Stoneybatter serial killer
QUESTION
Was there a serial killer in Dublin’s Stoneybatter in the 18th century called ‘Billy in the Bowl’? THERE was, indeed, a serial killer on the loose in the Stoneybatter and Grangegorman districts of Dublin in the late 18th century called ‘Billy in the Bowl’. His real name was Billy Davis.
In those days, Dublin had innumerable beggars, but none proved so lethal as ‘Billy in the Bowl’. He had been born deformed, without legs, and a metal bowl on wheels was made for him so that he could get around. He used wooden pegs, one in each hand, to propel himself around. Outward appearances were deceptive. He had blond, curly hair, striking green eyes, a cherubic face and an attractive manner. His appearance and his gift of the gab made him a regular recipient of donations.
He first put his appealing manner to wrong use when he persuaded servant girls to steal food for him from the big houses where they worked.
Soon, he put his talents to much more lethal use, convinced he would be beyond any suspicion.
His first murder happened in Grangegorman, where late one night, a middle-aged woman was on her way to visit friends. She was walking through Grangegorman Lane on her way to Queen Street. She spotted his green eyes staring at her from an alleyway, heard his groans and decided to go and help him. It was a fateful decision that cost the woman her life. ‘Billy in the Bowl’ had very strong arms and he used his hands to grab her; he then put his arms around her throat and strangled her, making a relatively quick getaway in his bowl, together with the woman’s possessions.
Before long, he had committed another murder, also in Grangegorman Lane, where a servant girl put up a strong resistance as Billy strangled her. Around that time, Dublin’s first ever police force was being organised and the first crime it investigated was this murder. Billy ultimately committed several murders; it’s not known how many exactly, but it was probably around half a dozen. He had also carried out numerous robberies.
The whole district was put under curfew until the murderer was caught. One night, two well-built female cooks, who were returning home after an evening out, heard cries for help, which had come from Billy as a lure. The women found Billy huddled in a ditch.
Thinking that there was only one woman, he attacked one of the pair and tried to pull her into the ditch. However, she was too strong for him and tore his face with her finger nails. Then her companion pulled a large hatpin out of her hat and plunged it into his eye.
Billy howled in pain, which brought people rushing to the scene. One of them was a policeman who arrested the beggar. The crowd procured a large hand barrow, on which Billy was taken to the nearest police station.
He was tried, but the compassionate judge sentenced him to life imprisonment, rather than hanging, leaving the crowd in the court bitterly disappointed.
Billy spent the rest of his days in hard labour in the prison attached to Green Street police station, and members of high society often came to stare at him.
Billy died in prison and although most of his crimes were never proved, the Stoneybatter and Grangegorman district reverted to being a quiet area once he had been put behind bars. Andy Murphy, Kilkenny.
QUESTION
Abolitionist William Wilberforce was said to have had an impressive speaking voice. Are there any contemporary descriptions of it? WILLIAM WILBERFORCE was born on August 24, 1759, in Hull, England, the son of a wealthy merchant. A poorly child, he later said: ‘I was not born in less civilised times, when it would have been thought impossible to rear so delicate a child.’
He attended Cambridge where he began a lasting friendship with the future British prime minister, William Pitt the Younger.
At university he was noted for his wit and eloquence; of this his friend the Rev. T. Gisbourne said: ‘I heard his melodious voice calling aloud to me to come and sit with him before I went to bed.
‘It was a dangerous thing to do, for his amusing conversation was sure to keep me up so late, that I was behind-hand the next morning.’
In 1780, Wilberforce was elected MP for Hull, later representing Yorkshire. He became an evangelical Christian, and in 1790 joined a group called the Clapham Sect. His faith prompted him to become interested in social reform, particularly the improvement of factory conditions in Britain, and as a leading abolitionist.
Wilberforce shone in parliament. Pitt declared his natural eloquence to be ‘the greatest he ever knew’, and the melodious beauty of his voice earned him the nickname ‘the Nightingale of the House of Commons’.
His brother-in-law, James Stephen, said Wilberforce had ‘a voice which resembled an Aeolian harp controlled by the touch of a St. Cecilia’. The Aeolian harp is played by the movement of the wind over strings, named after Aeolus, Greek God of the Wind.
MP John Bacon Sawrey Morritt wrote: ‘Wilberforce held a high and conspicuous place in oratory, even at a time when English eloquence rivalled whatever we read of in Athens or in Rome. His voice itself was beautiful: deep, clear, articulate and flexible.’ Martin Gill, Newark-on-Trent, Notts.
QUESTION
What is the origin of the phrase ‘gig economy’? THE phrase gained public recognition at the height of the financial crisis in early 2009, when the unemployed made a living by ‘gigging’ – working a number of parttime jobs, wherever they could.
The term has increased in use because of the rise in companies that utilise the principle, such as Uber and Airbnb.
The term ‘gig’ in this sense goes back to the Twenties when it became jazz musicians’ slang for a date or engagement.
The word became associated with work in the Fifties, when the hipsters and the Beats adapted it to mean any job you took to keep body and soul together while your real life was elsewhere.
In his book Lonesome Traveller, Jack Kerouac talks about his ‘gig’ as a part-time brakeman for the Southern Pacific railroad (‘anyways in your sleep and put on your gig clothes and cut out and take a little bus and go down to the San Jose yard office down by the airport’).
Calling a job a gig was a way of saying it didn’t define you. Jim Stubbs, Birchwood, Lancs.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.