Sister killed Over Shirt.

A man killed his sister in Kensington after she refused him permission to pawn a shirt. 

On  the afternoon of Monday 27th February 1899 Jane Canning went on an errand and returned to her home in Houlton Street, Kensington. She found her seventeen year old daughter Ada lying on the landing, having been battered about the head. She was barely alive, her injuries being so bad that part of her brain protruded.

Jane's 25 year old son James, who just half and hour earlier had been quietly sat by the fire, was nowhere to be seen and the backdoor and gate were open.

James was located a few hours later in a nearby pub by his brother and admitted hitting Ada several times. The following morning Ada succumbed to her injuries, which included a fractured skull and James was arrested.

On being taken into custody James told officers 'I struck her on the head with a poker, you see what drink does for me. Thank God I did not use a knife, I did not mean to kill her. James had recently been discharged from the army for striking an officer and spent most of his time drinking, in between occasional labouring jobs.

James appeared at the police court on the afternoon of his arrest and was remanded in custody. At the coroner's inquest, a verdict of wilful murder was returned after the brother's evidence was heard. 

On 1st May James appeared before the assizes where the jury heard how he had tried to pawn a shirt on the fateful day, but Ada tried to stop him. His mother Jane broke down several times while testifying, saying that he normally adored Ada. The police officer who made the arrest said that James had told him he loved his sister.

In the closing speech, James' defence counsel pleaded that due to his drunkenness his state of mind was not as it should have been. In summing up though, the judge said that his drunken state was his own doing.  However, he also pointed out that there had been no previous quarrel and he did not appear to have intended to kill.

James was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter without the jury leaving their box. However the judge, Mr Justice Ridley, showed no leniency, referring to the circumstances of his army discharge as an indication of his character. He then imposed a sentence of fourteen years penal servitude.   

Killer of Newborn Baby Bound Over

A mother who threw her new born baby through a window causing death was not sent to jail due to her state of mind at the time.

On the afternoon of Friday 3rd September 1915 a police officer was called to a pubic house in Tempest Hey as there was a baby lying on a flat roof. When he got there he saw the child  lying naked but alive and covered in blood and soot. Looking through the kitchen window, he saw a  young woman sat on a chair.

The woman initially said nothing when asked what the baby was doing there, but she eventually admitted that her name was Alice Emms and she worked as a charwoman at the premises. She said that she lived at Harlow Street in Dingle and had given birth to the child that morning, then thrown it through the kitchen window.

An ambulance was called and took Alice and the baby to the workhouse hospital in Brownlow Hill. The following day the baby died and when an inquest was opened it was adjourned by the deputy coroner due to Alice having to stay in hospital for treatment. The resumed inquest the end of the month inquest saw a verdict of wilful murder being returned and Alice was committed for trial at the autumn assizes.

On 28th October Alice appeared before Mr Justice Ridley and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The prosecution accepted that at the time of the incident the unmarried twenty three year old suffered from transient mania and was not in control of her actions. After the Salvation Army said that they would take her into their care, the judge then bound her over. 

An Adopted Baby Killed

A respectable middle class woman in Mossley Hill who had lost  a baby of her own adopted another one, only to kill during a spell of insanity.

Early in 1903 Elizabeth Sturgeon, the 36 year old wife of a drapers buyer who lived at 7 Dudley Road, gave birth to a stillborn baby. Devastated by this loss, she sought to adopt one and in June of that year answered an advert in the Liverpool Echo from someone in Litherland looking to take a baby off their hands.


Sturgeon showed great affection for the four month old baby girl who she christened Mabel. In early July she visited her parents in Lincolnshire where she acquired the services of a girl called Alice Porter who returned to Liverpool with her to help as a housekeeper and nanny.

On Tuesday 28th July Sturgeon acted very strangely, taking the unusual step of sending Alice to buy gin for her. She had a lie down and told her husband that she was in a vile temper, then wrote a letter to her parents saying that she was going to have a 'last walk' due to the cruelty of her husband who had tried to strangle her so he could live with a flower girl.

Sturgeon took Alice and Mabel out with her at 4pm on a long walk that ended up with them sat under a hedge in a field near Mossley Hill church The baby was crying in a strange fashion and Alice expressed concern to Sturgeon that she may suffocate the child when she put a handkerchief in her mouth to try and stop this. Alice then fell asleep after Mabel had gone quiet, having been given a small drop of rum by Sturgeon. 

In the morning, Sturgeon offered Alice a shilling as an inducement to walk across the parapet of a railway bridge. She did so but when halfway across she fell thirty feet, but was lucky to suffer only a sprained ankle.  Sturgeon told Alice to remain where she was and she would return the baby home then get help, but she was gone some time. When she did return, she told Alice that a woman was looking after Mabel and when she could find no trace her, reported the baby to the police as missing.

Nobody local had seen anything untoward and after speaking with her husband Bill Sturgeon over the letters his wife had written police arrested her on suspicion of murder on the Wednesday evening. A search of the area where they had last been seen was launched and Mabel's body was found the following morning a few inches underground in a lime pit off Solomon's Lane (where Geoffrey Hughes playing fields now are), her neck covered in stab wounds. 

Soon after the body was found, Sturgeon was remanded for a week at the police court. The inquest on 7th August heard evidence that she had been suffering hallucinations and was mentally deranged at the time of the tragedy. The coroner's court being unable to make a ruling on her state of mind, a verdict of wilful murder was returned and she was committed for trial at the assizes, 

Sturgeon was well dressed when she appeared at the assizes on 4th December, where the prosecution did not contest the medical evidence that she was insane. Justice Ridley then ordered that she be detained at His Majesty's Pleasure. Remarkably, instructed by her husband, Sturgeon's solicitor made an immediate application for her discharge, stating that the murder took place in about of temporary insanity that was now cured. However this was refused by the Home Secretary and she was removed to Broadmoor. She was released a few years later however and in the 1911 census is shown as living with Bill in Britannia Road, Wallasey.

Hatchet Killing

A woman in Everton who killed a man by hitting him over the head with a hatchet was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment. 

On the morning of 8th July 1901 coal heaver Luke Crean went to Canada Dock to try and find some work but was unsuccessful. Him and his friends then spent several hours drinking in pubs before going to the home of one of them in Adelaide Place around 3.30pm.

A disturbance broke out in the street between two rival religious factions and Crean went out to get involved and he ended up fighting with a man named Thomas Jenkins whose wife also got involved, striking him with a slipper.  There was a large crowd watching including 24 year old Annie Turner, who was pointing to her chest and shouting 'True Blue' and 'No Surrender.' She then went into her house and got a hatchet, hitting Crean on the head with two blows. 

As shouts of police went up Crean and Jenkins fell into the cellar and when an officer pulled him out of there, he managed to escape and run away. Turner returned to her house with the hatchet and despite being a Protestant herself said to a neighbour 'I have helped to kill one Orangeman and I will kill another.' Crean did not manage to get far, collapsing with blood coming out of his ear. He was taken to the Northern Hospital where he slipped into unconsciousness and died that evening.

An inquest on 10th July returned a verdict of wilful murder against Turner and she was committed for trial at the next assizes, which were just three weeks away. On 1st August she appeared before Mr Justice Ridley, her defence counsel arguing that Crean's injuries were a a result of the fall. The jury found her guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter and she was sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude.

Who Administered the Fatal Kick

When a woman was kicked to death in Everton in 1901, the person charged with her killing was acquitted as the prosecution were unable to prove who had administered the fatal kick.

On the afternoon of 14th May 1901 Mary McConville, a 29 year old unmarried woman, drank several gills of beer at her home in  Haigh Street with her brother Arthur and friend Annie Denham. At around 7.30pm Henry Ratcliffe, a sailor that lived with Mary when he was not at sea came around with some friends but didn't join the others in drinking.

What happened next nobody can be sure, but police had to be called due to Mary ending up lying on the floor in a pool of blood. A doctor from the dispensary was also called and he pronounced that Mary was dead when he arrived at 9.30pm. Arthur told officers that Ratcliffe was responsible and he was taken into custody, denying all knowledge of the crime. 

At the inquest the following day Arthur told the Coroner that Ratcliffe had hit his sister three or four times in the face. He then said that when Mary fell to the floor Ratcliffe began kicking at her abdomen and when he tried to intervene, Ratcliffe said to him 'You are not going to boss this house.' Arthur claimed that Ratcliffe wanted to fight him in the street but he refused and he instead went to William Henry Street to find a policeman.

Mary's friend Annie Denham also gave evidence at the inquest, but all she could recall was that Ratcliffe had knocked Mary down. However a neighbour called Margaret Worrall said that when Annie had come out of the house she had said that it was Arthur who had carried out the assault. The others present said that they had seen Ratcliffe push Mary to the floor but that he had not kicked her.

The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder and 28 year old Ratcliffe was committed for trial at the Liverpool assizes, where he appeared before Mr Justice Ridley on 2nd August. The doctor who carried out the post mortem confirmed that a kick had caused the death but in directing the jury, the judge said there was no corroborating  evidence of who had carried it out. The jury found Ratcliffe not guilty and he was discharged from the dock.

An Atrocious Crime in Bootle

A man who kicked a seaman to death that had insulted his wife was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to a long term of penal servitude.

On 7th August 1897 Joseph Willis, a healthy 33 year old seaman, was discharged from his ship after it docked in Liverpool and left carrying a hefty pay packet. Two days later he went to a house in Millers Bridge where a woman he knew called Elizabeth Scanlan lived. She had been drinking with fireman John Smith and his wife and Willis offered to buy some more beer for them.

Mrs Smith got quite drunk and began dancing and singing, then became so intoxicated that Mrs Scanlan had to to take her home in Derby Road. Willis left soon afterwards and met Mrs Scanlan as she was on her way back, and for some reason they both went back to Derby Road, where they found that Mrs Smith had fallen out of bed. They lifted her back in and decided that she would be okay as there were several people present in the room.

Willis and Mrs Scanlan returned to Millers Bridge to continue drinking and they were soon rejoined by Mrs Smith. She complained to her husband that Willis had insulted her he took little notice and when she hit Willis with a brick, John Smith knocked his wife down. Willis and Smith then began arguing themselves with Smith kicking out. When Willis fell down Smith then followed this up with a kick on the head. 

After staggering into the adjoining yard, Willis turned round to see Smith had followed him and he was punched in the head. The injured man managed to clamber onto a sofa but Smith went up and kicked him so hard he was flung from one end to the other. Willis was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival, death being the result of laceration on the brain.

A number of neighbours had heard the commotion and gave evidence against Smith when he appeared at the Liverpool Assizes on 6th December, charged with murder. One testified that when Smith caught up with Willis in the yard he said 'Is he not dead yet, I will finish him.' The defence tried to say that the brick thrown by Mrs Smith could have caused death, but the medical evidence suggested this wasn't the case. In summing up the judge said that a manslaughter verdict could be returned if there were grounds of provocation and the killing had been carried out in the heat of the moment.

After half an hours deliberation the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter. When asked if he had anything to say before sentence Smith replied that he could remember nothing about the incident. Justice Ridley told him that the verdict was right but that it was an 'atrocious crime' and sentence Smith to fourteen years penal servitude.

Six Months For Shooting Man Dead

A Bootle man was convicted of manslaughter after shooting another man dead, but the judge acted leniently due to his disability and the provocation received.

In 1916 a long running feud was ongoing between the Allen and Fletcher families who lived in Berry Street, Bootle. On the night of 19th September that year Esau Allen broke down the door of the rival's house looking for John Fletcher, leading to a fight between the two men.

The Fletchers took out a summons against Esau for the damage to the door, but John decided to take things into his own hands.The night after he went looking for Esau but was told he had re-joined his regiment. John then said to Fletcher's 21 year old disabled brother William 'I will follow him and kick his head and only for the way you are in I would do the same to you.'

William told John to leave his family's house but he then had his head beaten against the wall and was pushed onto the floor. William then went into his kitchen and took a revolver out of a drawer, firing it at John, who fell down wounded. Another shot was fired, which missed and John was taken to hospital where he died of blood poisoning. When William was arrested he replied 'I am the man, he was looking for it and got it.'

After being charged with murder William appeared before Mr Justice Ridley at the Liverpool assizes on 8th November, where he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter. The judge said that there was no doubt that William was in serious peril as he was threatened by a big man who wouldn't leave his house, meaning he has a right to defend himself. However, there was still concern expressed at the revolver being there in the first place and William was sentenced to six months hard labour.

Killers Indifference to Sentence

A man who killed a rival in a long standing inter-family feud showed a total indifference when he was sentence to fourteen years imprisonment for manslaughter.

At the beginning of the 20th century there was considerable tension between the McGuirk and Donoghue families of Bootle, leading to several members on each side appearing before the courts on assault charges. On the night of Saturday 26th September 1902 a widow named Elizabeth Watson enticed 25 year old Margaret Donoghue to go to the cellar dwelling in Lyons Street of James McGuirk, who was the same age.

A quarrel took place in which Margaret was battered about the head. Passers by heard screams and saw McGuirk run out into the street and make off, leading to the police being called. Margaret was lying unconscious on the sofa and was dead by the time she arrived at hospital.

McGuirk was picked up and appeared before the Bootle Police Court on the Monday morning, charged with murder. A fireman by trade, he appeared at the Liverpool Assizes before Mr Justice Ridley on 1st December, the prosecution was unable to prove any premeditation, leading to a verdict of manslaughter being returned.

On being sentenced to fourteen years penal servitude, McGuirk showed no emotion, saying 'A Verdict of manslaughter, all right!' He then shouted 'Keep your heart up Maria' to his sister as he was being taken down to the cells. The street where the death happened was so notorious for killings that later in the decade it was renamed Beresford Street.