The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-17 00:00:00

THE ALLEGED MURDER BY POISONING AT
HYDE, IN CHESHIRE.

The man, Robert Thornely, who gave himself up to
the police of Staleybridge, on the 27th of December, for
having aided in the murder of James Brooks, by poison,
in February, 1847, has been committed for trial at the
next Chester Assizes on the charge, and Harriet
Thornely, his wife, has also been committed for having
administered the arsenic which produced death. The
man's statement, to which he appended his signature,
and which he more than once averred to be true when
before the magistrates, was as follows :--
"My name is Robert Thornely, a baker. I was mar-
ried at the Collegiate Church, Manchester, on the 23th
May, 1847, to Hannah Brooks. Her former husband,
James Brooks, died on the 28th Feb. 1847. I was
intimate with her about six months beforef his death.
He was a collier, and they occupied a small farm at
Godley-hill. Before his death she often talked about
putting him away. I always told her that it would be
better to leave him than poison him. We spoke of the
effects of laudanum and arsenic. I told her that lauda-
num would produce sleep, and that arsenic would be a
very speedy and violent death. She said that she did
not care if it produced sudden death. At her request I
went to Oldham, and purchased some laudanum, which I
gave to her. She told me that she gave it to him, and
that it made him sick, and that he threw it up. In
about a week afterwards I purchased tbreepennyworth
of arsenic, at Sutcliff's, druggist, Staleybridge. I took
the arsenic that day to the house at Godley-hill, and
gave it to her. The husband died in the following week.
She told me that she mixed it up in a pudding for him,
and that he eat it. That her mother was on a visit with
them at the time, and that she was going to eat some of
it, but that she took it from her, and gave her some of
another pudding. That a portion of the poisoned pud-
ding was thrown out, and was eaten by the hens belong-
ing to a neighbouring farmer, named Stott, and three or
four of them died. That her husband died in a day or
two afterwards. The week after her husband's death
she sent for me, and told me about the hens dying. I
asked her if she was not afraid. She said not. I told
her that I was very much afraid ever since, and could
not rest day nor night. She said the only thing that
frightened her was the hens dying, as it might lead to
some suspicion. I got married to her on the 28th May
following. I know that lamin an awkward position
as being an accessory. She and her sons have used me
badly. They have turned me out, and taken the house
in their own name. I have not lived with her since last
Staleybridge wakes but one. She shall suffer as well as
me. I have lately made a statement to the Ashton
police, but they thought it was spite on my part, and
would not interfere. If you do not attend to it I will
lay the whole case before the Secretary of State."
Mr. Little, the special high constable of Hyde, in
whose district the murder was said to have been com-
mitted, took the man in charge, apprehended the woman,
got a magistrate's order to exhume the body, which was
interred in Mottram-churchyard, had it taken up, iden-
tified, and opened. Took great care to prevent any
mixture of earth or other substance with the remains.
The coffin, with the body in it, was cut in two, just
below the abdomen ; the legs were then buried, and the
trunk confided to the care of Mr. Alcock, a surgeon in
the neighbourhood. The soil was damp, and appeared
to be chiefly clay. The coffin was of oak, and saturated
with water, and was so rotten that in many places it
could be easily broken into bits by the fingers, but it
had not fallen in upon the body. The flesh, so far as
could be seen, appeared completely decayed ; but the
bones retained their natural position, and lay in a dark
brown substance of the consistence of soft plaster, which
covered the bottom of the coffin to the depth of from
one to two inches. The chest, and especially the abdo-
men, contained a larger quantity of the same substance,
but no trace of any internal organ. Mr. Alcock an-
alysed a portion of the dark brown substance, but found
no traces of poison in it; and afterwards the woman
was discharged ; but, subsequently, Mr. Alcock, in
turning over the whole of the contents of the mug, found
some animal tissue undecayed, attached to the right
transverse process of one of the lumber vertebra?, and
covered with a bright yellow paste. He proceeded to
analyse that, and found arsenic enough to account for
death. Another portion was sent to Mr. F. C. Calvert,
of Manchester, professor of chemistry, who found
enough arsenic to cause death in what he analysed. The
woman was again apprehended. Evidence was given to
show that Thornely had lodged with Brooks when in
his employ on the farm ; and that lie had had to leave the
house because of his familiarities with Mrs. Brooks ; and
numerous circumstances were stated tending to show
that a liason had existed between the two during
Brooks's life.

The following important evidence was given as to the
symptoms of the fatal illness of the deceased, by Mrs.
Lancashire, who was intimate with the family :-
- " I remember deceased coming home on the Saturday
previous to his death. I saw him next morning. His
wife came into our house, and said he had come home
very poorly. He was sat on a chair by the fire. I
asked him how he was. He said 'l'm very poorly,
Mary.' During the week his wife told me he was very
ill, and vomited a deal. On the Friday of that week, the
day before he died, I went to his house to assist to , wash
some clothes. He came down stairs in his shirt, sat
down at the hearthstone very ill-starved. I 'said
`How are you ?' He said, Well, Mary, I feel bodily
done.' Directly after he began throwing up. I said to his
wife, 'Harriet, get him to bed as soon as you can, and
get him something warm.' She asked me to make him
something. I made him some oatmeal gruel, and put
nothing in it but common brown sugar. I gave it to
his wife, and she took it to him up stairs. On the fol-
lowing day Brooks's wife came into our house, about six
o'clock in the evening. I asked her how her husband
was. She said he was still unwell, and kept throwing
up. She said she was going into Hyde to buy some
flesh meat. She returned in about an hour, and seemed
in a great fright, and said, Oh ! dear Mary, our James
is dead, come.' I went with her, got a candle, went up
stairs, and looked at him and said, 'He is dead.' He
lay straight, and looked as if he had died comfortably."
In addition to this, George Brooks, one of the sons of
the poisoned man, said—" I had been with my mother
and my eldest brother Thomas, in Hyde, when my
father died. My mother locked the door when we went
to Hyde, and took the key with her ; we left no one in
the house but father; we left him in bed poorly. It
was getting dusk in the evening when we were away
about an hour, and then we all thred got home to-
gether ; when got in, my mother went to the stairs and
shouted, 'James !' No one answered. She then went
up stairs, and called James again, and no one answered.
She then screamed out, and we screamed too.

The statement as to the hens was corroborated by
Israel Stoot, who said that, in the winter of 1846-7, he
had a number of hens on Godley-hill. One morning he
found two of them dead in the hen cote, and another
died in about an hour afterwards. He had not observed
anything amiss with them the day before, and he believed
at the time they had been poisoned.
Hannah Cooke, sister of the prisoner Thornely, said :
"My brother was transported some years before 1846,
and while he was abroad I received letters from him.
While he was away Mrs. Brooks came to our house and
asked me to let her look at Robert's letter, as she wanted
to write to him. I asked her who she would get to write,
so as her husband would not get to know. She said she
would get a schoolmaster who lived near. She told me
at that time she respected my brother, and she would
rather have his little finger than her husband's whole
body, for my brother was kinder to her than her own
husband was."

MELANCHOLY OCCURRENCE.—One of those lamentable
occurrences which have unfortunately too often to be re-
corded, from the incautious or ignorant administration
of medicine, took place in this city on Saturday evening.
and of which a very respectable young man, recently re-
tired from being a partner in a clothing establishment,
with the view of emigrating to Australia, there to com-
mence business, was the victim. He had, we believe,
made all the necessary preparations for his change of re-
sidence. On Saturday last, so far as we have learned,
he complained of a slight headache, and having an inti-
mate friend, a medical student, assistant in an apothe-
cary's shop in one of the principal streets of the city, he
applied to him, and described his complaint, adding that
on former occasions he had been relieved from similar
suffering by taking a small dose, containing a certain se-
dative—we believe foxglove—which his friend mixed for
him, Immediately after he had taken it, however, some
rather doubtful symptoms began to manifest themselves,
which were greatly aggravated by walking to his lodgings.
The case having assumed an alarming appearance, it was
deemed advisable to send the sufferer in a cab to one of
the most eminent physicians in the west end, who, we
understand, at once pronounced the case hopeless ; and
his opinion was speedily verified, for the unfortunate
gentleman expired in the course of a few hours there-
after. That the result is an accident cannot be doubted ;
but it becomes a grave question how far parties profess-
ing to administer potions should entrust the manipula-
tion of them to half-fledged students of chemistry or of
medicine. We have made some inquiry into the matter,
and we have been informed that, in small quantity, the
drug administered was likely to aid in accomplishing the
purpose for which it was intended ; but that, in this
particular case, the quantities were so much in excess,
as that the wonder is, death did not ensue as quickly as
if the patient had swallowed prussic acid. The case is
in the hands of the authorities, and a post mortem exami-
nation has been made. In the delicate circumstances of
the case, we have not felt ourselves justified in giving
names. We may, however, venture to say that the
quantity of the article administered astonishes the pro-
fession, and proves that the prescriptions of regular prac-
tioners should be the medium of communication with
apothecaries' shops.— Glasgow Constitutional.
SUDDEN DEATH.—On Thursday evening, just as the
eight o'clock up-train of the North Kent Railway was
about to leave Woolwich for London, it was stated that
one of the intended passengers had been seized with a
fit, and no timd was lost in taking her on the platform,
where she was seated, and had every attention paid to
her by the station master and the porters, but aid was
unavailable as the death rattle was heard in her throat,
and she ceased to exist in a few minutes. The body was
taken into the waiting-room, and it was subsequently
ascertained that her name was Mary Thomas, widow of
a Mr. Thomas who died at Gibraltar in October last,
while serving as a convict guard there. A subscription
had been raised for her at Gibraltar amounting to about
201., and she was permitted to come to this country with
her four children in the Firebrand steam-frigate, when
that vessel came to Woolwich to be paid off. The
deceased had come to Woolwich during the day to take
a small shop in Powis-street to enable her to support
herself and children, and had taken a ticket at- the
Dockyard station for New-cross on her way home to
Sydenham.
THE REPRESENTATION OP GLOUCESTER CITY. _.A
public dinner is announced for Wednesday next, at
Gloucester, to the two liberal members for that city,
Admiral Berkeley and Mr. W. Price, in celebration of
their recent return for Gloucester.