The Murder of Harriet Lane, the Whitechapel Tragedy of 1874.

The Arrest, Trial And Execution Of Henry Wainwright, from Chronicles Of Crime And Criminals by Anonymous.

In the East End of London, in a busy and populous region, the subject of our sketch had done a large business as a brushmaker at No. 215 Whitechapel Road. Up to the time of his arrest nothing was known against his character and he was looked upon as an honest, upright and industrious citizen.

The deed, for which he was tried, and afterwards executed, was very deliberately planned, and diabolically carried out, but the precautions taken to insure concealment, although elaborate, were unsuccessful, partly through his own carelessness, partly through ill luck that will often mar the best combinations.

There was no sort of suspicion against Wainwright.

Although a woman with whom he was on intimate terms had been missing for a year, her disappearance had been explained without the slightest suspicion that a dastardly murder had been done.

Just at this time, September 1874, Wainwright had taken new premises across the river at Southwark, he having met with reverses in business, and bankruptcy, and it was when he sought the assistance of a fellow workman, once in his own employ, to help him in a small job at his old premises, that the fact of foul play was first brought to light.

This man, Stokes by name, accompanied Wainwright to 215 Whitechapel Road and entered the workshop on the ground floor. The job for Stokes was to help carry out a couple of heavy parcels that lay on the floor, wrapped up in black American cloth and covered with strong rope.

"Pick 'em up will you?" said Wainwright. "Only just wait while I see if the land is clear. There's that nagging old Johnston in the court. I don't want to see him!"

Stokes tried the parcels, but protested they were too heavy. Wainwright lent him a hand, and the pair carried them down Vine Court and into the street, as far as the church in the Whitechapel Road.

"Stop! You hold on here while I hail a cab," said Wainwright, and left Stokes alone with the parcels. Long afterwards, just before Wainwright's execution, Stokes wrote him a curious letter, detailing his sensations while waiting by the church. Something within him, he declared, some mysterious voice, some hidden but imperious impulse urged him to examine the parcels.

He was not satisfied about them!

Wainwright had said they contained hair bristles for brush making; had cautioned him not to drop them lest they should break. How could bristles break? They gave off a strong smell. A peculiar, offensive odour. Wainwright had said this was due to there having been so long under the straw. But bristles could never smell this way.

Again, another suspicious circumstance occurred to him, before leaving the workshop in Whitechapel Road Wainwright had given him a spade, a hammer and chopper, and told him to sell them for what they would fetch. There was suspicious stuff on the chopper. A sticky sort of dirt which smelt badly.

A shudder went through him. Was it blood!!

As he stood there irresolute and unhappy the voice kept constantly saying: 

"Open the parcel! Open it, open it, open it!"

He yielded, he could not help himself. He pulled all the wrappers aside and saw - A HUMAN HEAD!

First the crop of light hair, then the entire head. "It must be murder! Nothing less than cruel, bloody, murder!"

This was Stokes' immediate conclusion, and he was so terrified by his shocking discovery that , so he said: "His hair stood on end and his hat fell off."

After the first glimpse he could not resist making a closer scrutiny of the contents. He saw the head again, and more plainly. A severed head. The short hair was much matted and encrusted with earth and dirt.

Nor was the head the only horror within the parcel. Looking a little further he came upon - a human hand and then a human arm. Then Wainwright returned, bringing a cab. Quietly without suspicion, he told Stokes to put the parcels into the cab, saying sharply to the driver: "Now, cabby, to the Commercial Road. And you, Stokes, I'll come round to your place tonight." Stokes had missed his chance!

He should have called the police, and at once given Wainwright into custody. When afterwards asked by the coroner why he did not do so, he confessed he was afraid of Wainwright, who he knew to be a dangerous man. Now Stokes, still urged by the "small, still voice within," decided to pursue the cab.

He ran after it at full speed, and once gained a little as it stopped at Greenfield Street to pick up a woman who was waiting there. This woman, Alice Day, was afterwards arrested as an accomplice, but soon discharged, there being nothing to connect her with the crime.

Again the cab drove on, Stokes growing more and more breathless behind. Down Aldgate High Street, then towards Fenchurch Street, on to Leadenhall Street, and there it branched off to London Bridge and crossed the river.

Stokes was taken as a lunatic as he raced along. Two policemen whom he met only laughed at him derisively as he pointed to the cab ahead and gasped: "That cab - there, ahead. Stop it - murder - parcels - two parcels -!"

He was now all but distanced. But, once more the cab stopped. At the Hop Exchange, in the Borough. Stokes got within ten yards of it. Here there were two policemen, and their sense of duty was stronger than that of their colleagues aforementioned. When Stokes appealed to them they listened and were prepared to act.

"See that man?" said Stokes. He pointed to Wainwright, who had alighted from the cab, and with one parcel had walked on some thirty or forty yards, in the direction of a shop still known as the Hen and Chickens. "See him? Hurry after him. Stop him, he's a murderer, see what he does with it!"

Stokes had done his part; it was now for the police to act. One constable followed promptly; the other took post and watched the cab. When Wainwright entered the Hen and Chickens the first constable came back and rejoined the second at the cab.

Presently Wainwright returned smoking a cigar. He did not appear to notice the policemen, but, lifting out the second parcel walked off again to the Hen and Chickens. The constables were now at his heels, and one asked: " Do you live in here?"

"No"

"Have you possession of the premises?"

"I have, and you haven't," answered Wainwright with much effrontery.

"What is in the parcel? What have you done with the other? You go into the house mate, and see if it's there while I look at this," went on the policeman.

"Don't touch it!" cried Wainwright. "Ask no questions. Let me alone. Let me go. I'll give £50 - £100 - £200, anything, and plank down the money at once - only let me go!"

To offer a policeman a bribe is perhaps the safest way to encourage his suspicion - yes, the murderer's time had come. Within a few seconds the parcel was torn open, and the ghastly contents exposed. Wainwright's arrest followed then and there, and the parcels were taken to the police station.

On examination one was found to contain the trunk of a human body, and the other the remaining parts, the whole forming a ghastly spectacle and gruesome evidence of a dastardly murder.

The remains were those of a female. Two bullet holes were found in the brain, and a third in the back of the head. The throat had also been cut. It was a severe wound, inflicted with great violence. Meanwhile the search of Wainwright's Whitechapel premises had been prosecuted. With one of the keys taken from his pocket the back door was opened and the theatre of this crime entered.

At about twenty feet from the door it was at once seen that a part of the flooring had been taken up and recently, roughly and hastily replaced. The boards were speedily again removed. An open grave, but lately used, yawned beneath. The earth was largely mixed with chlorine of lime.

Illustrated Police News, Saturday 25th December 1875

The murderer had made a fatal mistake. He expected chlorine of lime to have eaten up the evidence of his revolting crime, but it had just the contrary effect. The dismembered parts were effectually preserved. The murderer, by his stupidity and want of knowledge, had forged the chains of guilt around him, and had compassed his own destruction.

Various murderous implements were found on the spot. A new spade, recently used, an open pocket knife, a chopper, or cleaver, on which was much sticky fleshy matter - undoubtedly congealed blood. In the corner just behind the back door, on removing the rubbish, many splotches of blood were found, and every evidence went to prove the certainty and enormity of a great crime.

But who was the woman?

Who was the victim of this foul fiend?

A man named Taylor gave the first clue to the mystery. He thought the remains might be those of his sister in law, Harriet Lane.

Penny Illustrated Paper, Saturday 25th September 1875

She had been missing for about twelve months. She had been intimate with Wainwright. His description of her was minute and particular. The police without hesitation allowed him to view the remains. He at once identified them as those of Harriet Lane.

He also identified various articles of dress found in the grave and in the house. Harriet Lane had worn earrings, and two of these ornaments were picked out of the grate in the fireplace. She wore a ring and keeper. Both these were found in the grave.

A number of Harriet Lane's relatives soon gave corroborative testimony. Now to prove the connection between the murderer and the victim! The chain of identity was complete. It was beyond doubt that Wainwright had been intimate with her for a long time, and that she left her last lodgings in Sydney Square, Mile End, with the avowed intention of going to live with "Wainwright at 215 Whitechapel Road."

This was on the 11th September 1874.

She was never seen alive after that day. Nothing had been heard of her since. Although on good terms with her relatives, she had entirely disappeared.

After a time Mrs Taylor went to Wainwright and asked after her sister. He said he had given her money to go to the seaside for a holiday. Two months later she went again. Wainwright said Harriet had gone off with a gentleman who had come into a fortune.

Old Mr Lane, her father, had also been to Wainwright, demanding his daughter, dead or alive. Wainwright put him off with another story. He produced telegrams to prove his story. But he read them out himself. All these were lies - in plain English, most damnable lies.

The poor victim had long lain in her grave. The telegrams mentioned were proved to have been written by Wainwright's brother, Thomas, who was afterwards tried and sent to penal servitude as an accomplice of this cruel murder. The web was tightening. Long before the trial it had been woven round Henry Wainwright.

Justice was about to be done, and that right speedily. There was proof that he bought a quantity of chloride of lime on the 10th September, the night previous to the cime; also an axe and spade!

A man working in a shed next to 215 Whitechapel Road could swear to hearing reports of pistol shots on the evening of the 11th September. Two shots were fired in rapid succession. The few hairs found on the spade were found to correspond with those of the poor victim' s head, and the sticky matter found on the chopper or cleaver was blood, yes, human blood.

A strange story came out in the course of the investigation which also told against Wainwright, and is another evidence of the keen instinct, or great sagacity of a dog.

In October 1874, while Wainwright still occupied 215 Whitechapel Road for business purposes, his manager owned a dog who was in a state of continued restlessness while in the workshop. He was forever scratching at the boards of the flooring just above the place where the grave had been made. It was supposed the dog was after rats. 

At last the dog disappeared. The manager and his wife went out one evening, leaving the dog with Wainwright, who, without doubt, did away with it, it was never seen again.

There were no signs of apprehension about him; his features showed only a half awakened attention; he occasionally bit his lips, and unconsciously rubbed one hand over the other. At his final arraignment his appearance had totally changed. He had grown haggard and careworn, and was unmistakably anxious for the result.

His trial commenced at the Old Bailey on the 22nd of November, and was finished on December 1st, 1875. His guilt was proven to the satisfaction of the court, and the jury had no hesitation to their verdict.

They unanimously found him guilty, and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn sentenced him to be hanged on 22nd December, on which date this miscreant met the fate he so richly deserved.

Wainwright solemnly declared that he was innocent. He used strong and remarkable language. "I will only say, standing as I do upon the brink of eternity, that I swear I am not the murderer of the remains found in my possession. I swear I have never fired a pistol shot in my life. I swear also that I did not bury the mutilated remains, nor did I exhume them."

Illustrated Police News, Saturday 23rd October 1875

He persisted in this denial almost to the last. Just before going to the scaffold he confessed he deserved his fate, but still he would not admit that he was to the fullest extent guilty of murder.

It was supposed at the time, and the impression has survived, that the crime was not his handiwork alone; and his brother Thomas, who stood with him in the dock, and who was sentenced as an accessory to seven years penal servitude, had take an active part in the murder - had perhaps been the principal in committing the deed.

One curious feature in the Wainwright case was the outward respectability of the accused. He was shown in the course of the trial to be a man of notorious immoral life, yet for years he had posed as a prominent Christian, and member of many religious societies in the East End of London, and was popular in that district for his recitations and amateur performances, on their behalf, in the interest of religion.

Thus perished one of the greatest scoundrels that ever existed and one who had long lived the life of a profound hypocrite. In this case we see, the murder was brought to light almost by chance and the guilty scoundrel punished; but many crimes are committed in the great cities of the world for which no one is ever brought to account, and they pass on as mysteries in the great field of crime.

Other horrible and gruesome crimes.

Many cases have happened where criminals have sought concealment of their victims remains by burial or other modes of disposal, and wonderful cases of the defeat of such attempts have transpired. Just here, perhaps, it will be interesting to note one or two most remarkable cases, not only in London, but in Paris and elsewhere.

Many years ago in London, two boys rowing a boat up the river Thames came upon a carpet bag lying caught upon one of the buttresses of Waterloo Bridge. The carpet bag was hanging just above the water. It had been placed there overnight, or someone from above had thrown the bag down and it had lodged on the buttress of the bridge.

The boys got possession of it, thinking they had got a prize. It was locked and corded, the rope having been trailing in the water when first seen. The cord was cut, the lock forced and the contents of the bag laid bare.

These were the mutilated fragments of a human body. They were chopped up into a number of pieces. The police were called, who took the find to the police station. On examination by a medical man it was found that the parts belonged, all of them, to the same body. There were twenty three pieces in all.

Mostly bones with flesh adhering to them. They had been sawn or chopped into small pieces. Without doubt the mutilation was done to destroy identification. The hands, head, and feet were missing.

There was nothing left that could well assist identification - no marks or peculiarities - nothing beyond the fact that the deceased was a dark hairy man. There was, however, plainly visible a knife stab between the fourth and fifth ribs. Undoubtedly the cause of death, its direction plainly showing that it must have entered the heart.

It was further proved that the remains had been partially boiled, and subsequently salted or placed in brine. The clothes were that of a foreigner. They were much cut and torn, and were all more or less bloodstained. Most of the bloodstains were inside. The knife had penetrated clean straight through the clothes while on the body and into the heart. 

A reward of £300 was offered for the discovery of the murderer, but it was quite without effect. The crime was never brought home to anyone.

The police had reason to believe that the man murdered was a sailor belonging to some ship then lying in the Thames. Nothing that could lead to identification was forthcoming, and, failing this, the mystery was never solved.

Another case in london known as the "Battersea Mystery" happened just prior to the Wainwright murder. A package containing human remains was found upon the mud banks of the Thames near Battersea Waterworks. 

It was pronounced by the doctors to be the mutilated trunk of a female, and to have been barely twelve hours in the water. More discoveries rapidly followed. The lungs were found, one under Battersea Bridge, the other near the Battersea Railway Pier. These all corresponded, and were easily pieced together as part of the same body.

The head had been severed. A sharp knife and saw had been used. The face half of the head had floated down below Limehouse and was there picked up. It was mutilated beyond all recognition.

Other fragments, limbs, and parts of limbs, were found further down river near the Albert Embankment, Rotherhithe, Greenwich, and near Woolwich. The body was put together by a Dr Haydon and pronounced that of a female.

The face, although much battered, bore the trace of a wound on the right temple. It had crushed in the skull and must have caused instantaneous death. The body had evidently been cut up and, piece by piece, thrown into the river.

From that day to this, no one has ever been suspected, much less arrested, for this most undoubted crime, and it adds one more to the long list of Murder Mysteries.

In April 1878, human remains were found in a bedroom of the Hotel Jeanson, Paris, in the Rue Poliveau. Two legs and arms, a woman's, wrapped in black, glazed paper. Other articles were with them, a black petticoat and three shirts in red and blue stripes. The parcel was tied up with thread and old binding.

These remains had been hidden in a cupboard, and lay there just a fortnight.

The fragments and articles were taken to the morgue, and viewed day after day by the public. They were never identified, and the episode has long been forgotten.

One evening in September Madame Thierry, a respectable housewife in the Rue De La Chapelle, Paris, was seated at her doorway enjoying the cool evening when she observed a man on the other side of the street very oddly engaged. He was strewing the roadway with scraps of meat!

At the opening of a sewer he threw down a larger piece, which looked like a whole joint. Her suspicions were aroused, and seeking an acquaintance, they went together to report the circumstances to the Commissary of Police.

A search was at once instituted. The result was the discovery of many fragments, all undoubtedly human remains. Enough nearly to form the body, the head alone being still wanting.

Now Madame Thierry came forward with a strange statement. She had dreamt of nothing but the strange incident and had been haunted perpetually with the shadowy resemblance of the man with someone she knew. It was a police officer, a former neighbour of hers in the Rue Des Rosiers.

"He lived next door," she said. "A tall, stout man, a police sergeant, who, when in plain clothes, was uncommonly like the man I saw the other night."

Now, it was remembered that a stout police officer named Prevost was attached to the division which included Rue Des Rosiers. Prevost was summoned from the police at the very moment he was discussing the recent discovery and was saying, "I would never allow myself to be caught, if I did it. If I killed a man I would disfigure him so that no one would identify him, I'd cut him up and get rid of him in such a way that no one would find the pieces."

He said, "to cover up a crime is very easy," and truly, "that many murders were never discovered." He was confronted with Madame Thierry, who at once identified him!

Further enquiry brought to light the fact that Prevost was absent from duty the night Mrs Thierry had seen the man distributing the scraps of meat. All his assurances left him then and he confessed the crime.

His victim was a jeweller's traveller named Lenoble; and he killed him for a watch and chain and some glittering baubles which Lenoble offered for sale. The head was the sole portion of the murdered man's remains that was still undiscovered.

Prevost was pressed to say what he had done with it. After a pause he pointed silently to the fireplace. The head had been stuffed up the chimney. When it was dragged down it is said to have looked exactly like a barber's block. The face was handsome, the features were perfectly regular, and the complexion was as clear as wax.

To complete the resemblance the dark mustaches were carefully trimmed, and the deep toned chestnut hair was curled closely round the head. Prevost confessed he had intended to boil the head so as to render it quite unrecognisable, but his prompt arrest prevented this.

Extreme surprise was expressed by the police authorities at Prevost's confession. Till now he had borne an exemplary character. But now other suspicions were aroused. It was remembered that a woman whom Prevost was intimate had disappeared soon after paying him a visit. By his confession it was proved Prevost murdered her.

Victor Prevost

The details of dismemberment were much the same as in Lenoble's case. The fragments were distributed in the same way. The head, when severed from the body, was buried in the glacis of the old fortifications. Prevost obliterated the blood stains made in the process of cutting up by pouring ink on them.

There is no doubt that Prevost would have enjoyed absolute immunity over his first crime had he not been so easily led into a second. No doubt, but for the chance recognition of Madame Thierry, he would again have escaped scot free.

By an inscrutable providence, however, he was detected and paid the penalty of his crime under the guillotine.

The Execution of Prevost

In Norwich, England, many years ago a murder was committed which would have remained a mystery forever unsolved but for the voluntary confession of the criminal.

In the year 1851 a tailor resided in Norwich, a man named Sheward, married to a woman older than himself, and they were somewhat strained in their relationship. In the month of June Mrs Sheward disappeared. Sheward gave out that she had left him of her own accord - eloped to London.

This was not accepted as a final explanation by her relatives, yet no steps were taken against Sheward for the reasons to be now set forth.

Very soon after Mrs Shewards disappearance a quantity of human remains were found in a road leading to Lakenham, now a suburb of Norwich. First a hand, and then a foot were found. And on several succeeding days bones and fragments of flesh were picked up in the city, and near Norwich. A number of portions were found and it was presently possible to reconstitute the body for medical examination.

The doctors gave their verdict without hesitation. It was the body of a young woman about 26 years of age. The grounds on which this decision was made were published long afterwards.

A surgeon deposed that the "well filled under structures of the skin, its delicacy, the neatness of the foot, that of a person not accustomed to toil or to wear coarse, heavy shoes, the clean, well trimmed nails of both hands and feet," led him to fix her age between sixteen and twenty six.

Yet this same surgeon admitted at the assizes eighteen years later that these appearances were not inconsistent with much greater age, fifty four even, the age of Mrs Sheward, in fact, at the time she was first missed. Had the medical evidence been more accurate at that early date the man Sheward would hardly escaped stronger suspicion.

It seems a little strange that a closer investigation was not used, seeing that the disappearance of Mrs Sheward and the discovery of the remains were so nearly coincident in time.

But Sheward was esteemed as a mild, inoffensive creature, and his explanation of his wife's departure looked natural and plausible enough. So the murderer was left with his guilt unharrassed and unmolested, but no doubt continually tormented by his own conscience and reminded of his crime.

Only a couple of years after the deed his wife came into some money and he was called upon to produce her. It was easy to realise his terror lest the old lame excuse of her elopement should not be accepted by the relatives and co-beneficiaries. Still he held his ground.

By and bye he married again, and still pursued his old trade. But it was observed he grew more and more depressed, that he took to drinking, that he talked of leaving Norwich for good, and at the last he went to London, and was led, by imperious impulse, to the very spot in Walworth where he had first made the acquaintance of his murdered wife.

Then his crime was so forcibly brought home to him that he resolved to take his own life. "But the Almighty would not let me do it," so he told the authorities, for now he went and gave himself up to the police. Just eighteen years had elapsed since the crime.

At the time of his surrender he had a razor in his pocket, but had not dared to commit suicide. His confession was not at first credited. He was thought deranged, but he persisted in his statements, indicted on his own confession, which he afterwards withdrew. But he was found guilty and in due course executed.

When in his condemned cell he made a clean breast of his crime and described exactly what had occurred. There had been an altercation about money matters. Sheward had grown wild with passion, and attacked her with a razor, which he ran into her throat.

"She never spoke again," he said. "I then threw an apron over her head and went out." That night he slept in the house. Next morning he commenced his horrible task. For several days he worked hard at the gruesome task of preparing for the disposal of the body.

His proceedings were akin to those other murderers of his class, and he tried various processes detailed in other cases. On the fifth day he had completed the dismemberment, and had almost entirely disposed of the remains by throwing them down sewers, or burying them in the suburbs.

He burnt all the clothes and bed linen, last of all "the long hair" - it was light auburn and plentiful. "I cut it up with a pair of scissors into small pieces, and they blew away as I walked along." The mutilations had been so complete that even the ring finger had been cut off.

In this case we see another instance - of many - where medical evidence has been completely astray, yet the incontestable fact remains, that "murder will out," and the cases are comparatively few where the murderer escaped detection and his just reward.