The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-06-12 00:00:00

AN EXTRAORbINARk CAREER.

At the Central Criminal Court, Henry Beckett Danvers
Guildford, 49 years of age, described as a soldier, and who
had been convicted at the last MarCh Sessions of that Cottrt
of fraud and sentenced to ilVe years' perm' serVitude, has bk3err
indicted for feloniously marrying one Catherine Susan
Holmes, his wife Hannah Charlotte being alive.—The prisoner
pleaded " Guilty."—The hearing of the case appeared to ex-
cite much interest, and the Court, while it 'Wed, was incon-
veniently crowded.

Mr. Warner Sleigh, who appeared as counsel for the
prosecution, said, addressing the Court, it was neces-
sary, in the interests of justice, before the learned
Commissioner passed sentence, that he should be
allowed to relate some circtimstances in the piisoner's
history. It was a history of unparalleled cruelty prac-
tised by him on his first and also on his second wife.
He was now there to answer a charge of bigamy, and
the attendant circumstances indicated an amount of
heartlessness which had seldom been equalled in
cases of bigamy. The prisoner was married in 1852
to a Miss White, he representing himself to be a
person of great means, but really being the son
of a poulterer in Leadenhall-tharket. During the
first marriage he lqt his wife time after time. She
was at length obliged to resort to teaching as a means
of livlihood ; but, in consequence of his conduct she
had to give up her situation, and was reduced for a
time to starvation and penury. She had 11 children
by him, six of whom were living. She eventually
found he was paying his addresses to a young lady,
and was getting property from a place where his
son was an apprentice and making away With it.
He carried a pistol about Win and threatened to shoot
his wife if she did not give up to him the profits of
her business. He was sentenced to five years' penal
servitude about six years ago, and when he returned
after completing his sentence he borrowed some furni-
ture' upon which he raised £lOO from a loan society.
He then left his wife again; and she ,heard, nothing
more of him tintil his marriage with a Miss Holmes, a
most respectable young woman, whose father kept a
flower stall in Covent-garden Market. The prisoner,
it appeared, used to go there in a carriage and
engage her in conversation, telling her he was the
Earl of Guilford, and inviting her to meet him. She
consented, but on the condition that her mother and
sister should be present at the interviews to which
he assented. At that meeting th':. prisoner proposed
to marry her, ITe explained, a the same time, that
he had two sisters, and that, for reasons of his own,
his marriage must be kept a secret. She eventually
consented to marry him, and on the following Monday
he called on her mother and said the marriage must
be by licenoe and on the following Tuesday; On the
next Tuesday, accordingly; they were . Married by
licence at St. Paul's Church, Covent-garden, and went
afterwards to the Clarence Hotel, Teddington. Mean-
while, Miss Holmes's mother had made inquiries about
the husband of her daughter, the result of which went
to show that the prisoner was not the Earl of Guilford.
On being taxed with the deception, he excused himself
by saying that if he had not added a title to his name
she would not have Married him, but that he really was
Lord Danvers. with £3,000 a year, and with an estate
at Elham, in Norfolk. Mrs. Holmes, notwithstanding,
insisted on taking her daughter home, and she did so.
Nothing was seen of the prisoner for about a fortnight,
but every morning's post brought a letter from him
to his wife. At the end of a fortnight a letter was re-
ceived from him, dated from Runcorn, in Cheshire,
stating that he was dying and begging that Miss
Holmes would go there and see him. Although her
mother persuaded her not to go, Miss Holmes went
down to Runcorn, believing that, whatever his faults,
he was at least her husband; but, to her surprise, on
arriving at Chester, she met him on the station plat-
form as well and hearty as ever. Being very angry
she insisted on returning home, but he would not allow
her, and he took her to his lodgings. There he drew
up some bills of exchange, and told her a new story
to the effect that he was Henry Guilford, an Ame-
rican gentleman and a Colonel in the American
Army; and in order to assure Miss Holmes that sue
was really his wife he put an advertisement into the
p tpers announcing their marriage, and describing him-
self as Colonel Guilford, late of the Confederate States
Army. He also stated to her that he had only to draw
bills of exchange on certain persons in order to get
s plenty of money, and he accordingly drew some such
bills and pretended to send them off to the persons who

were to accept them. Eventually, Miss Holmes, being
convinced he was only trifling with her, insisted on
going home, and so strongly did she insist that the pri-
soner declared he would take her there and accordingly
they started by train, as Miss Holmes thought, for
London, when to her surprise, on the train arriving at
its destination, she found he had taken her to Liver-
pool instead.
At the conclusion of the learned counsel's state-
ment, of which the above is the substance, Catherine
Susan Holmes, a lady-like young woman, was called
by Mr. Commissioner Kerr, and, in answer to the
Commissioner, stated that when the prisoner married
her he represented himself to be Lord G-uilford, and
that in that name he used to come to her in Covent-
garden Market and buy flowers; that she thoroughly
believed those representations ; that when she lived
at Notting•hill it was upon money supplied by her
mother; and that she had known him three or four
months before marriage.
Mr. Sleigh, replying to the Court, was understood to
say it was quite true that the prisoner had a wife and
seven children.
Being asked by the Court what he had to say, if
anything, for himself, the i,isoner complained that
while in prison he had been subjected to such undue
restraint by the prison authorities that he was not pre-
pared with his defence nor to call witnesses. A great
deal of what had been said by the learned counsel he
was sorry to say was true, but much of it was capable
of being controverted if he had means and oppor-
tunities. He was married at 17 years of age, after
three days' acquaintance with his wife, and his
married life had wellnigh driven him to madness.
He begged the Court not unduly or unnecessarily to
lengthen the sentence it was about to pronounce, for
his days were numbered, and his nearest relations were,
too, seriously ill, in consequence of his being in prison,
to be able to disprove some of the statements that had
been urged against him. If, however, he should be
spared to come out of prison alive, he would do all in
his power to make amends to society at large.
Mr. Commissioner Kerr, addressing the prisoner in
passing sentence, said,—l have listened to what you
have said; lam bound to do so. As regards the state-
ments you have made I believe them to be, without
exception, untrue. You have charged the officers of
the prison with cruelty and misconduct in preventing
you from having facilities in getting up your defence
by overworking you. That I believe to be utterly
untrue. There is no prison in the world where the
officers are more humane or better conducted than that
of Newgate. There is no prison in the world where the
officers, from the Governor downwards, are more closely
looked after by the Visiting Magistrates, and there
is no prison where the Visiting Magistrates are more
ready to listen to any complaints, whether well or ill
founded ; and, after 16 years' experience of that prison
under the last and the present Governor, I am bound
to say that the Visiting Magistrates have gone out of
their way in
_thiL, direction of humanity to assist
prisoners in maillffr their defence. I therefore believe
the complaint you have made is positively untrue. It
is one of the tissue of falsehoods by which your whole
life appears to have been characterized. Miss Holmes
may have been wrong in saying you took her first to
Chester; but that is nothing; her statement is substan-
tially correct. You have been married 17 years, and you
have, or had /0 children; you have been convicted before,
and you have also been convicted of obtaining money
under false pretences. You have heaped the last insult on
your first wife by marrying another. Happily, she
will have now an opportunity of getting rid of you. As
to your professions of amendment, I believe you
have over and over again made such professions. God
knows knows you have done all you could to break
the hearts of those near and dear to you, and who
have still, notwithstanding, forgiven you. You have
even shown your own vile and abominable nature in
your treatment of your father; and you commit the last
outrage by calling upon him in this Court. You might
have saved him that pain. I have tried many a case of
bigamy, but this is the worst that has ever come before
me. It is that of a man who, having already a wife
with ten children, sets himself to seduce a young
woman, and that by the miserable pretence of being a
member of the nobility. I should not be doing my
duty if I did not pass upon you a sentence of seven
years' penal servitude, that being the full amount the
law allows me to award, and those seven yeitrs must
commence at the expiration of your present sentence
of five.years' penal servitude.