The Judge and Counsel in the P.C. Cock Murder Trial ... another story from Tony Goulding

The murder of P. C. Nicholas Cock and the subsequent trial of two young Irish agricultural labourers, John and William Habron has been explored a number of times on this Blog. 

P.C. Nicholas Cocks memorial stone in St Clement’s Old Graveyard

In an effort to find something fresh to write about the case I decided to investigate the lives of the Judge and the prosecuting and defending counsel.  

The trial judge was Mr. Justice Lindley while the prosecutor was Mr. William H. Higgin Q.C. and the brothers were defended by Mr. John H. P. Leresche Q.C.

Lord Justice Lindley in 1893

 Nathaniel Lindley was born on the 28th November, 1828 in Acton Green, London. His father, John, was an eminent botanist and leading expert on orchids, who soon after Nathaniel’s birth was appointed as the newly established London University’s first professor of botany. He combined this rôle with working for the Horticultural Society of London (1), in which capacity he was instrumental in the successful campaign, of 1840, to save the botanical gardens at Kew from government plans for its closure. His mother, Sarah (née Freestone) was from the quaintly named village of St. Margaret South Elmham in Suffolk and was a descendant of Sir Edward Coke the eminent judge and parliamentarian during the reigns of both Elizabeth 1 and James 1 (VI of Scotland) (2).

Lord Justice Lindley

Nathaniel Lindley, perhaps benefitting from his father’s tenure at the University, was educated at University College a public school established by the nascent University of London, at which institution he continued his studies. On the 29th May 1850 he was “called to the Bar” at the Middle Temple. In the examinations which he took to so qualify he was placed first among the candidates and was awarded the Lecturer’s Prize: the 20 volumes of “Vesey’s reports”. His early career was in civil law; initially at the office of his maternal uncle, Edward Freestone an “attorney and solicitor” on Oxford Street, Norwich. He also authored several important law books, one of which remains in publication. 

In 1875, Just a year before the trial of the Habron brothers he was both knighted and made a judge in the criminal courts. Justice Hindley ascended the ranks of the judiciary until in October, 1897 he was appointed Master of the Rolls and less than three years later, on the 10th May, 1900 he was elevated to the Peerage as Baron Lindley of East Carleton in the County of Norfolk to enable him to sit as a Law Lord. He announced his resignation from his judicial duties as The Lord of Appeal in Ordinary on Monday 4th December 1905 and retired to his country estate near Norwich in Norfolk which he had inherited from his uncle. He did however remain fit enough to continue to serve as the chairman of the Norwich Magistrate Court for upwards of five more years. Even when well into his ninth decade he remained active on local committees and was a regular correspondent with public bodies and newspapers

St. Mary’s Churchyard, East Carleton, Norfolk

Nathaniel married Sarah Katherine Teale, the daughter of John Edward Teale, a deceased solicitor Deputy Registrar of the Diocese of Ripon and clerk to the West Riding Magistrates. The couple were married by the bride’s uncle on the 5th August, 1858 at Roundhay, Leeds, Yorkshire; their union was blessed with nine children. Baron Lindley died at his home in East Carleton on the 9th December, 1921 and is buried in St. Mary’s churchyard in the village. His estate was valued for probate purposes a £23,718 – 0s – 4d (equivalent today to £941, 004). His wife of more than 53 years, Sarah Katherine pre-deceased him on the 8th February, 1912.

The chief prosecutor of the case against the Habrons was William Housman Higgin Q.C. He was born on the 28th February, 1820 in Skerton, Lancaster, Lancashire where he was christened by his uncle Rev. William Higgin (3) on the 13th March, 1820. William’s parents were John Higgin, a solicitor, and Susannah (née Armstrong). His grandfather, also John Higgin, was the “Keeper of His Majesty’s Gaol, Lancaster”

Whilst still only 20 William married Mary Calah, the daughter of James Calah, an “Esquire”, of Holme Hall, Bottesford, North Lincolnshire on the 20th August, 1840 at St. Mary’s Church, Lancaster

William studied for the Bar at The Middle Temple in London, becoming a student there on the 23rd December,1842 and qualifying (“called to the Bar”) on the 28th January, 1848. 

Inside view of Lancaster Gaol - 1824

Initially William was not very successful and, in the August of 1857, he had to petition The Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors. (debt discharged 2nd September,1857). Since qualifying he had lived for a time in Birkenhead, near Liverpool where he had gone into partnership as Oil Merchants and Seed Crushers with his cousin Robert James Chippindall. It may have been the dissolving of this partnership, “by mutual consent” on the 29th March, 1855 which precipitated William’s financial difficulties.

From this date, however, William concentrated on his career in the Law. He was appointed a Queen’s Council at the Middle Temple on the 21st February, 1868, shortly after which, on the 23rd August, 1869 he accepted the chairmanship of the Salford Sessions; later also taking on a similar position in Preston, Lancashire (gratuitously from the spring of 1874; with a stipend, of £800, from July, 1879). On the 16th February, 1876 he was appointed the Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Lancaster. In the June of 1890, he was appointed Recorder of Preston.

 William lived in the North West of England all his life apart from his studies in London. The 1851 census records him at, 39, Hamilton Square, Birkenhead from where he moved, successively, to, Heaton Terrace, Cheetham Hill, Manchester, Heald Grove, Rusholme, Manchester, and Heald Green, Stockport, Cheshire. (4)

The 1861 census records show him residing, with 3 servants, at 3, Birch View, Longsight Street, Rusholme, Lancashire. In 1871, William was shown at “Norwood”, Vine Street, Broughton, Salford again with just 3 servants. His wife, appears at a lodging house in Buxton, Derbyshire. (possibly “Taking the Waters”) Ten years later the couple are still not shown as living together, although Mrs. Higgin is recorded living in a large house in Prestwich, Seedley Mount on Bury New Road. The household included a lady companion, butler, cook and 4 other servants. According to William’s obituary, in the Lancaster Gazette of the 4th February, 1893, this house was the venue for frequent lavish dinner parties which William was well known for. For a short time in the middle of the 1880s William moved back to live in Lancaster at Springfield Hall where he involved himself in local affairs and for his leisure time purchased “The John of Gaunt” a 150-foot yacht which he would crew with a few friends and sail down to Cowes in the Isle of Wight

William’s final few years were spent at Cloverley House, Stockport Road, Timperley, Cheshire which, as recorded in the 1891 census, he was sharing with his wife (and five servants). He died on the 30th January, at Hesketh Park Crescent, Southport, Lancashire where he was staying in the hope that the sea air would benefit his failing health. The report of his death and funeral in the Cheshire Observer of the 4th February, 1893 states that he left an invalid widow but no children. His estate was valued at £8,781-2s. (equivalent to £787,821 today)

Finally, William Housman Higgin has another South Manchester connection in that he was the Q.C. retained by the Moss Side Township to represent their opposition to it being incorporated into the City of Manchester.

Mr. John Henry Proctor Leresche, the defending counsel in the Habron case, was born in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1823, however, not wishing to make this post over long and to do his story justice I’ll leave off from giving any more details for now; but as they say “WATCH THIS SPACE”!

Pictures: - P.C. Nicholas Cocks memorial stone in St Clement’s Old Graveyard, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester from the collection of Tony Goulding. 

Lord Justice Lindley - By Alexander Bassano - Public Domain,

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4820531

 St Mary’s Churchyard, East Carleton, Norfolk -

 By John Salmon, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8270814

Inside view of Lancaster Gaol. 1824 - By Unknown, probably a debtor imprisoned at the Castle - http://collections.lancsmuseums.gov.uk/narratives/object.php?irn=213, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7414221

 Notes: -

1)  The Horticultural Society of London became the Royal Horticultural Society at a time that its last President was Prince Albert, the Consort of Queen Victoria.

2)  Sir Edward Coke was at various times the Speaker of the House of Commons, Attorney General, and Solicitor General. He is also well known for the prosecutions of both Sir Walter Raleigh and The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators.

3)  At the time he baptised his nephew, Rev. William Higgin was the Chaplain of the Richmond General Penitentiary and Magdalen Asylum, Leeson Street, Dublin (in only his second clerical post). However, he later became a Bishop firstly of Limerick and later of Derry and Raphoe. 

4)  The records of William Housman Higgin’s addresses are exceptionally extensive due in part to an exhaustive list included in the London Gazette of the 14th August, 1857 giving the notification of his appearance in the debtor’s court at Lancaster on Friday, the 28th August at 11-00 a.m. This even included his address while he was in London, residing at Brompton Square, Brompton, Middlesex with chambers at Pump Court, Temple, London. His Offices in Liverpool were at Eldon Chambers, South John Street while those in Manchester were in 4 – 6, St. John’s Square.

Acknowledgements:- An excellent book, "The Victorian Master Criminal Charles Peace and the murders of Cock and Dyson" (2016) by David C. Hanrahan has a couple of detailed chapters on the trial of the Habron Brothers. also useful was Angela Buckley's "Who Killed Constable Cock?" (2007)

Looking for Mrs Elizabeth Cunliffe ………

History has not been kind to Elizabeth Cunliffe. 

The Soho Foundry Tavern, 1851, Great Ancoats Street

So far, she features in just one historical record, from the 1851 census after which there is nothing.

For a brief while I thought I had found her ten years earlier and again for the last three decades of the 19th century, which would have made an interesting story as it tracked a young farm servant to a woman “living on her own means” aged 93.

But on closer inspection the young farm worker is not the elderly woman with money behind her.

Sadly, they were neither born in the same year or in the same place, and so what could have a fascinating story charting a remarkable journey turns out to be nothing more than a shared name.

Nor is the young Elizabeth aged 16 and living on a farm close to Liverpool the 26 years old woman who had married a James Cunliffe and described herself as a “Publican” on the 1851 census.

But there is enough left in that one record to pursue Mrs Cunliffe.

They were living at 251 Great Ancoats Street, close to where the Ashton Canal runs under the road at New Islington.*

Great Ancoats Street, 1962

Mr Cunliffe was a “Boiler Maker employing six men” and while he appears on the Street Directory at 251 Great Ancoats Street he is not listed amongst the eight men of that name in the alphabetical section of the same directory.  

Those eight included a bricklayer, provision dealer, tanner, and mechanic, along with a beer retailer, crate maker, dyer and weaver.

Nor can I find any listing for Elizabeth in the directories despite the reference to her as a publican. 

Now that is intriguing because there was the Soho Foundry Tavern on Great Ancoats Street which is recorded on the Rate Books as a pub at 251 in 1854 and 1855, and its occupant was her husband.

So if this was their pub, they must have taken it over sometime during 1851 because at the start of the year the Soho Foundry Tavern was run by an Ann Goff and by 1863 by Joseph Abrahams.

Moreover I know that in 1847 they were in Newton Le Willows and by 1849 were here in Manchester, because Thomas their eldest had been born outside the city while the birth place of their daughter May was here in Manchester.

All of which looks more than a bit confusing and messy.  But it was not uncommon for families to have more than one occupation, and well into the 20th century some pubs were run as a secondary business.  

I thought at first that perhaps Mrs Cunliffe was actually a beer retailer, which was an occupation made possible by the 1830 Beer Act which allowed anyone who could afford to pay two guineas for a license to brew and sell their own beer from their home.  Often the beer was dispensed from one room of the family home, and some beer shops morphed into pubs.

Looking towards Great Ancoats Street, 2022 from New Islington

But the Soho Foundry Tavern was not a beer house/beer shop.  It is listed a public house, took up a large footprint on the maps and commanded a higher rateable value than the surrounding premises all of which suggests it was a going concern.

And that pretty much is that other than to record that a James Cunliffe was running a beer house in the 1880s at 347 Great Ancoats Street which commanded a rate of just £20 compared to the £50 paid for the Soho Foundry Tavern thirty years earlier.

I say that is it, but the mystery thickens slightly because the Elizabeth Cunliffe who appears in the census records for 1891 and 1901 may not share the same birthplace or date of birth as our Elizabeth from Great Ancoats Street, but she was living in Newton Le Willows which was also the birthplace of her husband James Cunliffe and their son Thomas.

So lots more research to do.

To which John Anthony Hewitt has added, "Hi Andrew, I have a marriage for a James Cunliffe, full age, Boiler Maker, Eccles Street, Liverpool, to Elizabeth Welsh, minor, Eccles Street, Liverpool, at St Nicholas Church, Liverpool, 30 March 1845. His father, John, was a Contractor, and her father, Thomas, a Shoemaker. Source: (https://www.ancestry.co.uk/imageviewer/collections/2197/images/englb5617_283-nic-3-31_m_00034?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=wBg19&_phstart=successSource&pId=1703824) 

This would fit with the 1851 Census ages, 31 & 26, giving years of birth as ca. 1820 & ca 1825. 

Also, I noticed the 1851 Census recorded James Cunliffe as born in Ashton-le-Willows, which was another name for Ashton-in-Makerfield; old maps (NLS) also record 2 names for Newton-le-Willows, the alternative being Newton-in-Makerfield. Source for Ashton-le-Willows: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lancs/vol4/pp142-148 "

And also fits with the 1841 census entry which shows the two of them living and working on a farm.

Location; Great Ancoats Street

Pictures; walking New Islington, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ and Goolden's Buildings, T Brooks,1962,m11279,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*New Islington, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=New+islington

Painting Well Hall and Eltham ....... nu 10 outside the Park Tavern

Now I have been a wee bit harsh about Passey Place in the past.

You turn off into it from the High Street and once you have passed the old post office you are flanked by drab modern buildings with the side of the Market Place to your right and that long block of shops and flats opposite.

But there are those two fine looking houses a little further along and then the Park Tavern which Peter decided to paint recording it before its latest makeover.

So with that as an incentive I thought I would revisit Passey Place but with the twist that we are back in the April of 1911 when it was called Park Place and it counted amongst its residents, a doctor, a retired Professor a rate collector, and an omnibus conductor.

And I shall be even more specific and point out that those two fine houses I admire were the homes of Mr Murphy the rate collector and Mr Hutchinson the omnibus conductor and by 1914 the first had become the Blackheath Conservatoire of Music and perhaps because of that the Hutchinson’s next door had moved out and a Mr Morris had moved in.*

But there was one constant and that was William Smith the publican of the Park Tavern who was pulling pints by 1911 and perhaps earlier.

He was 50 years old in the year we wandered down the road, had been born in Scotland and had married Mrs Smith in 1883.

And they shared the pub with young Beatrice Serres and Alfred Osborn.  Beatrice was just 19 came from Kent and was employed as a domestic servant and Alfred at 79 was still working as a carpenter.

On the opposite side of the road along with the Post Office and Methodist Chapel were a number of residents including Madame Cecilia Ronsard who described herself as a dressmaker.

So an interesting and mixed bag of people in what I suspect was a more gentle and interesting street.

And now The Park is the favourite pub of our Jill and Geoff which is yet another reason to rethink all I have ever said and thought about Passey Place.

Painting; The Park Tavern © 2015 Peter Topping 

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*The Post Office London Directory, 1914 & the 1911 census return for the  Park Tavern Enu 06 Eltham London

In Rimini and everything is ok ……

So it is that time of year.

And today we got a postcard from Rosa who was on holiday in Rimini.

It was posted  two and a bit weeks ago which fits with that experience most of us have of arriving home before the postcards.

Nothing new in that.

Still Rosa does things in the old-fashioned way.

No text message, no picture via Whats Ap and no story posted on social media.

And that’s it.

Location; Rimini

Picture; "In Rimini and everything is ok"……, picture postcard, 2022

A Friday night in ..... with a heap of Italian pop songs

So l like watching Techetechete which goes out on the Italian TV station Rai 1 on Friday night.

Betty Curtis, 1964

It is one of those familiar light music programmes featuring Italian singers drawn from the decades back to the 1950s including a fair wallop of those from the 1960s.

So in one sense it is a well trodden path which with slightly different themes will appear across the globe.

But in another way it a perfect introduction  to popular Italian culture made all the more sweet by watching it with the Italian side of the family.

Location;  Italy over the decades in our front room 

PIcture; Betty Curtis 1964, from Radiocorriere

On going home to Varese

Varese is not I suppose somewhere I would naturally have ended up in.* 

It is a small Italian town of just under 82, 000 people, and an hour from Milan and depending on the road you choose about 15 minutes from the Swiss border.

It has its own grand lake, a pretty impressive mountain and a fine 18^th century town hall.

And that is about it.  But it is where we go once or twice a year to visit family and so it is a bit like a second home.  More than that it is a comfortable place to be.

I can walk into the centre in just fifteen minutes, wander a maze of little side streets which as if by magic open onto small piazzas and find in the shops all that I need.

And as always there are the bars, most like this one in the Corso Giacomo Matteotti spread out on to the square lapping the statute and pulling in the shoppers.

Today it had attracted a mixed bunch and I suppose if the weather had been a little drier and warmer there would have been many more.

It is a good spot.  Directly ahead is the archway that leads to the church of San Vittore, while behind me another more discrete set of doors leads into a hidden place. 

Here in what was once a monastery with its cloisters on three sides is a quiet spot.

A mix of shops, offices and a restaurant it is the sort of place you stumble across by accident and then keep getting drawn back.

I love the fading wall paintings and the fact that people still live just beyond the wall in an even smaller enclosed yard just to the south of the cloisters.

And that is one of other the attractions of the place, that people do still live here in the centre, so even as the city workers leave for the day and before the evening crowd arrive, there is still a buzz about the place.

So while stillness descends and there is a waiting expectation of what is to come this is no ghost town.

It may be quieter but the place has not been deserted.  All of which makes for a manageable place to live.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Varese, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Varese

The Manchester pawnbroker and his fine cottages in Didsbury ….. doing the essential walk and making it historic .... no. 5

This is Warburton Street in Didsbury, and if you should care to walk it, it won’t take long.

Warburton Street, 2020

In fact, it will be but a matter of moments to walk its entire length from Ogden Street to Wilmlsow Road.

In happier times that short walk would have lasted a tad bit longer if you had called in to Morten’s the Booksellers, followed by a meal in the restaurant next door, and finishing at the two  gift shops which are positioned at either end of the street.*

Warburton Street, 1911

The row of shops looks old, and as you do I decided to peel back their stories.

In 1911, those same properties were home to “Jn Crompton & Sons, paint stores", at number 2, William Richardson, platelayer at number 4, and Mrs. Emma Smith at number 6, who was listed as “householder”, and was a launderess, while finally at number 8 was Mr. Schofield who was a “night soil man” who worked for Manchester City Council.

While on the opposite side there lived a gardener, a hairdresser, two labourers along with the stables of the Midland Railways.

All of which is a neat cross section of the working resident of Didsbury, and by extension of the occupations of many who lived in Manchester.

Four decades earlier and those occupations were rooted in the land with a mix of agricultural labourers, and gardeners, along with a charwoman and domestic servant to cater for the wealthier.

Warburton Street and Hardman Street, south of the National School, 1845

But with a nod to the future one man described himself as “winder in a cotton factory” and another as "a grocery porter.”

Go back another twenty years to 1851 and along with those agricultural workers there were two of Didsbury’s last cotton weavers.

The census returns for the middle decades of the 19th century show that families were large, with anything between five to six people crammed into what were just two up and two down properties.

And using the Rate Books it is possible to track back and find not only the tenants but also the landlords.

In 1911 the entire south side of Warburton Street which consisted of our five houses, along with Hardman Street and Ogden Street were owned by a Charles Haynes who took home £147 from just these streets.

Mr. Haynes's stamping ground, 1851

In time I shall go looking for him, but for now I am content to explore the life of his father, Richard Haynes, who was born in 1802, married Harriet Farrington in 1821, aged just 19, and by 1848 was operating as a Pawnbroker at 30 Pump Street which was off London Road.

For the next decade and more he plied his trade on Pump Street and also Minshull Street, before moving to Didsbury.

A move which in part might have been motivated by his growing property empire, which he may have built.

Pump Street, 1850

Just when that was is as yet unclear.

The first entry in the Rate Books for Warburton Street is 1849, but they appear on the tithe map four years earlier, and Mr. Richard Haynes was in business by 1841, so he might well have accrued enough capital to sink his money into property.

And nothing quite surprises me about the man, because back in 1841 he is listed as a baker working from Back Acton Street, which was off Pump Street and ran parallel with London Road.

Just when he escaped the city and the murky world of pawnshops is unclear, but by 1861, he and Harriet are at number 3 Hardman Street, in a house which commanded fine views of the fields all the way down to Didsbury House, with the added bonus that his growing property empire was just a minute’s walk away.

Hardman Street with Warburton Street and the National School, 1854

And so assured was he of his new position in Didsbury society that he described himself as a “Proprietor of Houses”, and all reference to him in Manchester is absent from the records.

Location; Didsbury

Pictures; Warburton Street, 2020, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Back Pump Street, 1851, from Adshead’s map of Manchester, 1851, and Hardman Street, 1854, from the OS map of Lancashire, 1854, , courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/


*Orchard Interiors & Gifts 2, Warburton Street, No. 4 Dine & Wine, 4 Warburton Street, E.J. Morten Booksellers, 6 Warburton Street, Harriet and Dee, Cards and Gifts, 8 Warburton Street