'And that's that, Mrs. Pace'

A dramatic moment from the end of Beatrice Pace's trial for murder: an excerpt from The Most Remarkable Woman in England. 

In the dock, Beatrice remained unmoving, and it seemed to observers that she had little idea what was happening. She later explained that prolonged anxiety had badly affected her hearing and eyesight: she had only been able to follow a portion of the trial and the judge had been simply a ‘red blur’. ...

The jury was told to rise, and the foreman was asked the usual questions: ‘Are you agreed on your verdict – what is your verdict?’ After the briefest of pauses, he responded: ‘Not guilty.’

At first, there was silence. Then, the defence’s medical expert, Dr Bronte, turned to Beatrice and said, ‘You’re free.’ Birkett followed suit: ‘And that’s that, Mrs. Pace.’ 

Beatrice Pace and her daughter Doris

Word quickly spread. One reporter stated, ‘In the court we heard the big roar of cheers from outside.’  The courtroom remained orderly, but after the judge had bowed to the assembled barristers and retreated ‘with almost magical swiftness’ through a curtained door, ‘the whole decorum of the court went to pieces’ as wild cheering burst out.  (Several of the jury members were said to have joined in the applause. )

A woman raised a cry, ‘God Bless Her!’ which was soon taken up and
repeated ‘until it was a thunderous echo in the crescent-shaped court’.  Beatrice blew kisses to her friends. Unable to believe what was happening, she sought confirmation from the wardresses guarding her. As the result dawned upon her, she exclaimed ‘Thank God it is over!’ before retreating to the privacy of the grand jury room.

There, she was visited by Birkett and Purcell, whom she thanked profusely. She then immediately asked to see her children. Dorothy, Leslie and Doris came into the grand jury room for ‘a happy reunion of tears and smiles’. ...

The legal ‘martyrdom’ of the ‘tragic widow of Coleford’ had, it seemed, at long last come to an end.

Her story, however, was far from over.

(The Most Remarkable Woman in England, 109-110)

Flocking to Gloucester

Eighty-five years ago today, the trial of Beatrice Pace for the arsenic murder of her husband began at the Shire Hall in Gloucester.

The prosecution was led by the Solicitor-General, Sir Frank Boyd-Merriman, KC, and Beatrice was defended by Norman Birkett, KC. The presiding judge was Sir Thomas Gardner Horridge.

Alongside the tense legal duel that took place inside the courtroom, however, the case was notable for the near-carnival atmosphere on the streets outside.

The following passage from The Most Remarkable Woman in England gives an idea of the dramatic scenes on the streets of Gloucester 85 years ago today: 

Norman Birkett, KC

One of [Norman] Birkett’s later biographers was a young reporter in Cardiff at the time, and he later commented on ‘the anguished apprehension in everyone’s mind’. ‘Day after day’, he recalled with some exaggeration, ‘the newspapers were full of little else’ but the case.  Not only curious strangers flocked to Gloucester but also ‘villagers who have known the Pace family for many years’.

As the trial opened on Monday, 2 July, the Liverpool Echo reported, ‘what seemed to be the whole population of the little village of Fetter Hill today journeyed by motor omnibuses’ to view the trial.  ‘What all these people hope to do or see’, remarked the Daily Express, ‘is doubtful. The public space in the court is small, and only those who have privilege tickets will be admitted to the other part.’  Fewer than one hundred public spaces were available.  The police struggled to keep order as long queues – one each for women and men – formed on the first day of the trial at seven o’clock.

Mr. Justice Horridge

The court had been ‘inundated’ with applications for places in the public gallery, and among the successful applicants were ‘novelists and dramatists’, some of whom were ‘well-known’ (though, sadly, unnamed).  Despite sporadically poor weather on the first day, crowds of as many as 2,000 people gathered, the majority of whom were women.  A Daily Mail reporter stated: ‘Never have I seen so many women at a murder trial.’

On the second day, the crowds returned by bus and ‘obtained the foremost places in the separate queues of men and women outside the Shire Hall’.  (‘Among the crowd that surged about the hall’, it was noted, ‘were a number of American women tourists, who, having read of the case, halted in their motoring tour of the West Country to take part in the women’s demonstration.’ )

(The Most Remarkable Woman in England, pp. 92-93)

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.)