Move to Murder: Who Killed Julia Wallace?

[cobalt]

How would Wallace, a meticulous man by all accounts, not have discovered his wife's age when they submitted their birth certificates at the time of marriage? The date of birth is written on the UK marriage certificate. And has been for a century at least.

That is assuming her age was 70. Has this ever been confirmed? What accredited documentation establishes the ages of both Wallace and his wife?

[Herlock Sholmes]

perhaps owed money to someone far more unscrupulous and Parry told about Wallace's premium collections and the plan was constructed (and perhaps Parry was no more involved than providing the intelligence).
.

Eten you must be psychic

As Rod has come up with a scenario which, according to him, must be the truth I was thinking a couple of days ago how an alternative scenario could be applied. And if that scenario also ‘fits’ then it would be a way of at least trying to show that a scenario isn’t a solution. Something that Rod will not accept.

I thought to myself ‘what if Parry (in debt to someone but unable to pay) gave them the basic information about Wallace and the person that he told then got himself an accomplice and undertook the crime?’ Now, I don’t believe that happened, but it shows that a scenario is just that. The only thing that it doesn’t explain is Parkes (but I don’t see that as an issue as you might guess as I don’t believe Parkes story.)

Alternatively what about someone from Julia’s past? She was certainly pretty sparing with the truth. Maybe she’d dumped someone who years later became ‘unbalanced’ and determined on revenge. It might explain the viciousness of the attack. It might explain why the phone operators said that the voice was of an older man. It might explain why Julia let him in (he might have said ‘you either talk to me now or I’ll come back when he’s here.’) It might explain the missing weapon. It might explain the cash...the mystery man might have simply seen it as a further revenge on Wallace. Or he might even have felt that a mere pretence of a robbery might implicate Wallace?

I say again, a scenario is just that. Anyone who says that it ‘case solved’ is deluded. It’s not. I believe Wallace to be easily the best candidate but I won’t say it’s ‘case solved.’

[Herlock Sholmes]

How would Wallace, a meticulous man by all accounts, not have discovered his wife's age when they submitted their birth certificates at the time of marriage? The date of birth is written on the UK marriage certificate. And has been for a century at least.

That is assuming her age was 70. Has this ever been confirmed? What accredited documentation establishes the ages of both Wallace and his wife?

I don’t have the information with me Cobalt as I’m not at home but James Murphy discovered Julia’s true age. There’s no doubt.

I just realised that I do have Antony’s book with me. I’ll quote from it:

“James Murphy reveals that Julia Dennis was actually born on 28 April 1861: she was 17 years older than her husband. It was a tremendous piece of historical research overturning a lazy assumption that had been unchallenged for seven decades.”

[cobalt]

That's a fair age difference.
But how on earth would Wallace not be aware of this, as I asked earlier? It's on the marriage certificate.

[moste]

I don’t have the information with me Cobalt as I’m not at home but James Murphy discovered Julia’s true age. There’s no doubt.

I just realised that I do have Antony’s book with me. I’ll quote from it:

“James Murphy reveals that Julia Dennis was actually born on 28 April 1861: she was 17 years older than her husband. It was a tremendous piece of historical research overturning a lazy assumption that had been unchallenged for seven decades.”

Here is a hypothetical scenario.

Maybe Wallace knew quite well how old his wife was.
Maybe theirs was a marriage of convenience .
Maybe Parry discovered Wallace was a latent homosexual
Maybe parry was blackmailing Wallace.
Maybe Wallace wouldn't pay up.
Did Parry reveal the truth to Julia about her husband?
Did Julia confront William, and during a steaming row, threaten to go to the police ?
The Crime of homosexuality carried a prison sentence in 1931, but the ramifications would be insufferable,
Ostracized from the circles he moved in .Loss of job and earnings etc. etc..

Well, there's one little story that presents a great motive.

Murder the wife and have Parry sent down for it, 'two birds, one stone'
Purely hypothetical as I say, but something of this nature may well have driven Wallace's struggle for survival.

[RodCrosby]

cobalt

English civil registration is notoriously unreliable, particularly for stated ages. I think I've yet to find a record in my own family where the details are entirely accurate for either the man or woman (except my parents' marriage certificate). People just stated whatever they fancied before the registrar. There was no comeback.

In 1914, Julia Dennis stated she was 37 on her marriage certificate (if Murphy is correct she was 52). William Herbert Wallace claimed 36 (he was 35).

Wallace appears to have believed Julia was 52 at the time of her death ("age believed 52 years" in his first statement). The gravestone (presumably paid for by Wallace) states "aged 52 years", and her death certificate, certified by the coroner after Wallace's appeal states "about 52 years."

Murphy appears to be correct in identifying her as being born on 28 April 1861 [although there is still a very slim chance he is wrong]. A theory I've heard recently is that the Julia Wallace (nee Dennis) who was murdered in 1931 was the (concealed) illegitimate daughter of the Julia Dennis born in 1861, but there is absolutely no evidence for it and a lot against it.

For one, we know her sister Amy wrote to the Chief Constable of Liverpool after the murder, asking for Julia's fur stole (IIRC) to be forwarded on to her...

Maybe when they were married in 1914, Wallace believed she was 37. Maybe she even looked 37 instead of 52! It was a different era. People of both sexes were often virgins when they married. Maybe whatever sex-life they had petered out as Wallace entered middle-age. Maybe they had never had a sex-life, and the marriage was platonic. Stranger things have been recorded.

[RodCrosby]

Did Julia confront William, and during a steaming row, threaten to go to the police ?
The Crime of homosexuality carried a prison sentence in 1931, but the ramifications would be insufferable,

Not least for Julia, who in her old age would find herself homeless...

[OneRound]

During my researches I have recently come across this case. Betts was hanged on 3rd January 1931, less than three weeks before the Wallace murder. Ridley was reprieved from the gallows, and served just 5 years.

Betts and Ridley had entered into a plan, which involved a measure of violence, to rob an elderly man named Andrews whom they knew to carry large sums of money on behalf of his employer. During the course of the robbery, Betts struck Andrews a blow either with his clenched fist but much more probably with some kind of weapon, as a result of which he died. Meanwhile, Ridley had remained in the car to which Betts returned after the robbery with the cash which was divided up between the two men.

Betts did not give evidence; but Ridley did. He accepted that he had been a party to an agreement that Andrews would be robbed, but said that he anticipated only that the deceased would be pushed down and the bag snatched from him, and he was not a party to any agreement that violence of any kind should be used. Both Betts and Ridley were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Avory J in the Court of Criminal Appeal, it is submitted, rightly said that such a scheme to rob a man in such circumstances could not be carried out without the probability at least of violence having to be used in order to get possession of the money.

Ridley's counsel, however, argued that before they could convict Ridley of murder, they should have been directed that there existed between the two men a common design that such violence should be used as, in the contemplation of a reasonable man, would be likely to result in death or at least in grievous bodily harm to the intended victim. Insofar as the test for complicity argued for was objective, that is clearly inconsistent with modern notions of criminal responsibility based on subjective foresight; but what is important here is the argument (based as it was on authorities such as Easts Pleas of the Crown and Russell on Crime) that death had to follow as a likely consequence of the common purpose.
Avory J said:

Even if Betts did vary in the manner of execution of this agreed plan to rob, and obviously it must have been a plan to rob with some degree of violence, Ridley being present as a principal in the second degree, was equally responsible.

https://web.archive.org/web/20080801102803/http://www.bond.edu.au/study-areas/law/publications/BLR/vol2-2/Cato2_2.pdf

Victor Edward Betts - hanged at HMP Winson Green Birmingham,3rd January 1931

The job had been carefully planned. They had watched a number of times as the old man went about his regular routine of walking to the National Provincial Bank at Six Ways, banking the takings from William Taylor and Co., drapers, of Potters Hill, Aston, Birmingham, and, when his appearance at the bank could be anticipated almost to the minute, they decided it was time to their put plan into action.
Sixty three-year-old William Thomas Andrews had worked for Taylor and Co. for over thirty years, having risen to the position of head porter and it was his responsibility to see that the wages were collected, and takings deposited at the bank on a daily basis. At just after 2pm on Monday afternoon, 21 July 1930, Andrews collected a bag with the weekend’s takings of just over nine hundred pounds, along with the paying in book, and set out on the five-minute walk to the bank. It was a journey he would never complete.
Earlier that lunchtime, two 21-year-olds, Victor Betts and Herbert Ridley, had called into Rose Garage on Park Road and arranged to hire a yellow Morris Cowley four-seat saloon. Coal merchant Thomas Young of Holte Road owned the car and, after the youths told him they wanted it for an hour or so, to take an elderly relatives across the city, they agreed on a price and Ridley signed the hire agreement.
It had been Betts who had first hit on the idea of robbing the old man. He was unemployed and eking out a meagre living as a street gambler when he noticed Andrews carrying his bag of money to the bank. When he saw him a second and then a third time over the coming days, he discussed his plans with a number of his criminally-inclined friends before settling on lorry driver Ridley, the only one of his friends who could drive. This was an essential part of his plan.
That afternoon, with Ridley at the wheel of their hire car, they parked up on the corner of Victoria Road and Rifle Crescent, adjacent to the bank, and waited. When Betts saw Andrews approach he climbed out and hid around the corner. As the man passed him, Betts struck him on the head and pushed him to the ground. He then snatched the bag and, as the car screeched up alongside, he tossed it into the back and climbed into the front seat as Ridley sped away.
Van driver Charles Dowd was driving down Victoria Road when he saw the attack. At the same moment a yellow car had pulled up and the assailant climbed in. As it sped off he attempted to give chase but soon lost it as it reached the Six Ways junction. Dowd was able to give a good description of the car and it was quickly traced to Rose Garage, where detectives learned that it had been hired by Ridley. Officers hurried to his rooms on Barton Street, but found he had already absconded. The car was later found abandoned containing the bag lying empty on the back seat. Officers had by now also learned the identity of Ridley’s accomplice and, with Andrews lying in hospital with a fractured skull, a hunt for his attackers began. The hunt for the thieves became a murder enquiry when Andrews died from his injuries three days later from a fractured skull sustained in the fall. He never regained consciousness.
It was to be almost two weeks later before detectives had the attackers in custody. On Sunday, August 6 a car was involved in an accident in Sussex. There had been four people in the car, two young men and two women, when it ran into a ditch, and when officers went to follow up the incident at an address the men had given they found a link with the murder in Birmingham.
The enquiry then focused on the south coast, and on the following Tuesday night Ridley was picked up in Brighton. When searched he was found to be carrying over a hundred and fifty pounds. Betts was picked up later that night and when officers searched their rooms at Grand Parade they found another two hundred and fifty pounds. Taken into custody and brought back to Birmingham, both admitted being involved in the robbery and, from the outset, Ridley maintained he had merely driven the getaway car.
Their two-day murder trial before Mr Commissioner Mitchell-Innes at Warwickshire Assizes began on 4 December. In the case of Ridley, his defence again maintained that he had only been the driver of the car. He said that when they planned the robbery, Betts had told him he simply planned to push Andrews to the ground and snatch the bag. Ridley claimed that had he known Betts intended to use violence he would have taken no part in the crime.
Betts’ defence was that he had not intended to kill and therefore he was only guilty of manslaughter. Betts said he had used minimal force and his counsel produced medical evidence to show that Andrews had an abnormally thin skull.
Despite this, the prosecution claimed it was a brutal attack on an innocent man going about his business and that both had undertaken the attack and, while Ridley may have claimed to have merely acted as the driver in the actual crime, he had been a willing accomplice and had received an equal share of the spoils. Having considered their verdict, the jury returned to find Betts guilty of murder and, as Ridley had been party to the common design, they found him equally guilty. Both were sentenced to death and each immediately launched an appeal.
The partners in crime would not hang side by side, although preparations were well underway for what would be a rare double execution at the gaol. Just days before the sentences were due to be carried out, the Home Secretary announced a reprieve in the case of Ridley. His appeal had been successful. Spared the gallows, he was sentenced instead to life imprisonment. There was to be no such mercy for Victor Betts, deemed the mastermind behind the crime and, the man who had yielded the fatal blow, and he walked to the gallows on a frosty and foggy Saturday morning, 3 January 1931.
Herbert Charles Ridley would serve just five years before being released on licence in December 1935.
https://www.facebook.com/36982019314...3807506410992/

Since the Jogee case [2016], it's unlikely Ridley (albeit reprieved) would have been convicted of murder in the first place, if that murder occurred today.

But back in 1931, Parry was at risk of the noose, depending on the specific facts that came out at any hypothetical trial.

OTOH, if it could be shown that Parry merely envisaged sneak-thievery, and that no weapon was carried into the house with his knowledge (or at all), he might have been convicted merely of Burglary...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_purpose#English_law

But to pin anything at all on Parry, in practice the Police would have needed to first track down the killer... A tough nut to crack!

Betts and Ridley is an interesting case.

Connected with that, I've sometimes wondered what would have been the fate of the ten or so individuals sentenced to lengthy prison terms shortly after the Great Train Robbery of 1963 if train driver Jack Mills who was coshed and hospitalised had died as a direct result of his injuries.

Some of those convicted had been involved in the plotting and supply of information although not actually participating in the robbery itself. However, capital punishment was still in force in the UK at this time and, probably fair to say, the Establishment were mightily affronted by this crime and out for blood.

Apologies for going off topic and hope you'll tolerate the diversion.

Best regards,
OneRound

[Herlock Sholmes]

That's a fair age difference.
But how on earth would Wallace not be aware of this, as I asked earlier? It's on the marriage certificate.

She must have given a false date. There’s a false date on the gravestone too.

Quite a deception by Julia to add to the fact that she lied about her fathers occupation and that she appeared to be completely estranged from the rest of her family. None of whom turned up for the funeral. I seem to recall one sister contacting William to ask for one of Julia’s coats...then she disappeared.

[RodCrosby]

besides, while having some facts correct, Murphy still has a couple of things wrong, and Julia certainly did NOT "disappear" for 35 years, as he claims in his book...

In 1881, Julia (age given 19, single) was living in Keswick Road, Wandsworth, London in the household of Robert G Smith, bankers's clerk, his wife and 4 daughters.
Occupation: Assistant Governess (Teacher)

in 1891, Julia (age given 28, single) was living in Dalton's Yard, Oulton-with-Woodlesford, on the outskirts of Leeds, West Yorkshire in the household of Robert John Smith, Surveyor Estate Clerk To Architect Land & Mineral Agent, his wife and 2 sons & 2 daughters.
Occupation: Governess

[Whether these two Smiths were related and whether they were related to Julia (her late mother was born a Smith) is unknown.]

In 1901, Julia (aged given 30) is back in London, living alone as head of her household in Stroud Green Road, Hornsey, Middlesex.
Occupation: Living on own means

[The transcription of age 30 may be an error for 39 (I have not seen the original) or this could be around the time that Julia started to shave a considerable amount off her age]

I cannot find Julia in the 1911 census index, which again may be down to a indexing error, or she was away, or she was a Suffragette!

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/01/suffragettes-census-1911-boycott

All in all, I can find nothing suspicious in any of this.

[Herlock Sholmes]

There’s still no explaination for why she was estranged from her family though? We can’t assume anything sinister of course but it would be interesting to know what caused the rift.

[RodCrosby]

So - by the standards of the times - Julia was a successful, independent woman who had navigated Victorian society, relocating between Yorkshire and London at least twice on her own.

When she met William in Harrogate, he was involved in Liberal politics, so we may deduce they were both on the "progressive" end of the political spectrum.

My hunch is Julia was a suffragette in 1911.

Interestingly, there was a notorious suffragette active in Harrogate, among other places, who had used the surname alias "Dennis"...

[RodCrosby]

There may have been no 'rift'.

They were all orphaned at an early age, and may have just gone their separate ways, gradually having less and less contact.

A classic Victorian scenario, especially after the advent of the railways.

[Herlock Sholmes]

True enough.

Didn’t Julia’s sister turn up after her murder though? I know that she requested Julia’s coat. I wonder why she didn’t stick around for the funeral?

[Herlock Sholmes]

As you say, we can’t be certain of a rift they may have just drifted apart as some families do. Maybe you’re right and Julia became a Suffragette. The family might have objected to this as many parents did although they might have approved. We’ve no way of knowing of course unless she was mentioned in any surviving minutes of meetings for eg which are unlikely to turn up now. As you say, with William being a Liberal this might have been how they met and found something in common?