. Thompson insisting on her joining him. He soon after left Nottingham, paid another brief visit to Hull, but finding that his wife's shop was still frequented by the police, whom he designated freely as "a lot of fools," determined to quit the North for good and begin life afresh in the ampler and safer field of London.
Peace's career in London extended over nearly two years, but they were years of copious achievement. From No. 25 Stangate Street, Lambeth, the dealer in musical instruments, as Peace now described himself, sallied forth night after night, and in Camberwell and other parts of South London reaped the reward of skill and vigilance in entering other people's houses and carrying off their property. Though in the beginning there appeared to be but few musical instruments in Stangate Street to justify his reputed business, "Mr. Thompson," as he now called himself, explained that he was not wholly dependent on his business, as Mrs. Thompson "had money."
Peace found himself able to remove from Lambeth to Crane Court, Greenwich, and before long to take a couple of adjoining houses in Billingsgate Street in the same district. These he furnished in style. In one he lived with Mrs. Thompson, while Mrs. Peace and her son, Willie, were persuaded after some difficulty to leave Hull and come to London to dwell in the other.
But Greenwich was not to the taste of Mrs. Thompson. To gratify her wish, Peace, some time in May, 1877, removed the whole party to a house, No. 5, East Terrace, Evelina Road, Peckham. This now famous house in Peckham was of the ordinary type of suburban villa, with basement, ground floor, and one above; there were steps up to the front door, and a bow window to the front sitting-room. A garden at the back of the house ran down to the Chatham and Dover railway line.
Everything confirmed Mr. Thompson's description of himself as a gentleman of independent means with a taste for scientific inventions. In association with a person of the name of Brion, Peace did, as a fact, patent an invention for raising sunken vessels, and it is said that in pursuing their project, the two men had obtained an interview with Mr. Plimsoll at the House of Commons.
At the time of his final capture Peace was engaged on other inventions, among them a smoke helmet for firemen, an improved brush for washing railway carriages, and a form of hydraulic
tank. He attended regularly the Sunday evening services at the parish church, and it must have been a matter of anxious concern to dear Mr. Thompson that during his stay in Peckham the vicarage was broken into by a burglar and an unsuccessful attempt made to steal the communion plate which was kept there.
Night after night, with few intervals of repose, he would sally forth on a plundering adventure. If the job was a distant one, he would take his pony and trap. Besides the pony and trap, Peace would take with him on these expeditions a violin case containing his tools; at other times they would be stuffed into odd pockets made for the purpose in his trousers. These tools consisted of ten in all--a skeleton key, two pick-locks, a centre-bit, gimlet, gouge, chisel, vice jemmy and knife; a portable ladder, a revolver and life preserver completed his equipment.
Peace's activities extended as far as Southampton,
Portsmouth and Southsea; but the bulk of his work was done in
Blackheath, Streatham, Denmark Hill, and other suburbs of South
London. His career as a burglar
in London lasted from the beginning of the year 1877 until
October, 1878. On one occasion a detective who had known Peace in
Yorkshire met him in Farringdon Road, and pursued him up the
steps of Holborn Viaduct, but just as the officer, at the top of
the steps, reached out and was on the point of grabbing his man,
Peace with lightning agility slipped through his fingers and
disappeared. During the last
three months of Peace's career, Blackheath was agog at the number
of successful burglaries committed in the very midst of its
peaceful residents.
About two o'clock in the morning of October 10, 1878, a police
constable, Robinson by name, saw a light appear suddenly in a
window at the back of a house in St. John's Park, Blackheath, the
residence of a Mr. Burness. One of them
went round to the front of the house and rang the bell, the other
waited in the road outside, while Robinson stayed in the garden
at the back. No sooner had the bell rung than Robinson saw a man
come from the dining-room window which opened on to the garden,
and make quickly down the path. Robinson followed him. The man
turned; "Keep back!" he said, "or by God I'll shoot you!"
Robinson came on. The man fired three shots from a revolver, all
of which passed close to the officer's head. Robinson made
another rush for him, the man fired another shot. It missed its
mark. The constable closed with his would-be assassin, and
struck him in the face. "I'll settle you this time," cried the
man, and fired a fifth shot, which went through Robinson's
arm just above the elbow. But, in spite of his wound, the
officer held his prisoner, succeeded in flinging him to
the ground, and catching hold of the revolver that hung round the
burglar's wrist, hit him on the head with it. Immediately after
the other two constables came to the help of their colleague, and
the struggling desperado was secured.
When next
morning Peace appeared before the magistrate at Greenwich Police
Court he was not described by name--he had refused to give any--
but as a half-caste about sixty years of age, of repellent
aspect. He was remanded for a week. The first clue to the identity of their prisoner was afforded by a letter which Peace,
unable apparently to endure the loneliness and suspense of prison
any longer, wrote to his co-inventor Mr. Brion. It is dated
November 2, and is signed "John Ward." Peace was disturbed at
the absence of all news from his family. Immediately after his
arrest, the home in Peckham had been broken up. Mrs. Thompson
and Mrs. Peace, taking with them some large boxes, had gone first
to the house of a sister of Mrs. Thompson's in Nottingham, and a
day or two later Mrs. Peace had left Nottingham for Sheffield.
There she went to a house in Hazel Road, occupied by her son-in-
law Bolsover, a working collier.
The honour and profit of putting the police on the right scent were claimed by
Mrs. Thompson. To her Peace had contrived to get a letter
conveyed about the same time that he wrote to Mr. Brion. It is
addressed to his "dearly beloved wife." But Peace was leaning on a
broken reed. Loyalty does not appear to have been Susan
Thompson's strong point. Since, after Peace's arrest, she had been in possession
of a certain amount of stolen property, it was easier no doubt to
persuade her to be frank.
On February 5, 1879, the day after
Peace had been sentenced to death for the murder of Dyson, Mrs.
Thompson appealed to the Treasury for the reward of £100
offered for Peace's conviction. She based her application on
information which she said she had supplied to the police
officers in charge of the case on November 5 in the previous
year, the very day on which Peace had first written to her from
Newgate.
The police scouted the idea that any revelation of hers had
assisted them to identify "John Ward" with Charles Peace. They
said that it was information given them in Peckham, no doubt by
Mr. Brion, who, on learning the deplorable character of his
coadjutor, had placed himself unreservedly in their hands, which
first set them on the track. From Peckham they went to
Nottingham, where they no doubt came across Sue Thompson, and
thence to Sheffield, where on November 6 they visited the house
in Hazel Road, occupied by Mrs. Peace and her daughter, Mrs.
Bolsover. There they found two of the boxes which Mrs. Peace had
brought with her from Peckham. Besides stolen property, these
boxes contained evidence of the identity of Ward with Peace. A
constable who had known Peace well in Sheffield was sent to
Newgate, and taken into the yard where the prisoners awaiting
trial were exercising. As they passed round, the constable
pointed to the fifth man: "That's Peace," he said, "I'd know him
anywhere." The man left the ranks and, coming up to the
constable, asked earnestly, "What do you want me for?" but the
Governor ordered him to go on with his walk.
It was as John Ward, alias Charles Peace, that Peace, on November 19, 1878, was put on his trial for burglary and the attempted murder of Police Constable Robinson, at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Hawkins. His age was given in the calendar as sixty, though Peace was actually forty-six. The evidence against the prisoner was clear enough.
Peace's assumption of pitiable senility, sustained throughout the trial, though it imposed on Sir Henry Hawkins, failed to melt his heart. He told Peace that he did not believe his statement that he had fired the pistol merely to frighten the constable; had not Robinson guarded his head with his arm he would have been wounded fatally, and Peace condemned to death. Notwithstanding his age, Mr. Justice Hawkins felt it his duty to sentence him to penal servitude for life.
With as little delay as possible he was called on to answer to the murder of Arthur Dyson. The widow of the murdered man had been found in America, whither she had returned after her
husband's death. On January 17, 1879, Peace was taken from Pentonville prison, where he was serving his sentence, and conveyed by an early morning train to Sheffield. There at the Town Hall he appeared before the stipendiary magistrate, and was charged with the murder of Arthur Dyson. Mrs. Dyson's cross-examination was adjourned to the next hearing, and Peace was taken back to London. On the 22nd, the day of the second hearing in Sheffield, an enormous crowd had assembled outside the Town Hall. The stipendiary came into the court about a quarter past ten and stated that Peace had attempted to escape that morning on the journey from London to Sheffield, and that in consequence of his injuries the case would be adjourned for eight days.
Peace had left King's Cross by the
5.15 train that morning, due to arrive at Sheffield at 8.45.
He kept making excuses for leaving the carriage
whenever the train stopped. To obviate this nuisance the two
warders, in whose charge he was, had provided themselves with
little bags which Peace could use when he wished and then throw
out of the window. Just after the train passed Worksop, Peace
asked for one of the bags. When the window was lowered to allow
the bag to be thrown away, Peace with lightning agility took a
flying leap through it. One of the warders caught him by the
left foot. Peace, hanging from the carriage, grasped the
footboard with his hands and kept kicking the warder as hard as
he could with his right foot. The other warder, unable to get to
the window to help his colleague, was making vain efforts to stop
the train by pulling the communication cord. For two miles the
train ran on, Peace struggling desperately to escape. At last he
succeeded in kicking off his left shoe, and dropped on to the
line. The train ran on another mile until, with the assistance
of some gentlemen in other carriages, the warders were able to
get it pulled up. They immediately hurried back along the line,
and there, near a place called Kineton Park, they found their
prisoner lying in the footway, apparently unconscious and
bleeding from a severe wound in the scalp. A slow train from
Sheffield stopped to pick up the injured man. As he was lifted
into the guard's van, he asked them to cover him up as he was
cold.
On arriving at Sheffield, Peace was taken to the Police
Station and there made as comfortable as possible in one of the
cells. Even then he had energy enough to be troublesome over
taking the brandy ordered for him by the surgeon, until one of
the officers told "Charley" they would have none of his hanky-
panky, and he had got to take it. "All right," said Peace, "give
me a minute."
The doctor pronounced him fit to appear for his
second examination before the magistrate on January 30. To avoid
excitement, both on the part of the prisoner and the public, the
court sat in one of the corridors of the Town Hall. The scene is
described as dismal, dark and cheerless. The proceedings took
place by candlelight, and Peace, who was seated in an armchair,
complained frequently of the cold. At other times he moaned and
groaned and protested against the injustice with which he was
being treated. But the absence of any audience rather dashed the
effect of his laments.
The most interesting part of the proceedings was the cross-
examination of Mrs. Dyson by Mr. Clegg, the prisoner's solicitor.
Its purpose was to show that Mrs. Dyson had been on more intimate
terms with Peace than she was ready to admit, and that Dyson had
been shot by Peace in the course of a struggle, in which the
former had been the aggressor.
In the first part of his task Mr. Clegg met with some
success. Mrs. Dyson, whose memory was certainly eccentric--she
could not, she said, remember the year in which she had been
married--was obliged to admit that she had been in the habit of
going to Peace's house, that she had been alone with him to
public-houses and places of entertainment, and that she and Peace
had been photographed together during the summer fair at
Sheffield. She could not "to her knowledge" recollect having
told the landlord of a public-house to charge her drink to Peace.
A great deal of Mrs. Dyson's cross-examination turned on a bundle
of letters that had been found near the scene of Dyson's murder
on the morning following the crime. These letters consisted for
the most part of notes, written in pencil on scraps of paper,
purporting to have been sent from Mrs. Dyson to Peace. In many
of them she asks for money to get drink, others refer to opportunities for their meetings in the absence of Dyson; there are
kind messages to members of Peace's family, his wife and
daughter, and urgent directions to Peace to hold his tongue and
not give ground for suspicion as to their relations. This bundle
of letters contained also the card which Dyson had thrown into
Peace's garden requesting him not to interfere with his family.
According to the theory of the defence, these letters had been
written by Mrs. Dyson to Peace, and went to prove the intimacy of
their relations. At the inquest after her husband's murder, Mrs.
Dyson had been questioned by the coroner about these letters.
She denied that she had ever written to Peace; in fact, she said,
she "never did write." It was stated that Dyson himself had seen
the letters, and declared them to be forgeries written by Peace
or members of his family for the purpose of annoyance. Nevertheless, before the Sheffield magistrate Mr. Clegg thought it his
duty to cross-examine Mrs. Dyson closely as to their authorship.
He asked her to write out a passage from one of them: "You
can give me something as a keepsake if you like, but I don't like
to be covetous, and to take them from your wife and daughter.
Love to all!" Mrs. Dyson refused to admit any likeness between
what she had written and the handwriting of the letter in question. Another passage ran: "Will see you as soon as I possibly
can. I think it would be easier after you move; he won't watch
so. The r--g fits the little finger. Many thanks and love to--
Jennie (Peace's daughter Jane). I will tell you what I thought
of when I see you about arranging matters. Excuse this
scribbling." In answer to Mr. Clegg, Mrs. Dyson admitted that
Peace had given her a ring, which she had worn for a short time
on her little finger.
Another letter ran: "If you have a note for me, send now whilst
he is out; but you must not venture, for he is watching, and you
cannot be too careful. Hope your foot is better. I went to
Sheffield yesterday, but I could not see you anywhere. Were you
out? Love to Jane." Mrs. Dyson denied that she had known of an
accident which Peace had had to his foot at this time. In spite
of the ruling of the magistrate that Mr. Clegg had put forward
quite enough, if true, to damage Mrs. Dyson's credibility, he
continued to press her as to her authorship of these notes and
letters, but Mrs. Dyson was firm in her repudiation of them. She
was equally firm in denying that anything in the nature of a
struggle had taken place between Peace and her husband previous
to his murder.
At the conclusion of Mrs. Dyson's evidence the prisoner was
committed to take his trial at the Leeds Assizes, which commenced
the week following. Peace, who had groaned and moaned and
constantly interrupted the proceedings, protested his innocence,
and complained that his witnesses had not been called. The
apprehension with which this daring malefactor was regarded by
the authorities is shown by this clandestine hearing of his
case in a cold corridor of the Town Hall, and the rapidity with
which his trial followed on his committal. There is an
appearance almost of precipitation in the haste with which Peace
was bustled to his doom. After his committal he was taken to
Wakefield Prison, and a few days later to Armley Jail, there to
await his trial.
This began on February 4, and lasted one day. Mr. Justice Lopes,
who had tried vainly to persuade the Manchester Grand Jury to
throw out the bill in the case of the brothers Habron, was the
presiding judge. Mr. Campbell Foster, Q.C., led for the
prosecution. Peace was defended by Mr. Frank Lockwood, then
rising into that popular success at the bar which some fifteen
years later made him Solicitor-General, and but for his premature
death would have raised him to even higher honours in his
profession.
In addressing the jury, both Mr. Campbell Foster and Mr. Lockwood
took occasion to protest against the recklessness with which the
press of the day, both high and low, had circulated stories and
rumours about the interesting convict. As early as November in
1878 one leading London daily newspaper had said that "it was now
established beyond doubt that the burglar captured by Police
Constable Robinson was one and the same as the Banner Cross
murderer." Since then, as the public excitement grew and the
facts of Peace's extraordinary career came to light, the press
had responded loyally to the demands of the greedy lovers of
sensation, and piled fiction on fact with generous profusion.
"Never," said Mr. Lockwood, "in the whole course of his
experience--and he defied any of his learned friends to quote an
experience--had there been such an attempt made on the part of
those who should be most careful of all others to preserve the
liberties of their fellowmen and to preserve the dignity of
the tribunals of justice to determine the guilt of a man." Peace
exclaimed "Hear, hear!" as Mr. Lockwood went on to say that "for
the sake of snatching paltry pence from the public, these persons
had wickedly sought to prejudice the prisoner's life." Allowing
for Mr. Lockwood's zeal as an advocate, there can be no question
that, had Peace chosen or been in a position to take proceedings,
more than one newspaper had at this time laid itself open to
prosecution for contempt of Court. The Times was not far wrong
in saying that, since Muller murdered Mr. Briggs on the North
London Railway and the poisonings of William Palmer, no criminal
case had created such excitement as that of Charles Peace. The
fact that property seemed to be no more sacred to him than life
aggravated in a singular degree the resentment of a commercial
people.
The first witness called by the prosecution was Mrs. Dyson. She
described how on the night of November 29, 1876, she had come out
of the outhouse in the yard at the back of her house, and found
herself confronted by Peace holding a revolver; how he said:
"Speak, or I'll fire!" and the sequence of events already related
up to the moment when Dyson fell, shot in the temple.
In spite of Mr. Lockwood's questions, she
maintained that, though her husband may have attempted to get
hold of Peace, he did not succeed in doing so. As she was
the only witness to the shooting there was no one to contradict
her statement.
Mrs. Dyson
admitted that in the spring of 1876 her husband had objected to
her friendship with Peace, and that nevertheless, in the
following summer, she and Peace had been photographed together at
the Sheffield fair. She made a vain attempt to escape from such
an admission by trying to shift the occasion of the summer fair
to the previous year, 1875, but Mr. Lockwood put it to her that
she had not come to Darnall, where she first met Peace, until the
end of that year. Finally he drove her to say that she could not
remember when she came to Darnall, whether in 1873, 1874, 1875,
or 1876. She admitted that she had accepted a ring from Peace,
but could not remember whether she had shown it to her husband.
She had been perhaps twice with Peace to the Marquis of Waterford
public-house, and once to the Star Music Hall. She could not
swear one way or the other whether she had charged to Peace's
account drink consumed by her at an inn in Darnall called the
Half-way House. Confronted with a little girl and a man, whom
Mr. Lockwood suggested she had employed to carry notes to Peace,
Mrs. Dyson said that these were merely receipts for pictures
which he had framed for her. On the day before her husband's
murder, Mrs. Dyson was at the Stag Hotel at Sharrow with a little
boy belonging to a neighbour. A man followed her in and sat
beside her, and afterwards followed her out. In answer to Mr.
Lockwood, Mrs. Dyson would "almost swear" the man was not Peace;
he had spoken to her, but she could not remember whether she had
spoken to him or not. She denied that this man had said to her
that he would come and see her the next night. As the result of
a parting shot Mr. Lockwood obtained from Mrs. Dyson a reluctant admission that she had been "slightly inebriated" at the
Half-way House in Darnall, but had not to her knowledge" been
turned out of the house on that account.
The evidence of Mrs. Dyson was followed by that of five persons
who had either seen Peace in the neighbourhood of Banner Cross
Terrace on the night of the murder, or heard the screams and
shots that accompanied it. Another witness was a labourer named Brassington. He was a
stranger to Peace, but stated that about eight o'clock on the
night of the murder a man came up to him outside the Banner Cross
Hotel, a few yards from Dyson's house. He was standing under a
gas lamp, and it was a bright moonlight night. The man asked
him if he knew of any strange people who had come to live in the
neighbourhood. Brassington answered that he did not. The man
then produced a bundle of letters which he asked Brassington to
read. But Brassington declined, as reading was not one of his
accomplishments. The man then said that "he would make it a warm
'un for those strange folks before morning--he would shoot both
of them," and went off in the direction of Dyson's house.
Brassington swore positively that Peace was the stranger who had
accosted him that night, and Mr. Lockwood failed to shake him in
his evidence.
Evidence was then given as to threats uttered by Peace against
the Dysons in the July of 1876, and as to his arrest at
Blackheath in the October of 1878. The revolver taken from Peace
that night was produced, and it was shown that the rifling of the
bullet extracted from Dyson's head was the same as that of the
bullet fired from the revolver carried by Peace at the time of
his capture.
Mr. Campbell Foster wanted to put in as evidence the card that
Dyson had flung into Peace's garden at Darnall requesting him not
to interfere with his family. The Judge ruled that
both the card and the letters were inadmissible, as irrelevant to
the issue; Mr. Lockwood had, he said, very properly cross-
examined Mrs. Dyson on these letters to test her credibility, but
he was bound by her answers and could not contradict her by
introducing them as evidence in the case.
Mr. Lockwood in his address to the jury did his best to persuade
them that the death of Dyson was the accidental result of a
struggle between Peace and himself. He repudiated the
suggestion of Mr. Foster that the persons he had confronted with
Mrs. Dyson in the course of his cross-examination had been hired
for a paltry sum to come into court and lie.
Mr. Justice Lopes in summing up described as an "absolute
surmise" the theory of the accidental discharge of the pistol.
He asked the jury to take Peace's revolver in their hands and try
the trigger, so as to see for themselves whether it was likely to
go off accidentally or not. He pointed out that the pistol
produced might not have been the pistol used at Banner Cross; at
the same time the bullet fired in November, 1876, bore marks such
as would have been produced had it been fired from the pistol
taken from Peace at Blackheath in October, 1878. He said that
Mr. Lockwood had been perfectly justified in his attempt to
discredit the evidence of Mrs. Dyson, but the case did not rest
on her evidence alone. In her evidence as to the threats
uttered by Peace in July, 1876, Mrs. Dyson was corroborated by
three other witnesses. In the Judge's opinion it was clearly
proved that no struggle or scuffle had taken place before the
murder. If the defence, he concluded, rested on no solid foundation, then the jury must do their duty to the community at large
and by the oath they had sworn.
It was a quarter past seven when the jury retired. Ten minutes
later they came back into court with a verdict of guilty. Asked
if he had anything to say, Peace in a faint voice replied, "It is
no use my saying anything." The Judge, declining very properly
to aggravate the prisoner's feelings by "a recapitulation of any
portion of the details of what I fear, I can only call your
criminal career," passed on him sentence of death. Peace
accepted his fate with composure.
In obedience to the wishes of his family, Peace had refrained
from seeing Sue Thompson. This was at some sacrifice, for he
wished very much to see her and to the last, though he knew that
she had betrayed him, sent her affectionate and forgiving
messages. These were transmitted to Sue by Mr. Brion. This
disingenuous gentleman was a fellow-applicant with Sue to the
Treasury for pecunary recognition of his efforts in bringing
about the identification of Peace, and furnishing the police with
information as to the convict's disposal of his stolen property.
In his zeal he had even gone so far as to play the role of an
accomplice of Peace, and by this means discovered a place in
Petticoat Lane where the burglar got rid of some of his booty.
Peace had one act of atonement to discharge more urgent than
displaying Christian forbearance towards ignoble associates.
That was the righting of William Habron, who was now serving the
third year of his life sentence for the murder of Constable Cock
at Whalley Range. Peace sent for the Governor of the jail, and drew a plan of the place where Cock had been shot, and made a full confession of his own guilt.
"Lion-hearted I've lived,
And when my time comes
Lion-hearted I'll die."
Though fond of repeating this piece of doggerel, Peace would have
been the last man to have attributed to himself all those
qualities associated symbolically with the lion.
A few days before his execution Peace was visited in his prison
by Mr. Littlewood, the Vicar of Darnall. Peace pointed out to him that if he had intended to
murder Dyson, that he would have set about it
in quite a different and more secret way. Peace then repeated to Mr. Littlewood his confession of the
killing of Constable Cock, and his desire that Habron should be
set free. William Habron was subsequently given a free pardon and
£800 by way of compensation.
Tuesday, February 25, was the day fixed for the execution of
Peace. When, the day before his execution, Peace was visited for the
last time by his wife, his stepson, his daughter, Mrs. Bolsover,
and her husband, he was in much better spirits. He asked his
visitors to restrain themselves from displays of emotion, as he
felt very happy and did not wish to be disturbed. He advised
them to sell or exhibit for money certain works of art of his own
devising. Among them was a design in paper for a monument to be
placed over his grave. The design is elaborate but well and
ingeniously executed; in the opinion of Frith, the painter, it
showed "the true feeling of an artist." It is somewhat in the
style of the Albert Memorial, and figures of angels are prominent
in the scheme.
The time had come to say good-bye for the last time. Peace asked
his weeping relatives whether they had anything more that they
wished to ask him. Mrs. Peace reminded him that he had promised
to pray with them at the last. Peace, ever ready, knelt with
them and prayed for half an hour. He then shook hands with them,
prayed for and blessed each one singly, and himself gave way to
tears as they left his presence. To his wife as she departed
Peace gave a funeral card of his own designing. It ran:
Early years
Career in London
Trial and Execution
The same day there arrived in the prison William Marwood the public executioner, and inventor of the "long drop" (he was a shoemaker at Horncastle, in Lincolnshire). The day of February 25 broke bitterly cold. Peace ate a hearty breakfast and awaited the coming of the
executioner with calm. After the cap had been placed over his head Peace asked twice very sharply, as a man who expected to be obeyed, for a drink of
water. But his request was not complied with. He died
instantaneously and was buried in Armley Jail.