"Hustling Horridge" and the "Ladies"

One of the things I’ve tried to do in this book is to trace some of the key figures beyond their roles in the 1928 murder trial of Beatrice Pace.

A number of them were figures of some public renown both before and after the trial.

For instance, the Daily Mirror mentioned the Pace case in its report on the death of High Court Judge Sir Thomas Horridge in July 1938, almost exactly ten years after he presided over Beatrice’s trial in Gloucester.

Judge Told Jury “Free Mrs. Pace” 

High Court Judge twenty-seven years, Sir Thomas Gardner Horridge died at Hove yesterday, aged eighty.

Sir Thomas figured in the trial of Mrs. Pace, tragic widow of Coleford, Glos, acquitted on his direction on the charge of murdering her husband. He was also one of the Judges who tried Roger Casement.

In the Divorce Court he was known as “Hustling Horridge,” because of his speed in dealing with cases.

On one occasion he remarked: “If women cannot get their lunch in three-quarters of an hour, they are not fit to be jurors.”

Here are other [sic] of his views on women: --“The word ‘woman’ is disappearing from the English language. A charwoman is no longer a charwoman, but a ‘charlady.’ There are lady typists, lady hairdressers, lady shop assistants and lady everything else.”
Daily Mirror, 25 July 1938, p. 18