Today in the Pace case: 27 December 1927

Tuesday, 27 December 1927: Dr. William Du Pré, prevented by snow the previous day, finally attends to Harry, finding him suffering from severe abdominal pain and vomiting. He diagnoses gastric influenza.

Today in the Pace case: 26 December 1927

Monday, 26 December 1927: After Harry's turn for the worse on Christmas Day, on Boxing Day, Beatrice walks miles through deep snow to see the family doctor, William Du Pré. She tells him about Harry’s outburst the previous day and says he is suffering from stomach pains, ‘feverish headache’ and shivering. The deep snow, however, prevents Du Pré from attending Harry.

Christmas at Rose Cottage

While something like this belongs on the Pace case 'timeline' series that I've been maintaining (and which will shortly be revived for another year of marking key events in the case), I presume that most of you will be doing other things on Christmas Day than reading this blog. (I know that I will be...)

So, I thought I would offer the following brief excerpt from the book, which has a definite Christmas connection, even if it's far from being filled with Christmas cheer.

To briefly set the scene: in December 1928, Harry Pace was ill at home, having returned from the Gloucester Royal Infirmary in late October. His condition appears to have been somewhat improving after his return.

However... 

On Christmas morning, [Harry's eldest daughter] Dorothy had, as usual, gone to light the fire in her father’s room. He told her not to bother as he would be coming downstairs. Putting the firewood into the grate, she noticed a bottle and placed it on a chest of drawers. Beatrice went upstairs to ask Harry about it, and Dorothy heard him reply, ‘I don’t know nothing.’

With [younger daughter] Doris’s assistance, Harry came downstairs for the first time since returning home. Rather than a joyful occasion, however, a terrifying scene unfolded. As Dorothy explained, her father, ‘in one of his tempers’, grabbed the tongs from the kitchen fireplace and attacked Beatrice. Dorothy intervened, and Harry, thwarted, bashed in the fireguard before sitting down.

After a pause, he took a straight razor from the cupboard and told his family to ‘clear out’ or else he would kill them. The two boys fled, and Beatrice sent Doris to fetch Joseph Martin, a neighbour who lived a couple hundred yards away.  Harry had ‘cooled down’ by the time Martin arrived, and he then returned to his room.  He would never again leave it alive.

Harry cried bitterly that afternoon and begged for his wife’s forgiveness. His condition, meanwhile, worsened, and on Boxing Day, Beatrice walked miles through deep snow to [family doctor William] Du Pré. She explained Harry’s outburst and said he was suffering from stomach pains, ‘feverish headache’ and shivering. The snow prevented Du Pré from attending until the next day, when he found Harry suffering from severe abdominal pain and vomiting.

He diagnosed gastric influenza. 

Du Pre's diagnosis, as described in the book, would not hold up for very long.

In that spirit: Wishing you all a happy (and, above all, peaceful and healthy) Christmas!

(Passage taken from The Most Remarkable Woman in England:Poison, Celebrity and the Trials of Beatrice Pace, pp. 15-16.) 

Today in the Pace case: 16 November 1890

16 November 1890: The date of birth of Harry Pace.

The only image of Harry Pace that was published  by the press in 1928. 

Today in the Pace case: 24 October 1927

Monday, 24 October, 1927: Harry Pace is released from Gloucester Royal Infirmary after a little over two months' stay. He returns to his home, Rose Cottage, where he is tended to by Beatrice.

Today in the Pace case: 23 October 1909

23 October 1909: Beatrice Martin and Harry Pace were married at the Monmouth register office.

Today in the Pace Case: 19 August 1927

Friday, 19 August 1927: After nearly a month of abdominal pains and partial paralysis Harry Pace is admitted to the Gloucester Royal Infirmary.

Shortly before, the Pace family's local doctor, William Henry Du Pré, and another physician, Ram Nath Nanda, had diagnosed the sick man as suffering from 'peripheral neuritis'.

Harry is so weak that he needs to be carried in a blanket to the car that will take him to hospital.

Today in the Pace case: 23 July 1927

Saturday, 23 July 1927: It is, of course, difficult to say when the Pace matter 'began', but a reasonable choice would be this date in the summer of 1927.

While there remained some debate about precisely what happened, it seems very likely that on this day Beatrice and Harry Pace, assisted by their children Doris and Leslie, 'dipped' several of their lambs in a small tub near the railway line that ran past their home, 'Rose Cottage'.

Sheep 'dipping' involved bathing the animals in an arsenic-rich insecticide and fungicide (powdered 'sheep dip' mixed with water) to prevent infestation.

That evening, Harry began to suffer abdominal pains so intense that he rolled around in agony on the ground, and he stayed in bed all the following day.