The Flypaper Murder
ROB GANDY investigates a famous Liverpool crime.
Wwhen you step out of Liverpool’s Lime Street station you are greeted by the sight of the majestic, Parthenonlike St George’s Hall. Opened in 1854, it was built to accommodate the local triennial music festivals, meetings, dinners and concerts. At either end were the city’s main law courts; one for criminal cases and one for civil cases. They have not been used for these purposes since the opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Law Courts in 1984, although they host film and television courtroom dramas, often doubling for the Old Bailey.
Arguably the most famous case tried in St George’s Hall was that of Florence Maybrick in 1889, who was accused of murdering her husband, James Maybrick – with flypaper. Florence Chandler was a 17-year-old American when she met cotton-broker Maybrick, 23 years her senior, in 1880; they married the following year. Subsequently, Maybrick had a mistress in London, where he frequently travelled on business, and the deterioration of their relationship accelerated when Florence met another man in Liverpool; upon discovering her relationship, Maybrick assaulted her and announced his intention to seek divorce.
Florence was accused of purchasing 12 dozen flypapers, soaking them to obtain arsenic from them, and then poisoning Maybrick. His health had deteriorated rapidly before his death and the post-mortem detected the presence of arsenic in his system. Florence denied murder, claiming that she had extracted the arsenic for her complexion. Before modernday readers think that this is a totally bonkers defence it should be pointed out that in the 19th
century flypaper was not sticky, but was soaked in water with a little sugar added to attract flies.1 Also, toxins were regularly prescribed in small doses for medicinal and cosmetic purposes, partly because they were thought to be invigorating. Opiates were not illegal. In 1883, a senior doctor said that “if a law were passed, compelling physicians to confine themselves to two remedies only in their entire practice, arsenic would be my choice for one, opium for the other”. 2
James Maybrick’s health was not good. He had always been a hypochondriac, and increasingly self-medicated with an array of patent medicines; many of his preferred tonics contained strychnine, belladonna, phosphoric acid or arsenic, and he purchased the latter on a regular basis. 3 Doctors prescribed further quantities of poison, such as a supposed digestive aid containing prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide). Therefore, it was perhaps unsurprising that these substances took their toll on him and that when he died, in the spring of 1889, arsenic was found in his system. The cause of death was unclear, but when a nursemaid surreptitiously opened one of Florence’s letters to her lover, the family and some domestic staff suspected a motive for murder.
Florence stood trial in July
1889 under Judge James Fitzjames Stephen, an arrogant man who was starting to show signs of the mental illness that would soon end his career. Despite a strong defence – arguing that the confusing and contradictory medical evidence made it clear that the low levels of arsenic found in Maybrick’s body could not be confidently demonstrated to have caused his death – Stephen gave a summing-up bitterly hostile to Florence. This focused upon her infidelity rather than whether or not she had killed her husband. The jury of local businessmen was not persuaded by the defence’s rational arguments, and found Florence guilty. She was sentenced to hang.
There was a public outcry at the perceived miscarriage of justice and the Home Office was petitioned, resulting in the death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment; Florence was finally released in January 1904, having spent 14 years in custody. Always protesting her innocence, she returned to America where she wrote her life story. She died in 1941, a destitute recluse with only her cats for company.
Ripperologists will have taken note of the names of some of the above players. Justice Stephen was the father of James Kenneth Stephen, poet and tutor to Prince Albert Victor, eldest son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales – one of the many Jack the Ripper suspects. Allegedly, he committed the murders “out of a twisted desire for revenge” because of the break-up of his homosexual relationship with Prince Eddy,4 and his psychological profile apparently matched that of the Ripper. 5
Of course, the murder victim himself – James Maybrick – is one of the biggest suspects. It was his diary, which surfaced in 1992, which has led to claims that he was Jack the Ripper [FT76:61; FT77:11]. The diary’s author was anonymous, but there were enough hints and references consistent with Maybrick’s established life and habits to suggest that he was Jack. Whether or not the diaries were forgeries is still debated. 6 Interestingly, the Whitechapel murders took place from late August to early November 1888, and it was in early 1889 that Maybrick took seriously ill; there were no further Ripper murders after his death.
Irrespective of the merits of the cases against Stephen and Maybrick, it is notable that the Flypaper Murder trial involved the father of one Jack The Ripper suspect as the judge and another suspect as the victim.
REFERENCES
1 www.bbc.co.uk/news/ magazine-34464509
2 www.theguardian.com/ books/2014/feb/25/did-she-kill-himkate-colquhoun-review
3 www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/ localhistory/journey/lime_street/ georges_hall/courts.shtml
4 Michael Harrison, Clarence: The life of HRH the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, WH Allen, 1972.
5 David Abrahamsen, Murder and Madness: The Secret Life of Jack the Ripper, Donald I Fine, 1992.
6 www.jack-the-ripper.org/jamesmaybrick.htm