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THE ATTIC
:
QUICKLIME
:
(Case Study) The Bermondsev Horror |
Date
Added
JAN 2003 |
Maria de Roux was born in Switzerland in 1819. Her
early means of livelihood was as a lady's maid, and in 1846, while travelling
from England to join her mistress, Lady Blantyre, on the Continent, she first
met Patrick O'Connor. O'Connor was a forty nine year old Irishman, a Customs
Officer in the London docks, but earning a considerable second income from money
lending. Shortly afterwards, Maria met Frederick George Manning, a railway guard
on the Great Western Railway and a man of somewhat dubious reputation.
In the following year, 1847, Maria married Manning and the couple moved to
Taunton, in Somerset, to run the White Hart Inn; Maria, though, persisted in her
previous close friendship with O'Connor. Manning himself was still working on
the railway, but after being implicated in a £4,000 bullion theft, and arrested
and then released following a mail robbery, the Manning's decided that a move to
London might be advisable. They opened a beer shop in Hackney Road. Shortly
afterward Maria took it into her head to abscond with O'Connor. Manning went in
hot pursuit, and he was able to effect an uneasy reconciliation.
The Manning's' next address was in Minver Place, Bermondsey, where to make ends
meet, it was necessary to take in a lodger, in the person of a medical student
called Massey. Manning suddenly developed a previously undeclared interest in
medicine, and seemed anxious to question Massey about various matters related to
that youth's profession. The effects of chloroform, for example, and whether a
person could sign cheques under the influence of narcotics; the effects of
shooting somebody with an air gun, and where the weakest point of the skull is.
These were prominent among the queries which began to arose Massey's suspicion;
Massey's suspicion in its turn resulted in the unfortunate man being put out of
the house. It was about this time that Manning took delivery of a crowbar and a
quantity of quicklime.
O'Connor had throughout continued to be on terms of some intimacy with Mrs
Manning, and on 8 August 1849, he was invited to tea; it was on the same day
that Manning brought a shovel.
O'Connor was never seen alive again.
Mrs Manning had shot him through the head, and according to Manning's final
confession, 'I found O'Connor moaning in the kitchen. I never liked him very
much, and battered in his head with a ripping chisel.' He was then buried under
the flagstones in the kitchen, well covered with the quicklime.
On the following day Maria Manning visited O'Connor's lodgings and removed a
quantity of money and shares, and two gold watches. William was sent out to sell
the shares, on which he raised £110. At this point Mrs Manning decided to ditch
her husband and, after putting her belongings in the left-luggage at London
Bridge Station, she fled to Edinburgh. Manning sat it out at Minver Place a
couple more days and then he also fled; to the Channel Islands.
O'Connor's acquaintances were quick to notice the disappearance and contacted
the police. An official search of the house at Minver Place revealed two newly
cemented slabs in the kitchen floor; Patrick O'Connor's remains beneath them.
Mrs Manning was speedily arrested in Edinburgh, but Manning was able to lay low
until 21 August, when he was recognised and taken near St Helier, in Jersey.
The trial of Frederick and Maria Manning opened on 25 October 1849, before
Justice Creswell, with the Attorney General prosecuting. The case aroused huge
public interest, with Frederick and Maria each trying to put the blame on the
other for the murder. It was all to no avail, and both were duly sentenced to
death. At the end, just before the day of execution, Manning confessed; but
Maria still maintained her innocence, claiming 'There is no justice and no right
for a foreign subject in this country.'
Maria and Frederick Manning were executed on 13 November 1849 in front of
Horsemonger Lane Gaol. A crowd of fifty thousand spectators witnessed the
hanging, including Charles Dickens, who complained to The Times about the levity
of the crowd and the barbarity of the scene.
Maria wore a black satin dress on the scaffold and it is said that this put the
material out of fashion for ladies' dresses for a period of at least twenty
years. |
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