In our world of 24-hour rolling news channels and the instantaneous news bulletins sent direct to our mobile phones, it is easy for us to keep up with current affairs, writes Neil Crossfield…
In the 20th century, we had radio and television news to keep us informed. However, in earlier times, access to information was more restricted and many would receive news in the form of various types of street literature. These could be official proclamations posted in public spaces, but the most common form of this literature was the broadside ballad, cheaply produced single sheets of paper which were sold on the streets for a penny or half penny.
Quickly created in the wake of an important event, they usually featured a simple woodcut print, some descriptive text and a few lines of hastily written verse. Printers then employed ‘hawkers’ to sell these around the streets of London, who would often sing the verses to advertise the broadside ballad. At this point, literacy rates among the working classes were low, so the ballad was an important means of disseminating news to London’s citizens. The ephemeral nature of these ballads meant that much of this street literature was lost, but luckily, some collectors recognised their importance and created archives of those that survived.
One particularly gruesome ballad from 1860 is titled, The Walworth Tragedy. This told the sad tale of the murder of four people in Manor Place, Walworth on 31 July 1860. The murderer was William Geoffrey Youngman, who had brutally slain his mother Elizabeth Youngman age 47, his two brothers Thomas Neale Youngman, age 12, Charles Rayson Youngman, age 7 and his fiancée, Mary Wells Streeter, age 28.
Youngman had been born on 9 July 1835 to John and Elizabeth Youngman. Mary had been born in Wadhurst, Sussex, not far from Tunbridge Wells and had first met Youngman when they were both in service of a ‘gentleman’ called Hadley in Lewisham around 1856. It does not appear that any romantic relationships were formed between them here. In the subsequent years, Youngman had spent a period in prison for stealing silver from his employer.
Letters produced at the Old Bailey trial show that Youngman and Mary had rekindled their friendship around 18 June 1860. The fifteen letters which Youngman had sent to Mary had been seized by the police from a locked writing desk at her father’s house in Wadhurst. Beside protestations of love and promises of a happy future by the sea in Brighton, many of the letters exhibited what would today be viewed as coercive behaviour. The relationship moved fast as the pair planned to get married at St Martins-in-the Fields on Saturday 11 August and the thirds banns for this were read on 29 July, just two days before the murder.
Youngman pressured Mary to take out an insurance policy on her own life. He asked her to falsely state that there had been no illnesses within her family, even though her sister had died from T.B. just a year before. When she expressed hesitancy, saying that her parents were against her taking out the policy, he exerted emotional pressure on her by writing that ‘he would never forgive her if she didn’t do it’ and that she would ‘never find anyone to love you so again’.
As a 28-year-old woman in Victorian Britain, Mary might have felt that failure to concede to her fiancé’s wishes may have deprived her of a chance of marriage, condemning her to a life of spinsterhood. We may never know her motives for going through with this, but on the 24th of July she went to the Argus Insurance Company, near the Bank of England. Here she was examined by the medical officer before a life insurance policy, which would pay out £100 in the event of her death was issued. The quarterly insurance premium of 10 shillings and 1d was paid for by Mary herself. With hindsight, it is difficult to understand why Mary went along with this plan. Why didn’t she become suspicious when Youngman asked for her to burn the letters he had sent, in which he had told her to take out the policy?
Just weeks before the murder, the couple had visited the Green Dragon Pub in Bermondsey Street, which was run by Edward Spice, a friend of her father. He had taken an instant dislike to Youngman and had taken Mary aside and told her, ‘I would sooner see you take a rope and hang yourself in the skittle ground than to marry a man like that’. Despite this warning and the knowledge that her parents had some concerns, Mary apparently dismissed them as on 30 July 1860, Mary caught the train from Wadhurst to London Bridge, arriving at around 10:30 on the morning, little knowing that she had only hours to live.
After meeting his mother, it is believed that the couple went to the theatre together that evening, returning to Manor Place at around 11pm. As an unmarried woman, Mary shared a bedroom with his mother and younger brother.
Number 16 Manor Place was a three-story building located on the street which led from the Walworth Road to the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens. The landlord, James Bevan lived on the ground floor, Phillip Beard, his wife and son lived on the first floor, while John Youngman lived with his wife and two young sons on the top floor. William Youngman had joined his parents the previous week and it was to here that he had brought his young fiancée.
As usual, Youngman senior had left for work at 5:20am. At around 5:50am, the inhabitants of the house were awoken by a commotion in the rooms above. Mr Beard went to investigate and was confronted by a dreadful scene. Calling ‘Murder’, he was joined by Bevan the landlord who saw Youngman standing on the stairs between the first and second floors. He cried out, ‘Mr Beard, my mother has done all this, she has murdered my sweetheart and my two little brothers, and, in self-defence, I believe I have murdered her’.
A surgeon and the police were summoned. Constable John Varney arrived on the scene and observed the bodies of Mary Streeter and Elizabeth and Thomas Youngman on the landing. The whole area was covered in blood, all three victims throats had been cut, in addition to other stab wounds. Thomas had made efforts to defend himself evidenced by wounds found on his hands which suggest that he had grabbed the knife. The younger brother, Charles was found lying on the bed in the living room, his throat also cut.
When Youngman saw the constable he said, ‘oh policeman, here is a sight; what shall I do?’. Varney simply told him to get dressed, noticing that the wristband of his shirt was hanging down. Shortly after, Inspector James Dann, P division, arrived at Manor Place to be greeted by a blood-stained scene. Dann observed bloody footprints on the floor which he surmised belonged to Youngman. A long knife with a broken tip was found which was soon established to be the murder weapon. As he was arrested, Youngman continue to blame his mother for the murders.
The trial was held at the Old Bailey on 16 August 1860. Youngman had attempted to blame his actions on insanity, claiming that ‘lunacy’ ran in his family. His defence team revealed that his maternal grandmother had died in Peckham Lunatic Asylum, an uncle of his father had died in Norwich Thorpe Asylum and that his own father had been admitted to asylums during his life. His lawyers suggested that Youngman truly loved Mary and that taking out the insurance policy was a prudent measure considering her sister had died of TB. This defence was dismissed at the trial as prosecutors argued that none of the letters nor his subsequent behaviour had suggested any sign of mental incapacity. The Judge, Justice Williams summed up the case and stated that even if Youngman’s mother had killed the others, she could have been easily overpowered by the young man, who would not have had to kill her. The jury took only twenty minutes to give a verdict of ‘guilty’. Disregarding Youngman’s pleas of ‘I am not guilty’, the judge donned his black cap and pronounced a sentence of death.
Youngman had been incarcerated at Horsemonger Road Gaol to await his appointment with the hangman. Reports show that while imprisoned, he had generally behaved himself but had once tried to escape and commit suicide by throwing himself over a staircase, only to be thwarted by prison warders. Youngman continued to profess his innocence, blaming his mother for the murders. While he showed no remorse about his victims, he had become angry when he talked about the comments made by Edward Spice, the publican, and had stated, ‘I am not a murderer, but if I had this man Spice here, I would strike his head off’. Perhaps this indicates some form of narcissism in Youngman’s temperament as he seems more upset by a personal slight against his character than the accusations that he had murdered four people for the sake of the relatively small sum of £100. Newspapers also reported that in conversation Youngman had stated that he ‘objected to capital punishment on principle’.
Youngman was executed on the roof of Horsemonger Road Gaol on the morning of 4 September 1860, just 36 days after he committed the murders. Such was the interest in these murders, crowds began to gather outside the gaol at 8pm the previous evening, with people eager to get a prime spot. It was estimated that upwards of 20,000 people came to witness the execution. Away from the hoi-polloi, ‘respectable’ visitors had paid anything from 5 shillings to a sovereign so that they could watch the hanging from the window of the houses opposite the gaol. Youngman had said his farewells to his family the previous day. After a good night’s sleep, he had breakfasted on cocoa and bread and butter. After thanking the governor, warders and the prison chaplain, Reverend Jessop for their kindness, he was led to the gallows shortly before 9am. The chaplain urged him to make a last-minute confession and ‘not go out of the world with a lie in his mouth’. Defiant to the end, Youngman said that he ‘would be telling a lie if he were to admit that he had committed the crime’. After shaking hands with the hangman, his legs were bound, a hood placed over his head and the noose placed around his neck. The lever was pulled, the trap opened, and death was instantaneous. This remains one of the darkest crimes in Walworth’s history and such was the notoriety of this crime, in March 1901, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, wrote a piece in The Strand Magazine entitled The Holocaust of Manor Place, some 40 years after the murders.
HEAR YOUNGMAN’S HORROR STORY FOR YOURSELF AT FREE EVENT
If you would like to hear the broadside ballad about the Walworth Tragedy sung as it would have been 160 years ago, you may wish to attend the ‘Walworth’s History Through Song’ concert being held on Friday 29 July at St Peter’s, Walworth at 7:30pm.
Performed by four fantastic local performers, this free concert will feature songs and music either written about or performed in Walworth over the centuries. Beside broadside ballads, you will hear songs which were last heard at the Royal Surrey Zoological Gardens in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as some catchy music hall songs from the 1920s.
Tickets available on Eventbrite bit.ly/3ItLag4.
This event forms part of the wider Urban Elephant free festival which is running from 29-31 July in various locations around Walworth, showcasing the best in contemporary urban street art, theatre, and culture. The festival includes circus, magic, dancing, street art, theatre, puppetry and more.
For more information, please go to www.urbanelephant.org,uk