Crime Centenaries in 1928 The Mystery of the Red Barn

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 14 July 1928, Page 24

Crime Centenaries in 1928 The Mystery of the Red Barn

HERE “crime centenarWm)) * es " are concerned, ’ 1928 must be regarded Bfy as a good vintage year. pjlW The list includes that

of Captain Montgomery (one of Wellington’s officers, who committed suicide in Newgate on the mitted suicide in Newgate on the morning he was to have gone to the gallows for forging a £lO note); William Corder (of “Red Barn” infamy); Rowland Stephenson, M.P. (hospital treasurer and banker, who embezzled a vast sum, and fled to America); Joseph Huuton (one of the few Quakers to be condemned to death); and (he unspeakable William Burke (who, with his partner, Hare, began his abominable career of “trafficking” in dead bodies, and then, when the supply fell off, proceeded to procure “subjects” from among the living). A sinister roll-call.

In chronological sequence, the iirst of these different cases is that of Captain Montgomery. It is a specially sad one, for Montgomery was an ex-officer, the son of an Irish magistrate, and had served with distinction in the Peninsular. On being “demobbed,” he drifted about London “living on his wits.” It was a poor “living,” and, on a bright May morning he found himself at the Old Bailey, convicted of swindling a silversmith, from whom he had obtained goods by means of a counterfeit bank note.

This was a hanging matter then, and sentence of death was passed. But Montgomery did not go to the gallows. On what was to have been the morning of his appearance on the scaffold, the Newgate turnkey found him lying dead -in the condemned cell, a flask of prussic acid clenched between his stiffened fingers. “It would almost look,” said the coroner. “as if the deceased had destroyed himself to avoid the ignominy of a public execution.”

Nothing hidden from this lynxeyed official.

On August 7, IS2S, there stood ironed in the dock at Bury St. Edmunds a prisoner whose case aroused immense interest. This was Willipjn

Corder, a man of property and local position; an 4 the crime alleged against him was that of murdering a young woman of the district, Maria Marten. The circumstances had little to remove them from the commonplace. Thus, there was the village girl; the young squire, whose intentions toward her were strictly dishonourable; a promise uf marriage that did not materialise; tears and reproaches; and then a last desperate attempt to wriggle out of difficulties by a callous and deliberately planned murder.

A good many fables have been built up round Maria. The populai version depicts her as a simple and blameless lass whom William Corde» “deceived” for his own flagitious pur poses. The true one is somewhat different. Thus, Maria Marten, who lived at Pols lead, in Suffolk, had beeD guilty of several “slips” prior to Corder’s appearance on the scene. Her parents, however, overlooked this fact, and she was held up to all as a pattern of feminine virtue. Corder. who had some property in the nighbourhood, undoubtedly “took advan tage” of her. When discovery was inevitable, he, under promise of mar riage, persuaded her to dress up as a boy and elope with him. They were to meet at the Red Barn, and then set off for London, where the parson and the ring would be awaiting them

From the time she went to the tryst, Maria vanished. Corder wrote several letters to her parents, declaring that she was duly married to him, and that they were living in London like a couple of turtle doves. However, he withheld the exact address. “Murder will out.” Twelve months ! later, at the instance of Mrs. Marten (who is said to have had a vivid dream on the subject), the “Red Barn” was searched. There, under the flooring, was discovered the body of the missing Maria, stabbed through breast and shot through the head. Corder was apprehended in London, and brought back to Bury, charged with the girl’s murder. At his trial he declared that she had shot herself. The jury of rustics, however, disbelieved this theory, for he was known to have taken a pick-axe with him to the barn, and this struck them as an odd equipment for a honeymoon. Also it was discovered that, since Maria’s death, the prisoner had married somebody else. “Should this meet the eye of any agreeable lady, who feels desirous of meeting with a social, ten-

der, kind, and sympathetic companion, she will find this advertisement worthy of her notice,” was the fashion in which he announced the vacancy. The guilt of Corder was held to be established; and on August 11 he was publicly hanged, the execution being witnessed by a crowd of 10,000. Among the 1828 criminals, Joseph Hunton stands out prominently if only from the fact that he was one of the few members of the Society of Friends to reach the scaffold. As a linen draper he got into financial difficulties; and, to help himself out he forged a bill on a customer, Sir William Curtis. He endeaoured to abscond to America; and, under a pseudonym, whote to the “Times,” protesting his innocence. In October, however, he was convicted and hanged at Newgate. The year 1828 went out under the shadow of a succession of particularly shuddering crimes in Edinburgh. It was for these that William Burke, together with his partner, William Hare, was responsible. Although his dreadful deeds were committed in Scotland, it was Ireland that had the dishonour of being Burke’s native country. From Cork he went to Edinburgh, where he lodged in a house kept by a man of ill-repute, William Hare. One day a fellow lodger died; and tbe couple sold the corpse to a doctor for dissection.

The guineas that it fetched filled the pair with the truly horrible idea of procuring fresh “subjects.” Homeless men and women were invited to the lodging-house and offered shelter. There they were systematically drugged and suffocated. As soon as the breath had left their poor bodies, they were wheeled on a barrow to the anatomists. The surgeons, who bought the “specimens,” asked no inconvenient questions as to their origin, but readily paid five guineas for each “sample” that was delivered to them. The discovery of this abominable traffic was due to the fact that the friends of a missing woman found her body in the dissecting room of a Dr. Knox. Burke and Hare, who had sold it to him, were at once arrested. Hare, to save his skin, volunteered to turn “King’s evidence.” .The offer was accepted, and he went free. Burke, of course, was convicted; and, on Christmas Eve, IS2S, he was sentenced to death.

As philologists have noted, since this atrocious scoundrel's day, the expression “to Burke” has been added to the English language. A questionable honour.