Home of the brave - Manor Park Cemetery, London E12

In 1874 the Manor Park Cemetery Company (who still own and run the cemetery today) bought 115 acres of land on Hamfrith Farm from the British Land Company to open a new cemetery. The company quickly disposed of more than half of their new acquisition for the sum of £2939, enabling them to pay shareholders a dividend of 4% before they carried their first burial on March 25th 1875. The chapel was originally built in 1877 but was badly damaged by bombs in 1944, only the spire surviving intact. It was rebuilt after the war and a crematorium added in 1955. Manor Parkis very much a working cemetery – there are historic memorials but large areas of the cemetery have been reused and old headstones removed. Unusually, the cemetery was prone to fires, probably as a result of being built just a little too close to the Great Eastern Railway in the days of steam engines that emitted hot ash and cinders. The first reported fire was in 1901; this is from the West Ham and South Essex Mail of Saturday 13 April 1901;

REMARKABLE FIRE AT MANOR PARK CEMETERY.

On Monday morning at half eleven a singular outbreak of fire occurred at Manor Park Cemetery. It is supposed to have been originated by a spark from a locomotive on the Great Eastern Railway. But in any case, a number of valuable shrubs and trees in that portion of the cemetery bordering on caught fire and were soon in a fierce blaze. The alarm was conveyed from the Manor Park sub-fire station, and within a very short period the East Ham steamer and hose cart were on the scene. By this time the fire had spread until it covered about 100 square yards of the cemetery, and had damaged a number of graves. The appearance of the firemen on the scene soon had effect, for they, with the help of about half a dozen employees at the cemetery, succeeded in stopping the spread of the fire and eventually extinguishing it.  As there was a strong wind blowing at the time, this task was not accomplished without a great deal of difficulty and hard work. Many of the shrubs and young trees were seriously damaged. and the grass was burnt off for a considerable distance. A number of the frames round graves were also destroyed. The appearance of the fire brigade so opportunely had the effect of stopping what might have been a really serious conflagration. The neighbouring hydrant was the means by which the fire was extinguished.

Then there was this fire reported in the Essex Times on Saturday 12th September 1914;

MANOR PARK. FIRE IN A CEMETERY. GRAVES ABLAZE.

The unusual spectacle of graves enveloped in flames was witnessed in Manor Park Cemetery, Sebert-road, on Tuesday afternoon. The cemetery runs alongside the railway, and it is supposed that sparks from a passing train dropped on some dry grass. The flames spread rapidly, and involved several graves. Wooden frames on a number of graves were destroyed. The East Ham Fire Brigade attended with the motor engine, and contained the outbreak.

On 25th June 1934 the Dundee Evening Telegraph reported that “tombstones hampered fire-fighters at Manor Park Cemetery, London, where a grass fire for a time threatened the cemetery lodge. Flowers on the graves were destroyed and tombstones blackened.” And then the Weekly Dispatch (London) of 8th August 1937:

GRASS ON FIRE IN CEMETERY Grass and undergrowth in Manor Park Cemetery, East Ham, caught fire yesterday. Clouds of smoke spread over a number of neighbouring houses and drove the occupants into the streets. Although the fire brigade had to dash half a mile every few minutes to refill water tanks it stopped flames from spreading to the church and graves.

Fires at the cemetery seem to have become a thing of the past from the 1940’s onwards.

Manor Park is a cemetery that serves the working-class districts of the East End and therefore there are only a few notable burials or well-known graves. The most famous is for Annie Chapman, the second victim of the Whitechapel Murderer aka Jack the Ripper. Annie was found dead in the yard of 29 Hanbury Street on the morning of 8th September 1888. She had been born Eliza Ann Smith in Paddington in 1840, the daughter of a serving soldier. She married Hohn Chapman in Knightsbridge in 1869 and had three children with him, the youngest of which was physically disabled, the eldest died when she was 12. Both Annie and her husband drank heavily and in 1884 they separated, John retaining custody of the children and paying Annie an allowance of 10 shillings a week. In December 1886 Annie’s husband died and her allowance from him stopped. Destitute she now turned to casual prostitution to survive. On the night of her death she went out into the streets to try and make the 8 pence she needed to spend the night at Crossingham's Lodging House at 35 Dorset Street. Her killer slashed her throat twice and then mutilated her abdomen. She was buried in a communal grave at Manor Park Cemetery on Friday the 14th September 1888. This account of her funeral is from The People of Sunday 16 September 1888;

The funeral of Annie Chapman, the last victim of the Whitechapel murderer, took place early on Friday morning. The utmost secrecy was observed in the arrangements, and none but the under-taker, the police. And the relatives of the deceased knew anything about it. Shortly after seven o’clock a hearse drew up outside the mortuary in Montagu-street, and the body was quickly removed. At nine o’clock a start was made for Manor Park Cemetery, the place selected by the friends of the deceased for the interment, but no coaches followed, as it was desired that public attention should not be attracted. Mr. Smith and other relatives met the body at the cemetery, and the service was duly performed in the ordinary manner. The remains of the deceased were enclosed in a black covered elm coffin, which bore the words. “Annie Chapman, died September the 8th 1888, aged 48 years."

Annie’s memorial is modern but I can’t find any confirmation online of who commissioned and paid for it or when it was put up.

A short distance from Annie Chapman lies the grave of Sarah Dearman (nee Chapman, no relative to Annie) who died on the 27th December 1947. The grave stands alone in an area that has been cleared of headstones and is waiting to be reused for new burials. Sarah’s is the only untouched grave, marked by a simple wooden cross. She was born in Mile End in 1862, her father was a brewer’s servant, and grew up in the East End. As a young woman she worked at the Bryant & May match factory on Fairfield Road, Bow. Working conditions at the factory were very poor, the production line working on the sweatshop system to avoid workers being protected by the Factory Act. Because matches used phosphorus, workers were also subject to the occupational disease of necrosis of the jaw, often called phossy jaw. Management were aware of the risks and if workers complained of toothache, they were told to have their teeth removed immediately or face the sack. In 1888 the Fabian Society voted to boycott the use of Bryant & May’s matches and Annie Besant published an article on working conditions in the factory in The Link in June. The factory management tried to get the staff to sign a statement repudiating the claims made in Besant’s article but they refused. When one of the workers was sacked on the 2nd July 1,400 women and girls refused to work, and the Matchgirls strike began. Sarah Chapman was one of the strike leaders. The strike was relatively short; the entire workforce walked out on 6th July and by the 16th workers had come to terms with management. The Union of Women Matchmakers was formed following the strike and the action proved to be an inspiration to organised labour in other industries. 

When Sarah died at Bethnal Green Hospital in 1947, she was buried at Manor Park in a common grave with 5 other people. No headstone or other memorial was ever erected. In 2020 the cemetery announced plans to mound over the area of common graves where Sarah was buried and reuse it for new interments. Sarah’s family launched a campaign to save the grave with a socially distanced protest in the cemetery in June 2020 and Labour MP for Limehouse and Poplar, Apsana Begum, sponsored an Early Day Motion in Parliament saying:

That this House is alarmed at the imminent plans to mound the grave of Sarah Dearman (nee Chapman), a key organiser of the matchgirl’s strike in 1888 in Manor Park Cemetery, East London; notes that Sarah Chapman played a leading role in the historic strike and that the matchgirls as pioneers of gender equality and fairness at work who through their strike action and formation of the Union of Women Match Makers left a lasting legacy on the trade union movement; believes that Sarah Chapman’s grave is of special historic interest and illustrates important aspects of social, economic and political history; calls on the Government to intervene to stop the imminent loss of an important piece of London’s rich and diverse history; and further calls on the Government to inspect the mounding process to ensure that there is no disturbance of early burials when new graves are dug.

The cemetery company told the BBC that "Sarah's grave will not disappear. The company has already offered Mrs Johnson [Sarah’s great-granddaughter] an assurance that, on reclamation, she would be offered first refusal to purchase a lease of the new grave space above Sarah Dearman's existing grave." Once the earth in the new mound has settled a handsome headstone will finally be placed over the grave, paid for by London and Eastern region of Unite the Union, and the GMB (General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union).

Close to the Sebert Road entrance of the cemetery is the memorial to John Clinton who died at the age of 10 years on July 16th 1894. John is also remembered at Postman’s Park in G.F. Watts’ Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice, “who drowned near London Bridge in trying to save a companion younger than himself.” John was something of a heroic self-sacrifice prodigy, having saved the lives of other children on at least two occasions before the accident at London Bridge, as explained by the periodical To-day on Saturday 15th December 1894;

IN MEMORY OF JOHN CLINTON The above sketch is of the monument being prepared by Mr. Pegram, sculptor, to be placed in Manor Park Cemetery, in memory of the gallant little lad, John Clinton, who lost his life in rescuing a small comrade from drowning, in the Thames, near London Bridge. Little Clinton, as stated in To-Day for September 8th.,had twice previously saved the lives of younger children. Once he flew across the road in front of a hansom cab, and just succeeded in snatching a baby from before the horse’s hoofs and rolling with it into the gutter. On another occasion he found a child on fire in a room, and, tearing down the window curtains, used them to extinguish the flames. When one reflects that in all three cases this judgment, coolness, and daring were exhibited by a child under ten years of age, one feels it would be a disgrace to the nation to leave him lying in an unknown grave. The memorial, which will cost thirty pounds, in spite of the generous reductions made by all concerned in the work, is being provided for out of the Pluck Fund. This has been a greater expense than we first anticipated, and readers who sympathise with pluck, and who have not already contributed to the Fund, might bear this in mind.

Pegram the sculptor is either Henry Alfred Pegram or his cousin Alfred Bertram Pegram; as this is the only reference I can find to Pegram being the sculptor there is no way to be sure, though Alfred Bertram Pegram is perhaps the most likely candidate.

The photo above shows the cemetery’s memorial to the Bethnal Green tube disaster. 173 people, 84 women, 62 children, and 27 men, were killed just after 8pm on the evening of March 3rd 1943. It was dark and wet evening and a large orderly crowd were making their way calmly down a steep flight of blacked out stairs into the unused tube station to take shelter after hearing an air raid warning siren. Close by a new anti-aircraft rocket battery fired into the sky. The unfamiliar noise was mistaken by many for the sound of bombs falling and there was a sudden surge in the crowd as they tried urgently to get into the shelter. In the stairwell a woman with a baby lost her footing and pulled an elderly man down with her. People behind fell over them in the dark and knocked down the people in front. The people at the back kept pushing forward unaware of what was happening in the dark stairwell and more people tripped and fell. In a minute or two nearly 300 people were caught up in the crush, 173 dying, 90 others seriously injured. It was the worst loss of civilian life during World War II but not a single enemy bomb fell on Bethnal Green that night. Many of the dead were buried at Manor Park and the cemetery has created a memorial by placing together all the headstones for the victims that were scattered around the cemetery.   

Other notable memorials in the cemetery are those of William Thomas Ecclestone, the ‘Kings heaviest subject’ also known as Jolly Jumbo, a publican and boxing promoter, and the splendid modern memorial for Joyce and Ronald McQueen, Alexander McQueen’s parents (the couturier committed suicide on the evening before his mother was due to be buried in the cemetery).  In the same area is the memorial to John Travers Cornwell, more generally known as Jack Cornwell, who died at the age of 16 on the 2nd June 1916 in Grimsby General Hospital as a result of injuries sustained at the battle of Jutland. Cornwell was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for staying at his post on HMS Chester after the ship had been under sustained bombardment by four German cruisers. Cornwell’s gun on the main deck was hit four times killing all the crew except for himself. He stayed at his gun despite being severely wounded by shards of metal shrapnel in the legs and stomach. He died in hospital before his mother could reach his bedside. He was initially buried in a common grave in the cemetery but after a public outcry he was exhumed and reburied in a prominent part of the cemetery opposite the main entrance and a large memorial erected over his grave.  

In 1910 some excitement was caused when ahot air balloon came down in the cemetery. This is from the Eastern Counties' Times of Friday 10 June 1910;

BALLOON DESCENT IN MANOR PARK CEMETERY.

Some little excitement was caused at about o'clock on Friday afternoon by a balloon coming to the ground in Manor Park Cemetery. The balloon belonged to Mr. Pollock, of Bedford-road, W.C. It appears that he and another party were having a balloon race across London, for a second balloon was seen in the vicinity at about the same time. Mr. Pollock's balloon, however, was sailing very near to the ground, and when it passed over Stratford and Forest Gate it was noticed that the anchor was hanging from the car. When the balloon was over Wanstead Flats the anchor was almost touching the ground but the balloon then rose again. It came to earth In Manor Perk Cemetery. The occupants of the balloon were a lady and gentleman, neither of whom was injured by the descent into the graveyard. The superintendent of the cemetery called together the men, and gave all possible assistance to the aerial navigators. After the balloon had been deflated it was packed up and sent off by goods train. A motor car had followed the balloon in its flight across London, and picked up the party at the cemetery gates. The party rode off in the direction of London. The plucky lady balloonist drove the motor, thus showing that she had by no means lost her nerve after her aerial trip.

Another story from the Eastern Counties' Times, this one from the edition of 26 October 1894 detailing the intrepid adventures of ‘that smart young detective of Ilford, Ernest Baxter’;

Stealing Angels from Manor Park Cemetery.

For some time robberies from Manor Park Cemetery have been perpetrated, and notwithstanding diligent inquiries the police were unable to obtain the slightest clue as to who carried away the "Angels" and other sacred memorials from the graves. The matter was placed in the hands of that smart young detective of Ilford, Ernest Baxter, who appears to have been more successful and has been able to bring to justice the man who now admits he is the offender. The young officer obtained a clue from a dealer in Backchurch lane, Commercial road, where he saw the figure of one of the missing angels. Afterwards he discovered some copper railings in the possession of Mr. Sheldrake, iron and brassfounder, at Frederick street, Stratford. As a result of inquiries, Baxter, accompanied by Detective-sergeant Carn, visited 209 Harold road, Upton Park. on Friday, where they charged Edgar Arthur Setkey. an engineer, with the theft. Setkey admitted the theft, and was taken into custody. He was brought before the Stratford Bench on Saturday and charged with stealing from the cemetery one gun metal standard, two gunmetal rails, and the figure of an angel, the property of Messers. Williams and Williams of Hampsead and valued at £l5. Baxter said other charges might be preferred, white no doubt the City Solicitor would prosecute. The remand asked for was granted.

And finally, from the Eastern Post of Saturday 06 August 1910, the funeral of an old soldier who had served in the Crimean war and taken part in the battles of Balaclava, Alma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol and also in the Indian Mutiny at Lucknow; 

A BALACLAVA HERO. FUNERAL FROM BETHNAL GREEN WITH MILITARY HONOURS

At Manor Park Cemetery the funeral took place on Saturday, with military honours, of Mr. J. Loveland, an old soldier who had been through many strange vicissitudes and fought in several memorable battles. Deceased joined the 20th Foot of Lancashire Fusiliers in 1851, when 17. He fought in the Crimea, and received the Crimean medal with clasps for Balaclava, Alma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol. He also served in the Indian Mutiny and at Lucknow. He was born in the East End, and was a well-known and popular character in Bethnal Green up to the time of HIS UNEXPECTED DEATH. Large crowds gathered in the neighbourhood of Florida-street, where the deceased soldier lived. A service was held in the Church of St. James the Great, and was numerously attended. Among those present was a detachment of sergeants from the deceased’s old regiment, who had journeyed specially from Tidmouth Barracks, Salisbury Plain, in order to do honour to the veteran’s memory. They bore the coffin from the church to the hearse, and later to the grave. A magnificent wreath bearing an appropriate ‘inscription was sent from the headquarters of the regiment in Bury (Lancs.), and this, together with numerous other floral contributions, was placed upon the coffin with the colours of the regiment.—The funeral service was read by the Rev. K. C. Bickerdike, and the Rev. H. Standish delivered a short address and read the committal prayers at the graveside.

A tale of two coffins; James Moore (1849-1935) & Ivy May Hamilton (1922-1966) Kensal Green Cemetery

Not many people visit the KGC catacombs these days but anyone lucky enough to get the chance always sees this pair of coffins with their immortelles. Why the coffins were not tucked away into a vault but left standing out in a corridor no one was really sure. The assumption was that they were temporarily deposited in the catacombs waiting for either a grave to be prepared in the cemetery or awaiting transportation to another cemetery. Had they just been forgotten about? Both coffins turn out to have very different stories, both are fascinating.

A year ago, the cemetery was visited by Ron Carlson, the CEO of PBD Inc, a Chicago based corporate design firm who, in his spare time, flies light aircraft and records YouTube videos about cemeteries under the name Faces of the Forgotten. His video of KGC featured the catacombs and the two coffins including a lingering closeup of the name plate on the coffin on the left. One of Ron's subscribers, HazelOwl7893, otherwise known as Hazel Mahan (we think) went to the trouble of searching the name on the coffin plate on Google and was excited to discover that it belongs to James Moore (1849-1935) who, according to Wikipedia was "an English bicycle racer. He is popularly regarded as the winner of the first official cycle race in the world in 1868 at St-Cloud, Paris, although this claim seems to be erroneous. In 1869 he won the world's first road race Paris–Rouen sponsored by Le Vélocipède Illustré and the Olivier brothers' Michaux Bicycle Company. Moore covered the 113 km (70 mi) in 10 hours and 25 minutes. He was one of the first stars of cycle racing, dominating competition for many years."

According to the parish register of St James Bury St Edmunds, Moore was born on the 14^th January 1848 and baptised on Christmas Day 1850 along with two of his siblings, his older brother Alfred and his younger sister Matilda.  On the Civil Registration Birth Index though his birth is registered in the first quarter of 1849. In the 1851 census his father James, a blacksmith, declares him to be two years old on the 30th March, which would indicate that the 1849 date is correct. There were two other, older sisters, Selina aged 8 and Mary Ann aged 6. When James was four the family moved to Paris. Some accounts say his father was French but on the 1851 census James senior states his birthplace to be Cambs. It was an unusual move for a Suffolk farrier to make but Moore was to spend most of his life in France and spoke English with a French accent. The family moved to 2 Cité Godot-de-Mauroy, then in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. Their near neighbours, at number 7, were Pierre Michaux and his son Ernest who in around 1861 developed the pedal powered velocipede, the forerunner of the modern bicycle.  James’ first machine was bought from the Michauxs as a birthday present in 1865. It was initially used to run errands for his father but in 1868 he joined the Veloce cycling club and took part in what was the first official bicycle race meeting in the world at St-Cloud, although there is some dispute if the race Moore won was actually the first race of the meet.

James Moore pictured in old age posing with the Michaudine velocipede with which he won the St-Cloud bicycle race in Paris on 31 May 1868. The shot was probably taken in the back garden at 56 Wildwood Road, NW11, Moore's home at the time of his death. Note the curious kitchen maid watching the proceedings from the scullery window.

Moore’s racing career was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War in which he served in the ambulance corps during the 1870 Siege of Paris. When the war ended, he continued to compete in bicycle races, winning five international championships between 1873 and 1877, but he also took a keen interest in horse racing, working at the Maisons Lafitte the French horse-riding centre. He later studied veterinary science at either Cambridge or at the Royal Veterinary College in London, depending on which source you read, and opened a horse stud in Normandy. He married Julie Cécile Mabille in Boulogne in 1887 and the couple went on to have at least one child, also called James.

Details of his later life are patchy and often contested but we know that by 1935 he was living in London at 56 Wildwood Road in Hampstead Garden Suburb (last sold in in 2004 for £1.85 million, current estimated value £3.5 million, so a very substantial property). He died there on the 17th July that year. Under the heading 'Burial Mystery' his Wikipedia article will tell you that "the location of Moore's grave is not known. His grandson, John, said: 'The odd thing is that my father was such a good story-teller but he couldn't or wouldn't tell me where my grandfather was buried. It was as if there was some unfinished business, some sort of mix-up, something I never understood. It's a mystery.' Moore believes the site may be near the Welsh Harp reservoir – also known as Brent Reservoir – in north London.” It appears that somehow, the family seem to have forgotten that on the 20^th July, 3 days after James Moore died, the undertaker stored his coffined body in the catacombs at Kensal Green. The burial register states quite clearly that this is a 'temporary deposit' but the coffin was never collected and remains there to this day.

Excerpts from the burial registers at Kensal Green Cemetery showing James Moore

HazelOwl7893 and Ron Carlson have tried to update the Wikipedia entry on James Moore to clear up the 90-year-old 'burial mystery' but their amendments are swiftly removed by someone who apparently wishes the mystery to remain unresolved. Even worse other YouTubers and FindaGravers have muscled in to try and claim credit for the discovery. Hazel is absolutely right, this is the coffin of James Moore and this is confirmed in the cemetery records. Other people speculated that the second coffin may belong to James' wife Julia Cecile Moore (nee Mabile) but this is definitely not the case; there is no record of Julia being buried in the cemetery or, indeed, of dying the UK and we suspect that she may have returned to France just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

When we were recently in the catacombs my friend Meriel was able to read the corroded nameplate on the second coffin; “Ivy May Hamilton Died 2nd September 1966 Aged 44 Years”. The next day she messaged me, “The coffin next to your cyclist, James Moore, is for Ivy May Hamilton – she was murdered in 1966! She has a will which is how I know it’s her as the address matches…” The cemetery burial records show that her coffin was placed in Catacomb B on the 24th September 1966. Probate records give her address as 166 Bravington Road and the value of her estate as £6362. The circumstances surrounding her death were reported in the Kensington Post on 7th October 1966;

Rent dispute ended in death, court told

During a dispute with his landlady over the nonpayment of a week's rent, a West Indian carpenter stabbed her with a chisel, inflicting a wound which resulted in her death two days later in hospital, alleged Mr. Arthur Flavell, counsel prosecuting at Marylebone Court on Thursday.

John Augustus Wills, 52, of Mozart Street, North Kensington, was committed in custody for trial at the Old Bailey charged with the murder of Miss Ivy Hamilton of Bravington Road, Paddington. Mr. Flavell said the defendant lived in a rear ground floor room at the house In Mozart Street with a Miss Eileen Davies. On learning that the building was to be the subject of a compulsory acquisition by the local authority, he decided to request a rent book and a written Notice to quit from Miss Hamilton. These would. he thought. better his chances of obtaining alternative council accommodation. To induce Miss Hamilton to visit him he deliberately failed to pay a week’s rent.

At about 9.15 p.m. on August 31, said Counsel, the landlady went to the defendant’s room and spoke to him and Miss Davies. Miss Hamilton's sister, Elaine, and two other relatives, all tenants of the house. stood at the door. An argument developed during which Miss Hamilton demanded payment of the previous week's rent and told Wills be would have to leave. He said that all he wanted was a rent book and a proper notice to quit, but she walked out, with the intention of going to Harrow Road Police Station to make a complaint

Mr. Flavel said Miss Hamilton set off on foot with two of her relatives, closely followed by Wills and Miss Davies who were also heading for the police station. On the way, a police car pulled up and the argument resumed in the presence of the officers. They were all advised to return home, but Wills went on to the police station where he rejoined Davies, who had walked ahead. A police officer advised them to go back to the house and wait outside.

They returned home, he said, and entered their room. Miss Hamilton followed them in and the argument broke out again. She became violent, pushing him on to the bed. Miss Davies tried to get out, but was prevented from doing so by two or three other tenants standing at the door. Wills managed to get up off the bed and got Miss Davies out. She left the house and telephoned the police.

Shortly afterwards, Miss Elaine Hamilton was standing outside the defendant's room when she heard her sister scream from inside. She ran in and found her sister lying on the bed with Wills standing over her holding a chisel. She shouted at him and he turned and stabbed at her with the chisel, catching her shoulder. Elaine called out to another tenant, Mr. Tyrrell, who struggled with Will. When the police arrived. the injured woman had been carried into the hallway.

Mr. Flavell said Miss Hamilton was taken to Paddington General Hospital with a stab wound in her chest. An operation was performed at 1.45 am the next morning, but she died on September 2 from bronchial pneumonia resulting from the wound. Acting Det.-Insp. Kenneth North said he questioned Wills at the police station and told him Miss Hamilton was critically ill in hospital. The defendant said: "She came at me for the rent. I told her I would pay her rent. but I wanted a rent book. She shouted at me for the rent and wouldn't give me a rent book. She hit me in the face. They all hit me." When asked who else had been present, he said: "My wife, but they hit her and punched her. One got a pan from the stove. The children, her niece and another girl, came at me. I fell on the bed and took the chisel from the table. She had her hands round my throat. I pushed her away. The chisel went into her. I didn't stab her—l pushed the chisel." The Officer said that later, after he had been told of Miss Hamilton's death, Wills said: "Why is there so much ignorance? Why did She come to me for the rent? Why didn't she give me a rent book? Why so much ignorance?" Wills pleaded not guilty and reserved his defence.

John Wills went on trial at the Old Bailey in 1966. Interestingly the jury acquitted him not just of murder but also of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

We know Ivy Hamilton was born in approximately 1922 and that electoral records show her living at 15 Mozart Street, W10 with her sister Elaine from 1961. In 1966 she moved around the corner to 166 Bravington Road but Elaine stayed on at Mozart Road until 1969/70. At this point the house would finally have been compulsorily purchased by Westminster, it was the plan to do this that had set in train the events that led to Ivy’s death. The house, along with the rest of Mozart Street that lay to the west of Lancefield Street was demolished to make the way for a new council estate, the Mozart Estate. The place has a bad rep, known as ‘Crack City’ and notorious for rival gangs from Harlesden, Kilburn and Ladbroke Grove fighting ‘postcard wars.’ But according to Big Zuu, who grew up there, there is another side to the story:

The media seems to focus a lot on the bad side of Mozart, all the things that come with gang culture – knife crime, drugs etc. It’s not about that. There’s so much more to the area. It has a mad sense of community which I think you only fully understand when you live there. It’s taught me that it’s okay to be myself. You don’t have to try and fit in anywhere, just be you.

What heaps of unmeaning stone and marble! A visit to Westminster Abbey

In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which is among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the place not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation.

Washington Irving - The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon (1819)

Usually quoted as an encomium, Irving’s description of Louis-François Roubiliac’s memorial to Joseph and Elizabeth Nightingale as “among the most renowned achievements of modern art” is in fact mordant sarcasm. The American was not a fan of the French Sculptor’s overwrought composition which shows Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale trying to protect his swooning young wife from a predatory death. Elizabeth Nightingale died on 17th August 1731 after the shock of a lightning strike caused her to go into premature labour. Her baby survived. The memorial was commissioned by the Nightingale’s son William following the death of his father in 1752; however, William never saw the monument completed as he died in 1754 and Roubiliac did not finish it until 1761. It is a little surprising that the author of ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ did not find the memorial in sympathy with his gothic sensibilities, but it is quite astonishing to find that the otherwise puritanical John Wesley loved it. In his journal for the 16th February 1764, he notes “I once more took a serious walk through the tombs in Westminster Abbey.   But there was one tomb which showed common sense: that beautiful figure of Mr. Nightingale endeavoring to screen his lovely wife from death. Here indeed the marble seems to speak, and the statues appear only not alive.”

A few years later, in February 1771, Wesley is back in the Abbey and once again drawn to Roubiliac’s memorial:

Monday, 25.--I showed a friend, coming out of the country, the tombs in Westminster Abbey. The two with which I still think none of the others worthy to be compared are that of Mrs. Nightingale, and that of the Admiral rising out of his tomb at the resurrection. But the vile flattery inscribed on many of them reminded me of that just reflection

                                 If on the sculptured marble you rely,
                                    Pity that worth like his should ever die.
                                    If credit to the real life you give,
                                    Pity a wretch like him should ever live

In February 1893 Archdeacon Frederic W. Farrar, then the Dean of Westminster contributed to the Christian magazine Good Words his views on the depiction of Death in the Abbey, singling out Robiliac for particular censure:

The early tombs in Westminster Abbey were like radiant phantoms with blue and vermilion, and gold, and glass mosaic, and lustrous enamels, and floral sculpturings, and Angels with outspread wings. In these death was not presented as a thing revolting and abhorrent, nor was any prominence given to the mere accidents of corruption and decay.  The tombs of a later age become wildly different. The skull and cross-bones—most futile, most conventional, most offensive of all ‘decorations’ - appear for the first time on the unfinished tomb of Anne of Cleves. After that we get, with increasing frequency, the ridiculous nudities of weeping children, and the females who sit under willows and clasp urns to their breast. The attempt to force into prominence the fact that death is a thing for which to weep and the angel of death a king of terrors culminates in two tombs in the Chapel of St John the Evangelist. One—with the inscription Lacrimis struxit amor—is spotted all over with imaginary teardrops falling from an eye which is carved above it! The other is the tomb of Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, of which Barke disapproved, but which is usually regarded as Roubiliac’s masterpiece, and which Wesley is said to have considered the finest monument in the Abbey, as showing “common-sense among the heaps of unmeaning stone and marble.” Considered merely as sculpture the contrasted figures of the dying wife and the startled, agonised husband are undeniably fine and skilful, but nothing can be more repellent or less like the feeling with which the early Christians regarded death than the revolting skeleton who issues, with his javelin, from the dark tomb below. Such allegory is preposterous jumble of the material and immaterial. The “Death,” as Allan Cunningham says, “is very meanly imagined—the common dry bones of every vulgar tale.” Apparently Roubiliac’s imagination could not rise above this fleshless anatomy, for he repeats it on the tomb of General Hargrave in the nave. Here Time is breaking the arrow of a crowned skeleton across his knee. But how different is this bony Grotesque from the vague and awful magnificence of Milton’s imagination:—  What seemed his head, The likeness of a kingly crown had on...                           

Louis-François Roubiliac is generally thought to have been born in Lyon in either 1702 or 1705. He was the son of a silk merchant who moved his business and family to Frankfort in 1710. He trained in Dresden but in 1730 after failing to secure the Prix de Rome and the opportunity to study in Italy he moved to England. After a brief spell at Thomas Carter’s stone yard in Shepherd Market he accepted a position as assistant to the successful sculptor Henry Cheere. In 1838 he had his first solo success with a statue of Handel commissioned for Vauxhall Gardens by Jonathan Tyers who was so pleased with the seated figure of Handel in modern dress, (now in the V&A) that he asked Roubiliac to provide the centrepiece sculpture for the temple dedicated to Fleeting Life and Inevitable Death at Tyers Surry estate, Denbies.  Now sadly lost, this stucco monument to Tyer’s friend Lord Petre, the botanist and gardener who had died at the early age of 29, was Roubiliac’s first foray into his full blown Death mode. An angel was shown blowing the last trump and causing a stone pyramid to crumble. Inside the pyramid a corpse threw aside its shroud and prepared to rise from the dead with an expression of ecstasy and bewilderment on its cadaverous face. Echoes of this piece are to be seen in the Nightingale and Hargreave memorials in Westminster Abbey.  Sepulchral memorials were in fact Robiliac’s main source of income; he received his first commissions for a monument in Westminster Abbey in 1745 and went on to complete five others there. He died penniless in 1762 and was buried in the churchyard at St Martins in the Fields. 

Dutton Cook in his Art in England of 1869 draws a vivid picture of Roubiliac’s supposed eccentricities:

Roubiliac — a thin, olive-skinned Frenchman, with strongly-marked, arching eyebrows, mobile features, and small, sharp, dark eyes—liable at all times to fits of abstraction, attacks of inspiration. He will drop his knife and fork while at dinner, sink back in his chair, assume an ecstatic expression: the fit is on him; he must abandon his meal and hurry away at once to lock himself in his studio, and place upon record the superb idea which has so inconveniently visited him. His companions make allowances for him: men of genius are often thus. At other times he is absorbed in meditation upon his art: address him, and he makes no reply, fails to hear. While engaged upon his statue of Handel, he decides that the great musician must have possessed an ear of exceeding symmetry, and searches everywhere for a model. He scrutinizes the ears of all his acquaintances. Suddenly he pounces upon Miss Rich, the daughter of the Covent Garden manager. 'Miss Rich,' he cries, 'I must have your ear for my Handel!' In Westminster Abbey he permits himself to be 'discovered'—to use an appropriate theatrical term—lost in contemplation of the kneeling figure at the north-west corner of Sir Francis Vere's monument. His servant, having thrice delivered a message, without receiving a word in reply, finds his arm suddenly seized, and his master whispering mysteriously in his ear, while he points to the statue: 'Hush! hush! he vill speak presently!' At another time he invites a friend to occupy a spare bed at his house, gives him his candle, and bids him good-night. Presently the friend is heard crying aloud in great excitement and alarm; the bed is already occupied: the dead body of a negress is laid out upon it. 'I beg your pardon,' says the artist, 'I quite forgot poor Mary vas dere. Poor Mary! she die yesterday vid de small-pox. She was my housemaid for five, six years. Come along; I vill find you a bed somevhere else.' All this was but acting up to the idea Mr. Roubiliac had formed of the abstractedness and eccentricity of genius.

I found this story about Roubiliac and the Nightingale memorial in the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News of 16 July 1898:

The story is told of Roubiliac that when he was engaged at Westminster Abbey erecting his famous monument to Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, he was found one day by the Abbey mason gazing intently on a knightly figure supporting the canopy over the statue of Sir Francis Vere. As the man approached, the sculptor laid his hand on his arm, pointing to the figure, and whispered, "Hush! hush! he vil speak presently!"

On 30 March 1826 the distinguished architect and pioneer of the study of medieval gothic architecture, Lewis Nockalls Cottingham wrote a letter to the editor of the Representative lamenting the state of Westminster Abbey and concerned that the ecclesiastical authorities were considering allowing the general public unfettered access to the edifice. “I recollect visiting this building a few years since, when it was a common thoroughfare,” he wrote “and remarking how slight a protection the iron cages, which then enclosed the tombs and statues, were against the constant depredations committed by the careless and mischievous.” He told the newspaper that he could provide ‘a hundred instances’ as evidence why the church should remain shut to the common visitor, monuments he said, “are nearly destroyed; in several instances the heads, fingers, and toes of the figures are broken off. The sanctity of the place was daily violated, and the stones which covered the mortal remains of a Pitt and a Fox trodden on with as much indifference as common pavement. Surely, in a country which boasts of so much taste and refinement of feeling, something should be done to preserve the most interesting of its monuments from premature ruin.” His feeling was that an entrance charge should be levied, and quite a stiff charge, not less than 15 pence. One and three! That would have been quite a hefty entrance fee in the 1820’s. Perhaps almost the equivalent of the £31 it currently costs to buy a basic ticket to the Abbey. Despite the price the place was still full when I visited earlier this week. There is, for anyone interested in funerary monuments, far more to see than you can take in in one visit. The estimate is that around 3600 people are buried here, all of them either prebendaries of the Abbey or the great and the good of the Kingdom. No one ordinary in interred here, you have to be royalty, aristocracy or ridiculously famous. I found it a bit overwhelming; too much to see and too many other people in the way. Let me leave the last words to Washington Irving:

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds and the earth with their renown. And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy, and how many shapes and forms and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and save from forgetfulness for a few short years a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and admiration.

Monument to Mary Beaumont, Countess of Buckingham, and her 1st husband Sir George Villiers   (died 1606). St. Nicholas' chapel, Westminster Abbey

Elizabeth Russell (died 1601) rests her foot on a skull and is not dying, but sleeping, according to the latin tag on the memorial

The Story of the Gnome Fly Part 3 - the final days of Hervio Nano; Harvey Leach (1801-1847)

 

Leach fell on hard times after the fire at the Bowery Theatre as other than Thomas Hamblin no one in the US seemed willing to engage him. It was almost certainly during this time that he approached P.T. Barnum in New York, proposing to the famous showman that he exhibit him in London, the stipulation on location presumably being a way of paying his passage back to England. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Leach and Barnum already knew each other, Leach supposedly being one of the exhibits at Scudders American Museum in New York when Barnum took it over in 1841. I cannot trace a primary source to confirm this but Leach was in America for at least part of 1841, appearing as the Gnome-fly, so it is a possibility that he also appeared at Scudder’s.  Barnum recounts his 1845 meeting with Leach in The Life of P. T. Barnum Written by Himself:

On the same visit to New-York, I was called upon by "Hervio Nano," who was known to the public as the "gnome fly," and was also celebrated for his representations of the monkey. His malformation caused him to appear much like that animal when properly dressed. He wished me to exhibit him in London, but having my hands already full, I declined. He, however, made immediate arrangements with two Americans, who took him to London. They stained his face and hands, and covered him with a dress made of hair, and resembling the skin of an animal. They then advertised him as a curious "nondescript," called "WHAT IS IT?" and claimed that "the strange animal" was captured in the mountains of Mexico; that it appeared like a "wild man," but could not speak, although it manifested much intelligence. I was let into the secret, on condition of "keeping dark." The exhibition opened in Egyptian Hall, and as a matter of curiosity I attended at the opening. Before half an hour had elapsed, one of the visitors, who knew "Hervio Nano," recognized him through his disguise and exposed the imposition. The money was refunded to visitors, and that was the first and last appearance of "What is it?" in that character. He soon afterwards died in London.

Despite Barnum’s disavowal of playing any direct part in the ‘What is it?’ fiasco he admits to being ‘let into the secret’ and being present at the opening of the exhibit at the Egyptian Hall. Rumours persist that he was behind ‘What is it?’ and that his denials of any connection were simply a face-saving measure because the carefully prepared hoax failed so dismally. In the run up to the opening advertising posters were pasted on walls all over London and hundreds of copies of a four-page flyer showing a woodcut of ‘The Wild Man of the Prairies’ and explaining where and how he had been captured were printed and distributed;

Is it Human? Is it an Animal? Is it an extraordinary freak of nature? Or is it a legitimate member of Nature’s works? Is it not the long sought for LINK between Man and the OURANG-OUTANG, which Naturalists have for years decided does exist but which has as yet been undiscovered?... The Exhibitors of this Indescribable Person or Animal, do not pretend to assert what it is; they have named it 'THE WILD MAN OF THE PRAIRIES' or "WHAT IS IT," because this is the universal exclamation of all who have seen it. Its Features, Hands, and the upper portion of the 'Body', are to all appearances Human: the lower part of its Body, the hind Legs, and Haunches, are decidedly Animal! It is entirely covered, except the Face and Hands, with long flowing Hair of various shades. IT IS LARGER THAN AN ORDINARY SIZED MAN, but not quite as tall. "WHAT IS IT" is decidedly the most extraordinary Being that ever astonished the World. It has the intelligence appertaining to humanity, and can do anything It sees done, or anything which Man or Animal can do, except speak, Read or Write. It Leaps, Climbs, Runs &c... with the Agility of a Monkey. It lays the Cloth and sets a Table with the au fait of a London Waiter, lifts its Hat &c., with the grace of a Master of Ceremonies: distinguishes Colours: remembers what is said to it: goes through the Military Exercises: and Plays various Games with an Instinct and Skill that would reflect on HOYLE himself. "WHAT IS IT" was caught in the WILDS of CALIFORNIA: its Food is chiefly Nuts and Fruit, though it occasionally indulges in a Meal of RAW MEAT: It drinks Milk, Water, and Tea, and is partial to Wine, Ale, and Porter.

The flyer claims that ‘What is it’ was bartered for with ‘guns, beads and other Trinkets’ in the Guadalupe mountains of Mexico by a party of Missouri traders and hunters from a tribe of Comanche Indians who had originally captured the creature in Upper California. Quite why the Missourians and Comanches, who would both have been a couple of thousand kilometres away from their usual territories, were doing in Mexico is not explained.  If Barnum thought that this huckster’s bullshit would bamboozle the public rather than arouse their suspicions, he was sorely mistaken. At 11.30am on the 31st August 1846 the Wild Man of the Prairie was finally exhibited at the Egyptian Hall, the price of entry to the public being one shilling for adults and sixpence for children under 10. On the 1st September the following letter, describing what happened on opening day, appeared in The Times from a pseudonymous correspondent who identified himself only as Open-Eye:

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES. Sir, - Being naturally a bit of a naturalist, and consequently anxious to see the “what is it” at the Egyptian-hall in its first wildness, I arose two hours earlier than usual and proceeded thither in a kind of feverish excitement, paid my shilling magnanimously, and was shown into the sanctum of “the wild man of the prairies.” Yes, there “what is it” was with its keeper, playing “toss” with an India rubber ball. Oh, ghost of Buffon! What was my surprise when, at the first glance, I found “what is it” to be an old acquaintance- ‘Hervio Nano, alias Hervey Leech, himself! I will not take up your valuable space by relating how Mister Leech sucked raw flesh and cracked nuts, nor how I volunteered (although “what is it” is very savage with strangers) to go alone into his den, which was refused; but I will tell you how the “wild man,” finding his hair dress and the fervent expressions of his visitors too warm, shrank into himself and horse-cloth, and went to his kennel to argue with the proprietor on the propriety of returning my shilling. The coin was handed back; and as I suppose Mr. Leech will take an early departure for the “wilds of California” again, I hope he will take the comfortable assurance back with him, that The Times won’t let Mr. Bull encourage impostors. Yours, &c., OPEN-EYE.

The letter was re-published in countless newspapers across the country and story of the hoax widely reported. No one it seems, had been fooled. The Illustrated London News on Saturday 05 September 1846 reported that they were already suspected the identity ‘What is it?’ before they tried to visit the Egyptian Hall on the opening afternoon and were surprised to find the exhibit already closed:

“THE WILD MAN OF THE PRAIRIES.” The attempt made to hoax the gentle public the exhibition of this pseudomonster has turned out a failure; and there is a forlorn look in its portrait, still posted on the walls of the metropolis, that is absolutely sad to behold. The question of “What is it?” has been simply solved in the Times, by a cunning visitor, who finds it is Mr. Hervey Leech, the Signor Hervio Nano who played in the “Gnome Fly,” during one of poor Yates’s splendid gags at the Adelphi. We suspected as much when we first saw the picture of the Wild Man; and should have recognised our old friend the instant we saw him. But, going to the Egyptian Hall, on Monday afternoon, found he was invisible. The question of “What is it?” immediately induced another of “Where is it?” and this led to our asking Why is it?” and “Who is it?” to all of which we in time found solution. The man told us that What’s-his-name had been taken ill, and was expected to die ; and at the same time person with whom an arrangement had been entered into for some advertising vans was informed that one of the visitors had given Thing-uma-bob an apple stuck with pins, and that the doctors had been called in, but had Aid that poor What-d’ye-call-him could not live throughout the day. This was all very painful—to those who believed it; but we were not of them. We still clung to our notion of Hervey Leech, and the letter the next day in the Times put our mind at rest upon the subject. So that suppose The Wild Man of the Prairies,” so savage to strangers, as the bill said, went quietly home to dinner in a cab, and slept that night in his usual second-floor wigwam.

James Carter, the 'American Lion King', and his big cats

The Cork Examiner suggested that Open-Eye was a Mr Waterton “who was enabled to detect Hervio… through all his coatings of bear-skin, owing to his own long possession of an astounding animal of the ourang outang genus…” Were they referring to Charles Waterton, the Yorkshire naturalist who famously captured a caiman by sitting on its back and tying its jaws with his braces? Waterton never owned an Orangutan as far as I can see.  In 1884 a Mr R. Hohnyard of 1 Sydney Villas, Sydney Road, Wood Green won a £1 prize from Rare Bits magazine in their edition of 9th August with an intriguing, and superficially convincing account of ‘What is it?’ Hohnyard does not say explicitly that Barnum was responsible for ‘What is it?’ but says that he was in London exhibiting General Tom Thumb at the time. Also in London was James Carter, generally known as the American Lion King, who had been performing with big cats in the capital at Astley’s and other places since 1839. Carter was then exhibiting General Washington, advertised as the ‘mammoth horse’, who stood 20 hands high at the withers (6 feet 8 inches), weighed 2500 pounds, and was a “noble steed… found galloping among a herd of mustangs on the Great Plains,” which required “the combined might of twelve British-made steam engines… to break his ironclad American will.” According to Hohnyard Carter thought that “if he could get Barnum to allow General Tom Thumb to ride his big horse, it would be a great card.” But Barnum refused the proposal “much to Carter’s chagrin.”  Carter was “determined to let his revengeful cat out of the bag” and the unmasking of ‘What is it?’ was to be the instrument of his revenge. This would only make sense of course if Barnum were behind Leach’s final professional appearance. Hohnyard’s account of Carter’s unmasking of Hervio Nano as the Wild Man of the Prairies is broadly similar to Open-Eye’s version in The Times, but claims that Carter demanded to be let into the Wild Man’s cage with a whip in his hand. Leach at once became extremely docile and after shaking the Wild Man’s hand, Carter “with one strong tug tore the shaggy skin all down its back and sides – and out stepped – Hervio Nano, the ex-Gnome Fly!” Carter greeted Leach “Ah Harvey, my boy! How d’ye do? I knew you were an old acquaintance. And now, as you’ve been living on raw meat so long, come down to Craven-street and have a broiled steak with me.”  None of the contemporary newspaper accounts of the affair mention either Barnum or Carter’s involvement even though both of them were well known figures at the time. That seems a little strange as Barnum claims to have been present at the unmasking. We will never probably know the truth.  

James Carter with 'General Washington, his 'mammoth horse'

‘What is it?’ was the final, humiliating, professional appearance of Harvey Leach. Within six months of his outing at the Egyptian Hall, on Tuesday the 16th March 1847, at the age of just 46, he was dead. According to the Illustrated London News of Saturday 20 March, he had been about to set out to Lisbon (Portugal would have been a completely new audience for him) when he was taken suddenly ill and died at his home in George Street, Shoreditch. The death was officially registered but there are no burial records because instead of going to Lisbon, Leach went, at his own request, to Liston, Robert Liston the eminent surgeon:

Death of Harvey Leach—The mortal career of this remarkable individual, who earned for himself considerable reputation both in this country and abroad, for his clever personifications of the habits and eccentricities of the monkey race under the assumed name of Signor Hervio Nano, terminated, after a short illness, on Tuesday evening, at his residence, George-street, Shoreditch. A short time ago deceased exhibited himself at the Egyptian Hall, disguised as an extraordinary animal captured at the Cape of Good Hope, supposed to be the link between the human race and the ourang-outang, and called “What is it?” The last place deceased performed at was the Standard Theatre, in December last, where, notwithstanding the deception having been discovered and made public, he continued to represent “What is it?” He was about to start for Lisbon when he was taken ill. He was a native of America, and in his forty sixth year. The last request of the deceased was, that his body should be presented to Dr. Liston, the eminent surgeon, not to be buried, but embalmed and kept in a glass case, as the doctor had been a particular friend to him.

Liston did his best to respect Leach’s last request; there was to be no embalmment, an uncertain procedure at that time in any case, instead a plaster cast was taken of his body and, following his dissection, the flesh was cleaned from his bones and the skeleton was articulated. Plaster cast and skeleton were presented to the anatomy museum of University College. Liston did not carry out the dissection himself, he presented Leach’s corpse to his protégée, the 29-year-old Demonstrator of Anatomy at University College, John Phillips Potter.  Phillips Potter was apparently in something of a hurry when he carried out the dissection on the 22nd April, perhaps because Leach had already been dead for more than a month and the corpse would have not been in its first flush of freshness. The anatomist carelessly managed to puncture the skin on his knuckle with one of his instruments during the post mortem. Thinking nothing of it he finished up the dissection and then went about his business as normal. The next day the wound was red and inflamed but still nothing much to worry about, he thought. Bell's New Weekly Messenger of Sunday 06 June 1847 gives the following account of what happened next, drawn from a much longer article in the previous weeks Lancet;

The Dangers of Dissection. —ln the death of Mr. John Phillips Potter, F.K.C.S., Demonstrator of Anatomy in University College, and Assistant Surgeon of University College Hospital, have record melancholy and disheartening instance of brilliant talent and promise blighted in the bud. For some weeks before his illness, he had been assisting Mr. Liston in dissections, which were always done early in the morning, and on the 22d of April, was engaged in taking a pelvis, with diseased hip-joint and abscess, from a subject, and being pressed for time, received some very small puncture on the knuckle of the forefinger, which was disregarded at the moment, but on the following day it became painful, and after the early morning dissection, he came home, complaining of feeling chilly and very unwell. The little wound was inflamed, and the swelling and redness soon extended up the arm to the axilla and side of the chest, accompanied with severe pain, and great constitutional disturbance. After two days symptoms of great depression came on, accompanied with complete jaundice, and other dangerous symptoms, which led his medical attendants, Mr. Liston, Mr. Travers, Dr. Watson, and Dr. Brodie Sewell, almost to despair of his rallying. It was thought advisable make two deep incisions in the seat of pain, in hopes of finding matter, but none issued from the wound. Stimulants were administered, and he rallied considerably, but on the 17th, exhaustion again came on, and death relieved him from a state of great suffering.   

Leach's skeleton, originally preserved in the anatomy museum of University College London, now lost

The initial reports of Phillips Potter’s death made no mention of Leach but a couple of weeks later stories started to appear linking the two. This is from the Birmingham Journal of 29th May 1847:

There is no saying what is impossible in these days, which are the true age of miracles, notwithstanding all that is being talked about everything being commonplace. There, for instance, has Mr. Harvey Leech, Hervio Nano, the Gnome Fly, the Brazilian Ape, the What Is It? being performing with killing effect, three weeks after his death! He had bequeathed his astonishing and most enigmatical carcass to Liston, the surgeon, who made it over to another surgeon, named Potter, who pricked himself with the knife, charged with a virus as deadly as the bite of all the Leeches that ever drank venom from the poisoned pools of Sumatra. The Gnome Fly's post-humous sting was mortal, and Potter was as incapable as Jock: of answering “What Is It?” on Tuesday.

Phillips Potter was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery on Saturday 22nd May 1847. According to the Lancet, “besides his immediate relatives, upwards of 200 professors, students, and friends, assembled to pay his remains the last tribute of respect—a speaking testimony of the regard felt for him. Death has in this case inflicted an irreparable loss upon the friends, and indeed upon the profession and society in general.”

In February 2019 (I have been interested in Harvey Leach for some time!) I emailed the Anatomy Museum at University College London and asked them about Leach’s remains:

Dear Sir

I am trying to trace a specimen which I believe may be in the UCL pathology collection.

The specimen is of an American called Harvey Leach who left his body to either Sir Robert Liston or assistant surgeon at University College Hospital John Phillips Potter in 1847. Potter cut himself on the knuckle during the dissection of Leach's body and subsequently died of septicaemia. Sir William Fergusson in his 1867 'Lectures on the Progress of Anatomy and Surgery During the Present Century' gives a detailed description of Leach's skeleton and mentions that it is in the museum of University College. I wondered if the Pathology Museum still has the specimen and if it does if it would be possible to see it?

Yours

David Bingham

I received a reply in April:

Dear David,

With thanks for your patience with this reply, I’m afraid I’m writing with disappointing news – no full skeletons from the original Anatomy Museum at University College Hospital survive in UCL Pathology Collections. Most of the existing UCH collection are wet-preserved tissue specimens from the museum’s second incarnation in the 20th Century. The only mentions of Liston in the collection catalogue is in relation to a few kidney and bladder caculi, along with a view jaw and one intestine specimen. It seems to be mostly chance what has lasted and what hasn’t.

Sorry to not be writing with more positive news, but I hope this is useful nonetheless.

Subhadra Das
Curator, UCL Science Collections
UCL Culture

So much for Leach’s desire to be embalmed and kept in a glass case.  I had a little more luck Phillips Potters grave at Kensal Green. I had been told, by someone I trusted implicitly, that the grave was unmarked but late last year my friend Meriel told me that there was a request for a photo of it on Find a Grave. When I told her that the grave was unmarked she was surprised as she had already been to look for it, managed to locate it and had found a sunken ledger stone. There was also a stone cross on the grave but Meriel didn’t think it really belonged there, somehow it had been moved there from another grave. What she really needed was my help to dig out the ledger stone which was almost completely buried beneath the turf. And so, on a wet November morning, I found myself, with Meriel, kneeling on the sodden ground in square 168 of the cemetery, removing the earth and turf above grave 6846. The ledger was sitting at an angle so that the bottom end was still visible but the top end, where any inscription was likely to be, was a good 9 inches below the surface. It took us the best part of an hour to remove the grass and dirt. Disappointingly there was no sign of an inscription, not a trace of even weathered and illegible lettering. The surface of the stone was as pristine as when it came out of the quarry.