Today in the Pace case: 1 June

Friday, 1 June 1928: The Dean Forest Guardian reports that A. A. Purcell, Member of Parliament for the Forest of Dean, has started a defence fund to enable adequate representation of his impoverished constituent at her upcoming trial for murder.

‘The plight of Mrs. Pace and her children', Purcell is reported as saying, 'had moved him very deeply’.

Key figures: G. Trevor Wellington

Over the months that the 'Fetter Hill Mystery' occupied headlines in the Gloucester area and throughout Britain, Beatrice Pace's fate was in the hands of a variety of people, the vast majority of them men: detectives, journalists, lawyers, magistrates, the coroner, politicians, etc.

Perhaps the most important figure in her life during this time -- at least with regard to the matter of her husband's death -- was G. Trevor Wellington, who acted as Beatrice's solicitor throughout the case.

We'll be hearing a bit more about Wellington as time goes on (and he plays an important role in the book), so I thought it would be a good moment to introduce him.

Although Wellington provided remarkably dedicated and effective legal assistance to his impoverished client, he was ultimately overshadowed by some of the legal heavyweights brought into the case at the trial stage, which is unfortunate.

The best introduction, perhaps oddly enough, comes via his obituary, which appeared upon his death in 1963. He had a long -- and very full -- life.

Interestingly enough, the Pace matter is not mentioned, although it was undoubtedly the most high-profile criminal case of his career.

Death of Mr. G. Trevor Wellington
Long Record of Public Service for Glo’ster

City Coroner for a great many years, Mayor of Gloucester and City Controller during the critical war period, a former City High Sheriff and a leading figure in local legal circles, Mr. Gilbert Trevor Wellington died yesterday at the age of 80.

Mr. Wellington, founder of the Gloucester firm of solicitors Wellington and Clifford, was active in business until late last year. He had been in hospital for several weeks.

Born in the Gloucester area, Mr. Wellington became Mayor during what must have been the most strenuous period in which any holder of that office has ever served, and he was only prevented by ill-health from serving as long as, or even longer, than any other mayor.

As it was, only the late Sir James Bruton, who served during the period of the first world war, from 1912 to 1919, held the mayoralty longer than Mr. Wellington, who was in office for six years.

He was made a member of the City Council as far back as 1907, and he represented the Tuffley ward until 1910. He was first elected Mayor in 1937, after serving as City High Sheriff the previous year, and was still in office when war broke out.

He assiduously took on the many extras duties which the war brought, the most onerous being that of City A R P Controller.

Giving unstintingly of his time to both the mayoralty and the chief controllership, Mr. Wellington drew heavily on his reserves of energy, and earned the gratitude of the city for the efficiency with which he carried out his many tasks.

His services to the city in this and over a much longer period were recognised in 1942, when he was awarded the C B E.

Throughout the most trying period of the war and including the time when the city suffered under enemy attack, Mr. Wellington was at the heart of Gloucester’s affairs. It was the unanimous wish that he should “see the job through,” but ill health forced him to resign in 1943.

His mayoralty was distinguished by his clarity of vision, his unquestioned powers of persuasion and his firm, but courteous hand in time of trouble.

SOLICITOR NEARLY 60 YEARS

Mr. Wellington was admitted a solicitor in 1904 and with the exception of the years of the first world war, had practised in the city ever since.

A senior partner in his firm, he became extremely well known and respected in legal circles throughout Gloucestershire.

In his legal activities he rendered great service not only to his clients but also to the public, for over a considerable period he conducted criminal and civil proceedings on behalf of the Chief Constable and local authorities.

He was for many years clerk of the magistrates at Stroud and Newent, offices which are now held by his son and partner in the firm, Lt.-Col. Brian Wellington.

Mr. Wellington first became the City Coroner in 1921, but relinquished the post when elected Mayor. He took up the Coroner’s duties again in 1944.

OTHER OFFICES

He was for some considerable time honorary solicitor to the former Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary. He was vice-chairman of the Cheltenham and Gloucester Building Society and in 1938 was elected president of the Three Counties Show. He was a former president of the Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Law Society and a vice-president of the Gloucestershire British Legion.

He saw considerable active service during the first world war and was in the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Yeomanry.

Afterwards he was attached to the 6th (subsequently the 2nd) Reserve Regiment of the Cavalry, the Curragh, Co. Kildare, the 1/3 County of London Yeomanry in Egypt and Palestine and the 103rd (City and 3rd County of London Yeomanry) Battalion Machine Gun Corps in France and Belgium.

Mr. Wellington had lived for many years at the Bear Hotel, Rodborough Common, Stroud. He was predeceased by his wife and is survived by his son and two grandchildren, one of whom went to Canada.

The other was a practising solicitor in this country for some years before her marriage.

At Mr. Wellington’s request the funeral is to be private.

(The Gloucester Citizen, Monday, 4 February 1963, p. 1)

Reasonable cause to suspect...

Having described the context in which the coroner's inquest into Harry Pace's death got under way, here a couple of more related details.

One of them is the relevant passage on the duties of the coroner from what was the main guide for coroners, known as Jervis on Coroners.

The duties of coroners were regulated by the Coroners Act of 1887, as modified by subsequent legislation (the most recent amendments before the Pace case had been in 1926, which had necessitated a new edition of Jervis the following year).

‘Where a coroner is informed that the dead body of a person is lying within his jurisdiction, and there is reasonable cause to suspect that such person has died either a violent or an unnatural death, or has died a sudden death of which the cause is unknown, or that such person has died in prison, or in such place or under such circumstances as to require an inquest in pursuance of any Act, the coroner, whether the cause of death arose within his jurisdiction or not, shall, as soon practicable issue his warrant for summoning not less than seven nor more than eleven good and lawful men to appear before him at a specified time and place, there to inquire as jurors touching the death of such person as aforesaid.’

 -- F. Danford Thomas, M.A. Sir John Jervis on the Office and Duties of Coroners with Forms and Precedents (Seventh Edition, London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1927), pp. 20-21

There were, in the event, nine jurors on the inquest jury.

To accompany this passage: a photo of the coroner who would handle the Pace inquest, Maurice Carter. (This is the only picture of him that I managed to find.)

Maurice Carter
Sunday Dispatch, 8 July 1928

Some aspects of the way that he handled the case became very controversial indeed.

At this point in our timeline, however, he was still waiting for a forensic report.

Family history

One of the nicer experiences I had while writing The Most Remarkable Woman in England was having the chance to personally get to know -- first via email then in person -- a few of Beatrice Pace's descendants. I found them quite by chance via the Internet (how does anyone find anything these days otherwise?) when one of her...wait, let me get this right...great-granddaughters had made an offhand comment about her family history at a web forum on a completely different topic (a popular television game show, as I recall).

This is what led me to writing her.  

(After I became the member of an internet forum regarding a show I'd never at that point watched. My devotion to historical research, clearly, knows no bounds.)

In any case, emails were passed along and exchanged, and I was soon communicating with one of Beatrice's grandsons. After years of research via newspapers and official files, it was quite an experience to finally be in touch with someone who had personally known the main person profiled in my book. As 'Gran'. (Beatrice had a long life after her trial.)

A couple of trips of mine to Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean followed, and I am very grateful, both for the information I received and the hospitality I enjoyed there.

Later, I corresponded with another grandson who provided me with a few of the pictures used in the book.

As to the information about Beatrice's post-trial life, you'll have to, as they say, read the book.

However, I thought I would share an aspect of how it came to be written.
 
When I first decided to get in touch, I had, I must admit, some qualms. In fact I debated with myself for some weeks before making initial contact. Of course, I wanted to find any relevant information for my book: most of all, I was aiming at filling in the story of what happened to Beatrice Pace after she disappeared from the headlines...and therefore from the historical record.

On the other hand, I wasn't quite sure what reaction to expect.

I mean: someone shows up out of the blue and says he's writing a book about your grandmother who was accused of murder? How would you react?

I am pleased to say that the family members I have dealt with have been nothing but friendly and have all been very supportive of the project, providing me with helpful details about the later life of the 'Tragic Widow of Coleford', as she was known in the late 1920s. In return, I am pleased to have been able to fill in many details for them about a striking aspect of their own family history.

That was nice enough.

However, a couple of weeks ago this story took another twist.

While we were on holiday, I was contacted by another of Beatrice's descendants: the grandson of a different one of her children than the people I had to this point spoken to. He had heard rumours of this book online last year and then found this blog.

Very kindly enough he sent me a few family photos that I hadn't yet seen, and, even more kindly, he said I could share them here on the blog.

Although I have very few details about either of them, I estimate that they're both from the mid-to-late 1930s. The first is of Beatrice with her youngest daughter 'Jean' (actually Isobel Jean). Jean, sadly, was a sickly girl and died during the Second World War aged 14. She had, as I describe in the book, been a prominent focus of coverage of the Pace case in 1928 and was frequently mentioned in letters Beatrice received from her supporters and admirers. (One of the aspects of the case that I consider was the way the public responded to press reporting of it.)

Along with any information that I received through getting to know the family the experience very much helped to bring something home to me: that history is about real people. This may sound banal, but when you spend large amounts of time getting to know people through reading documents (and even printed pictures) their reality becomes a bit abstract.

Speaking to people who had known Beatrice Pace personally -- had seen her, heard her voice, touched her -- certainly helped to give my own perspective on the case a new vividness.

One that I hope I have been able to impart.

"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