Framing Charles

[rjpalmer]

I haven't followed all the various Lechmere threads, and so I might be missing some relevant details, but is it even accurate to state that Maria Lechmere bigamously married Thomas Cross?

According to the bigamy act of 1603, there is a loop-hole:


"Provided always, that neither this Act, nor anything therein contained, shall extend to any person or persons whose husband or wife shall be continually remaining beyond the seas by the space of seven years together, or whose husband or wife shall absent him or herself the one from the other by the space of seven years together, in any parts within his Majesties Dominions, the one of them not knowing the other to be living within that time."

John Lechmere is gone by at least 1851 -- Maria is living alone with her children at the time of the census.

She doesn't marry Thomas Cross until early 1858. Could this 'seven year span' be relevant?

Provided she doesn't know her husband's whereabouts, was she not legally entitled to marry Thomas Cross?

[MrBarnett]

Another possible reason for CAL’s reluctance to give his real name at an inquest?

[MrBarnett]

[MrBarnett]

[MrBarnett]

The Shoemaker at the Inquest



In brief;


At approximately 9.00 pm on Sunday 7th March, 1847, Robert Parry, a supernumerary police constable based at Hereford City police station, went out to patrol his beat in the city’s ‘H Division’. At two o’clock the following morning Inspector John Davies discovered Parry lying in a drunken stupor in Quay-Lane which lay on Parry’s beat. Parry was taken back to the station house and put into the ‘refractory cell’ to sleep it off. The next morning, when PC Botchett entered the refractory cell he found Parry dead.

At the inquest into Parry’s death it was suggested that a local shoemaker had given Parry 12 or 13 glasses of brandy and the possibility of a manslaughter charge against the shoemaker was raised.

The shoemaker denied having given Parry any brandy at all, but admitted giving him a certain amount of gin.

When the jury brought in their their verdict they reserved their censure for Inspector Davies for not having obtained medical assistance for Parry. The shoemaker wasn’t formally reprimanded, but his description of his own drinking exploits that night and his involvement in supplying Parry, a known drunkard, with alcohol while on duty cannot have done much for his reputation in the small Cathedral city.

Just over a month later the shoemaker went out of business, and shortly afterwards he seems to have abandoned his wife and two small children.

The shoemaker’s name was John Allen Lechmere. He was Charles Allen Lechmere’s father.

[MrBarnett]

I may be a bit slow here, but how would using the name Cross in court, the name of the man his mother had bigamously married, make this fact less apparent?

It’s the combination of the unique name Charles Allen Lechmere and mention of a stepfather that would have given away the bigamy. If he had used both names and explained why he was known as Cross the truth would have been revealed.

[Joshua Rogan]

My interpretation of it is that he (and his mother) were unwilling to allow the Lechmere name to be identified with these two incidents. And even more so were unwilling to risk having her bigamy made apparent to those who might recognise the unique name of Charles Allen Lechmere.

I may be a bit slow here, but how would using the name Cross in court, the name of the man his mother had bigamously married, make this fact less apparent?

[MrBarnett]

My curiosity is satsified, because I belive that if he was ever questioned about the name changes then he gave a satifactory explantion to all interested parties. So I wil not dwell further on an issue that in my opinion is dead in the water.

www.trevormarriott.co.uk

‘If he was ever questioned’?

So in other words you have no idea why he omitted his real name or whether the authorities were aware he had done so. And your curiosity is satisfied by your ignorance of those facts.

[MrBarnett]

Is that what I said?

No, that's not what I said.

If a man ran over a child--accidently or otherwise--he may well wish to be swallowed up by the earth and use the name 'John Doe.'

The question I raised is whether his employer would have been foolish enough to allow him to do it.

What you actually said was ‘I don’t see that any of that matters’ ‘That’ being my response to your ‘damned if he does...’ post.

I don’t believe his employers would willingly have allowed him to use a completely false name as you you may be aware, because I have said so on previous occasions and I even created a thread to support my view. (I’ll dig it out to remind myself of how far I got.)

[Trevor Marriott]

My point is just about the names.

And it isn’t me who is wearing blinkers. In my amateurish way I am actively looking for an explanation of why a man with a very strong sense of what his ‘proper’ name was chose not to use it on one or two formal occasions out of dozens we know of. If you were being objective you would have the same curiosity that I have on the matter.

And in not wearing blinkers I stumbled across the fact that Charles Lechmere was known to the wife of the Berner Street witness William Marshall, and presumably to Marshall himself, as Charles Lechmere.

Remind me what your contribution had been.

My curiosity is satsified, because I belive that if he was ever questioned about the name changes then he gave a satifactory explantion to all interested parties. So I wil not dwell further on an issue that in my opinion is dead in the water.

https://www.trevormarriott.co.uk

[rjpalmer]

You can’t see why a man involved in the death of a child might prefer not to have his real name printed in the press? OK.

Is that what I said?

No, that's not what I said.

If a man ran over a child--accidently or otherwise--he may well wish to be swallowed up by the earth and use the name 'John Doe.'

The question I raised is whether his employer would have been foolish enough to allow him to do it.

[MrBarnett]

I can't see how any of that matters.

As has been discussed many times, Pickford & Co. would have been painfully aware of the accident, and almost certainly would have had representatives watching the case. Are they going to risk the reputation of their firm by allowing their employee to use an alias, particularly in a no-fault accident?

A question I've asked myself--but have no answer--is whether there is any reason to believe that Thomas Cross may have had the ability to 'land' Charles a job at Pickford and Co.--a friend or a cousin or someone similar employed there? Nepotism, that convenient oil that keeps the machinery running. I can currently see no evidence that this was the case, but, if it were, it might explain Lechmere's initial use of 'Cross.'

As I noted earlier, Ian Stewart used his step-father's name 'Brady,' when landing a job at the fruit market, and thereafter was 'Ian Brady.'

Of course, I think Brady jumped at the opportunity to change his name, because he already had 'form' under the name 'Stewart' and 'Sloan.'

Had Lechmere been a hell raiser in his youth, it might have explained his desire to take on the name of his copper step-dad. But there's no evidence of that, either.

You can’t see why a man involved in the death of a child might prefer not to have his real name printed in the press? OK.

Thomas Cross was not a Londoner. I’m not aware that he had any relatives in London, he only arrived in the capital in the 1850s. And, incidentally, he was a Met PC and Broad Street was in the City.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find it implausible that he had used the name Cross at Pickford. What I find suspicious is that he did not volunteer his ‘real’ name at the inquests.

[MrBarnett]

hi gary
i wonder if his mom was bigamously married to cross, could lech even legally use the cross name?

As I understand it, provided he was not doing so to deceive anyone, he could use any name he liked even under oath.

In less formal situations, such as the registering of children at school, there were presumably no legal rules. So if the family had been known as Cross by all and sundry his kids could have been registered under that name. They weren’t, they were registered as Lechmere with their full complement of middle names. How confusing would that have been if they had introduced themselves as the Cross family to their neighbours when they moved into Doveton Street in 1888 and the kids had been introduced to their schoolmates as the Lechmeres.

Perhaps we should establish exactly what the law was and put it on record. Trevor and Harry appear to know what the law was in this respect in 1888, perhaps they can share their source with us.

[rjpalmer]

He was involved in the death of a child and the child’s father at least believed he was at fault. On that occasion his address was also omitted you’ll remember.

I can't see how any of that matters.

As has been discussed many times, Pickford & Co. would have been painfully aware of the accident, and almost certainly would have had representatives watching the case. Are they going to risk the reputation of their firm by allowing their employee to use an alias, particularly in a no-fault accident?

A question I've asked myself--but have no answer--is whether there is any reason to believe that Thomas Cross may have had the ability to 'land' Charles a job at Pickford and Co.--a friend or a cousin or someone similar employed there? Nepotism, that convenient oil that keeps the machinery running. I can currently see no evidence that this was the case, but, if it were, it might explain Lechmere's initial use of 'Cross.'

As I noted earlier, Ian Stewart used his step-father's name 'Brady,' when landing a job at the fruit market, and thereafter was 'Ian Brady.'

Of course, I think Brady jumped at the opportunity to change his name, because he already had 'form' under the name 'Stewart' and 'Sloan.'

Had Lechmere been a hell raiser in his youth, it might have explained his desire to take on the name of his copper step-dad. But there's no evidence of that, either.

[MrBarnett]

If you run the name CAL through FreeBMD for all dates from 1837, this is what you get: our man and two of his kids. One died in infancy and so the name was transferred to a subsequent male child.