The Borough Mystery - Samuel Langham (coroner)

[Paul Slade]

Four years after presiding as coroner at Catherine Eddowes' hearing, Samuel Langham handled another murder inquest - that of a Victorian doctor called William Kirwan. I've just written the case up on my website here. The story's bare bones are these:

The Borough Mystery: Dr William Kirwan
Dr William Kirwan, a Victorian doctor, was strangled to death as he wandered the slums of London's notorious Southwark borough. Kirwan turned up there in the small hours with an alcoholic street whore one October morning in 1892, seeming barely to know who he was. He'd left a Canning Town pub perfectly sober the previous night, but never made it home. We don’t know what happened to him during that missing night, but we do know it got him murdered just a few hours later.

Kirwan’s companion, Blanche Roberts, had been drunk for several days by the time she met him, but he allowed her to lead him round by the nose nonetheless. Many of the eyewitnesses who watched Kirwan stumble round Southwark that day assumed he was drunk too, but the autopsy ruled that out. The murder trial that followed was hotly reported in the press, which badged Kirwan’s story The Borough Mystery to reflect everyone’s puzzlement at why a respectable professional man like him would take such insane risks.

PlanetSlade’s latest essay reconstructs Kirwan’s last day, looks at the gangland intimidation which saved his killers from the gallows, and asks what led Kirwan to Southwark in the first place. With the help of a modern-day London coroner and a family doctor, we also discuss what today's medicine can make of the surviving evidence, and offer some surprising conclusions.

Readers (and comments) are always welcome. Thank you.

[Mayerling]

Four years after presiding as coroner at Catherine Eddowes' hearing, Samuel Langham handled another murder inquest - that of a Victorian doctor called William Kirwan. I've just written the case up on my website here. The story's bare bones are these:

The Borough Mystery: Dr William Kirwan
Dr William Kirwan, a Victorian doctor, was strangled to death as he wandered the slums of London's notorious Southwark borough. Kirwan turned up there in the small hours with an alcoholic street whore one October morning in 1892, seeming barely to know who he was. He'd left a Canning Town pub perfectly sober the previous night, but never made it home. We don’t know what happened to him during that missing night, but we do know it got him murdered just a few hours later.

Kirwan’s companion, Blanche Roberts, had been drunk for several days by the time she met him, but he allowed her to lead him round by the nose nonetheless. Many of the eyewitnesses who watched Kirwan stumble round Southwark that day assumed he was drunk too, but the autopsy ruled that out. The murder trial that followed was hotly reported in the press, which badged Kirwan’s story The Borough Mystery to reflect everyone’s puzzlement at why a respectable professional man like him would take such insane risks.

PlanetSlade’s latest essay reconstructs Kirwan’s last day, looks at the gangland intimidation which saved his killers from the gallows, and asks what led Kirwan to Southwark in the first place. With the help of a modern-day London coroner and a family doctor, we also discuss what today's medicine can make of the surviving evidence, and offer some surprising conclusions.

Readers (and comments) are always welcome. Thank you.

Hi Paul,

I just read the article on William Kirwan's murder, and found it very well done. Interestingly, there was another mystery (from 1852, however) called by William Roughead, "The Secret of Ireland's Eye" which involved a suspect named William Kirwan. An artist, he took his wife out to "Ireland's Eye", a small island in the sea, and she died - he claimed by accidental drowning. He was tried for her murder but acquitted. This Kirwan would end up leaving Ireland for the United States. There is a legend that he came back to the area as an old man. Most people who study the case feel the jury was as perverse in freeing Kirwan there as that jury in the "Borough Mystery" in only finding manslaughter verdicts against the three killers.

I looked over the site, and was reading about Catnach and the criminal broadsides. The poetry is lamentable (and not for stirring up thoughts of grief and penetence - except for reading bad poetry). The illustrations are mostly bad (some are repeatedly used). I noted that the one about Dr. Palmer did have a likeness that looked like him. The opening of the one about John Tawell purposesly uses the word "quake" to titivate the reader into recalling that Tawell claimed to be a Quaker (he had been thrown out of the religion for his forgery charges in 1814). I also liked your quoting Jonathan Goodman's "Bloody Versicles" in your commentary. I have a copy of that book from Jon that he autographed.

I added the site to my "Favorites" List. Keep it up!

Jeff

[Paul Slade]

Thanks, Jeff. I'm glad you enjoyed the piece. I came across the other William Kirwan when I was researching my guy, but I don't know much more about him than that. I'll dig out the story and read it properly when I get the chance.

You're right when you say the gallows ballads sheets aren't likely to win any poetry prizes - or design prizes either, for that matter - but I think they have a certain rough charm nonetheless. I like to imagine Catnach and his mates knocking out the doggerel one minute, slapping down a stock illustration the next and then hurrying out to the scaffold to sell their wares with a bit of Del Boy patter.

The best of Catnach's writers, of course, was John Morgan. Providing you judge his verses as song lyrics rather than literary poetry, I think Morgan songs like Mary Arnold and his double-entendre masterpiece The Beautiful Muff still stand up pretty well today.

[Cogidubnus]

Four years after presiding as coroner at Catherine Eddowes' hearing, Samuel Langham handled another murder inquest - that of a Victorian doctor called William Kirwan. I've just written the case up on my website here. The story's bare bones are these:

The Borough Mystery: Dr William Kirwan
Dr William Kirwan, a Victorian doctor, was strangled to death as he wandered the slums of London's notorious Southwark borough. Kirwan turned up there in the small hours with an alcoholic street whore one October morning in 1892, seeming barely to know who he was. He'd left a Canning Town pub perfectly sober the previous night, but never made it home. We don’t know what happened to him during that missing night, but we do know it got him murdered just a few hours later.

Kirwan’s companion, Blanche Roberts, had been drunk for several days by the time she met him, but he allowed her to lead him round by the nose nonetheless. Many of the eyewitnesses who watched Kirwan stumble round Southwark that day assumed he was drunk too, but the autopsy ruled that out. The murder trial that followed was hotly reported in the press, which badged Kirwan’s story The Borough Mystery to reflect everyone’s puzzlement at why a respectable professional man like him would take such insane risks.

PlanetSlade’s latest essay reconstructs Kirwan’s last day, looks at the gangland intimidation which saved his killers from the gallows, and asks what led Kirwan to Southwark in the first place. With the help of a modern-day London coroner and a family doctor, we also discuss what today's medicine can make of the surviving evidence, and offer some surprising conclusions.

Readers (and comments) are always welcome. Thank you.
Quick reply to this message

What a fascinating case Paul...Thank you so much for posting details here

Every good wish

Dave

[Lechmere]

Yes that was an interesting read.
The first pub Kirwan visited, the Aberfeldy, must have been the Aberfeldy in the eastern part of Poplar, just over the River Lee from Canning Town. It’s still there and don’t think there were any other Aberfeldys in the vicinity. I mention it as I used to go in there a lot in the mid 1980s.
I wouldn’t have expected to see a well dressed doctor in there then.
For Kirwan to comfortably drink in those areas he must have been lone of those people who are drawn to that lifestyle.
That explains his pub crawl the next morning.
Judging by his attire, my best guess is that Kirwan met Roberts and took her to a cheap hotel or lodging house. He sounds like one of those sad punters who gets sweet on the prostitute just because he has had sex with her and took her around with him like she was his girlfriend.
I would put it down to too much drink.
His pawning of his stuff all the time must have been to raise instant money for drink and women. Probably he usually went for more expensive ones than Roberts but that night it was late and he probably had the urge as he crossed the river.

Interestingly those terrible Southwark streets are quite close to where George ‘Toppy’ Hutchinson lived in the 1890s. He was used to living in some of the worst areas of London.

[Dave O]

Hi Paul,

I enjoyed your article and website quite a bit. Thanks for posting here.

Best,
Dave

[Jon Guy]

Fascinating article, Paul.

What a brutal story, and the swines blinded the young lads donkey. Pleased to see that people contributed to buy him another one.

[Lechmere]

I’ve checked out some of the details, and it is a bit odd.

Kirwan left his lodging at 212 Brixton Road, Stockwell (SW9 6AP) at 11 am and went to work in Plaistow (near Upton Park) rather than Canning Town.
The distance is about 10 miles.
Kirwan finished work before 5.30 pm and went to visit a colleague at 200 Barking Road (E6 3BB) and hung around, leaving finally supposedly to go home at 10.15 pm.
At 10.45 pm he walked into a pub called the Aberfeldy (E14 0QD) where he was a regular, which seems strange. It was miles from where he lived and not that near to where his colleagues worked on Barking Road. It cannot have been a very salubrious establishment. He was with an unknown stranger.

The current Aberfeldy is on the corner of Aberfeldy Street and Blair Street. In 1892 it was about 50 yards further south, on the corner of Aberfeldy Street and East India Dock Road (this was definitely the Aberfeldy involved in this case as its location on East India Dock Road is mentioned in the Old Bailey record.
The old terraced housing in this area was replaced, probably due to bomb damage, in the 1950s, by temporary prefabs and the pub rebuilt. The prefabs were used to re-house residents from the streets around Teviot Street, which is in the northern part of Poplar, going towards Bromley-By-Bow. This area had also been heavily bombed in the war.
The prefabs were supposed to last ten years, but were only demolished in the mid 1990s. New houses now surround the Aberfeldy and the original community which had remained intact from before the First World War was finally broken up and dispersed.
I suspect that these new houses will last less time than the prefabs.
Here is the Aberfeldy – yesterday – I happened to be passing!

Besides being a regular in the Aberfeldy, Kirwan also had a pawnbroker’s ticket from St Leonard’s Road which is further west in Poplar.

He left the Aberfeldy at 11.15 pm and was next seen in Southwark at 5.30 am.
The distance to where he was next seen (Newington Causeway) is 5.7 miles.
The distance from the Aberfeldy to his house was 7.6 miles. The route would take him down Borough High Street and Newington Causeway.
How did he get to Southwark at that time of night?
The construction of Tower Bridge had not been completed so he would have to have crossed the river via London Bridge.
If he intended to get back to Brixton Road then he was leaving it a bit late.
Kirwan was 42 but probably was ‘older’ than that. One of his assailants, Noble referred to him as ‘the old gentleman’, and another, Waller, described him as an ‘old toff’. I doubt he would have wanted to walk it
I doubt there would have been many cabs at that location and at that time of night. There wouldn’t be now for sure!
I doubt buses were running, nor trams – if they were installed at this time. The nearest station was probably Poplar and I think the trains went to Liverpool Street from there which meant a longish walk to London Bridge and anyway would the trains have been running?

This map shows the likely route from 200 Barking Road (A), passed the Aberfeldy (B) (I just realised I have misplaced this letter - it should be to the east of the A12), over London Bridge to the Borough, where he was killed (C). He never got home to 212 Brixton Road (D).

[Paul Slade]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. It's the odd pat on the back that motivates me to keep turning out the PlanetSlade stuff, so it's much appreciated.

Special thanks to you, Lechmere, as your own research has added a lot of useful detail to my own (rather broad) descriptions of relative locations in West London. Canning Town, Plaistow and Poplar are all right next-door to one another, but I probably should have been more precise in spelling out just where one ends and the next begins.

Your reference to Kirwan working in Plaistow that day is new information to me, and I'd be really interested to know more about that. I see the current Plaistow Hospital is placed between Upton Park tube and Barking Road, so would that have been the site?

[Lechmere]

Hi Paul
In suggesting that Kirwan was working in Plaistow I was going on the Old Bailey record which you provided a link to on you website.
It says that Kirwan sometimes worked as a locum for Dr MacLachlan (in General Practice rather than in a hospital), who lived at 200 Barking Road, which is in Plaistow. He spent the evening prior to his death with Dr MacLachlan and his brother, mostly at 200 Barking Road. I made the assumption that Kirwan was working as a locum with him that day – which may not be true. However I would suggest that if he wasn’t working as a locum or assistant to MacLachlan that day, he would have been performing similar duties for another doctor in the area.

Kirwan was only at the lodgings on Brixton Road from May 1890 to February 1891 and from September 1892 until his death in October 1892.
Where was he from February 1891 to October 1892? He may show up in the 1891 census.

The Poplar pawnbroker Kirwan used was probably 131 & 133 Nathan Jas Ltd, at 131-133 St Leonard’s Road.

[Paul Slade]

Ah, thanks for clarifying that. I'd made the same assumption until I saw a clipping from The Times of October 18, 1892. Reporting Kirwan's inquest, the paper says: "He had lately been conducting his profession at Canning Town, where he had been acting as locum tenems for Dr Moire".

It's nice to have the full name of the Poplar pawnbroker, so I'll see if I can slot that in when I get the chance.

[Lechmere]

I think Dr Moire is likely to be a corruption of the Dr Mosser mentioned in the Old Bailey report and I suspect the Times gave Canning Town as a general but slightly inaccurate location for the area Kirwan was working in.
Working as a locum in the East End as a doctor at the age of 42 (but the old bailey report says 32) implies that Kirwan was the most successful Doctor practising in Britain at the time.
Generally, then as now, the best doctir's opted to work in nice middle class areas.

[Lechmere]

It definitely was Nathan’s pawnbrokers at 131-133 St Leonard’s Road, Poplar. The exact address is mentioned further down in the Old Bailey report. Kirwan took his coat there on 12th July 1892. He wasn’t living at Brixton Road at that time.

The police ranked Balch and Waller as two of the most dangerous thieves in all of London.
They committed mugging that became a murder in a pub very close to where they lived, in front of witnesses after following the victim for several hours in front of witnesses, and Waller was arrested soon after wearing the victims yellow kid gloves!
Hardly master criminals.

These are Kirwan’s movements on the morning he died. Because he was walking around in circles, to make sense of it I have divided his route into three maps.

(1) 5.30 am at 140 Newington Causeway - The Alfred’s Head
(2) 7.00 am incident at lodging house on Redcross Way
(3) 10.15 am at flower shop, 2 Great Dover Street (near junction with Borough High Street) – turned right onto Borough High Street.
11.15 am Marshallsea Road then to
(4) 11.30 am at One Distillery pub on Borough High Street

Left pub and went up Borough High Street to Union Street then turned right to Whitecross Street, then through Redcross Gardens to Redcross way and back to Marshalsea Road.
Then back to Borough High Street, then Lant Street, then back to Borough High Street, back to One Distillery.

Leave One Distillery again and back to Union Street and on to end with Southwark Bridge Road.
It was now 1.30 pm
(5) Lord Clyde, corner of Peter Street and Whitecross Street – entered by Kirwan and assailants but not woman.
2.10 pm left Lord Clyde.
(6) George IV – scene of fatal attack.

Kirwan's normal route home is marked in red - he must have been familiar with this area.
Also when he left the Alfred's Head he went in the opposite direction from his lodgings.
London Bridge was not far away. There would have been cabs there. He must have voluntarily wallked around with the woman.

[Lechmere]

Here's the 1915 Ordnace Survey Map of Poplar which is the oldest I have, with the 1892 Aberfeldy marked in red.
The location of the present pub is marked in yellow.
St Leonard's Road is the light green line.
East India Dock Road (which becomes Barking Road just to the east of the map) is the red line.
The River Lee, the eastern boundary of Poplar with West Ham (and Canning Town) is the yellow line.

[Mayerling]

Bibliographical/Dramatical footnote

I was reading a book that I have owned two decades but never read entitled "Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones". It was by Penny Griffin, and was part of a series called "Modern Dramatists". My copy is (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1991). I came across this, which should enlighten you. You would find it under pages. 153-155:

"The last of Pinero's 'serious' plays, DR. HARMER'S HOLIDAYS, written in 1924 (but not performed until 1931 in New York) is one of the strangest pieces he ever wrote. In 1892 he had witnessed a trial at the Old Bailey in whch three men were charged with the murder of a young doctor who, up to the events that led to his death, had possesed an irreproachable character. The young man, drunk, dirty, and dishevelled, had been found by the three thungs in a public house in the Borough. They had led him away from the pub into an alleyway, where they had beaten him up and robbed him. In his struggles, the young doctor was throttled. The events were seen by a witness and men were caught and brought to justice. In his Forward to the play, Pinero wrote that

What interested me at the moment, and continued to interest me
thirty years later, was the problem of the respectable young doctor --
the trusted assistant of an older practitioner in the City -- apparently
living a sober, honest and cleanly life, who met his end in such an
ignoble fashion: and I set myself to the task of forging a chain of
circumstances, intensifying rather than diminishing the tragedy of his
death....."

The play is a type of "Jeckyl and Hyde" plot in nine scenes, ending with the murder. Not quite what the evidence suggested but then again it may be on the mark.

Jeff