And why is it that so many victims and murderers in this book have visited and stayed at Bournemouth? The town has had some sensational murders, such as that of Irene Wilkins in 1921 by Thomas Allaway, that of Mr Rattenbury by George Stoner in 1935, that of Walter Dinivan by Joseph Williams in 1939, and that of Doreen Marshall by Neville Heath in 1946. But Samuel Dougal, George Smith, Major Armstrong, the Thompsons, Ronald True, Emily Kaye, Frederick Browne, Neville Heath – and Montague Druitt – all stayed there within a few months of a murder. They did not choose other resorts nearer London for their visits, like Brighton or Eastbourne, or any further away to the north. Why Bournemouth?
What is most remarkable, however, is the number of murderers – indeed, mass murderers – who were born and brought up west and south of Leeds. The Wartime Ripper, Gordon Cummins, was born in New Earswick, to the north of York. Although Haigh was not born in Yorkshire, he was brought up from an early age in Outwood, south of Leeds. Christie was born and lived in a suburb of Halifax. The Black Panther, Donald Neilson, was born in Morley south of Leeds and lived in Bradford to the west; and the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, was born in Shipley and brought up in Bingley. To them can be added Peter Dinsdale, the killer-arsonist who came from Hull – to the east of Leeds, but on the same latitude – and Dr Harold Shipman. Although Shipman was born in Nottingham, he graduated from the Leeds School of Medicine in 1970, and spent his first few years as a doctor in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where it is thought he first began to kill.
Finally, besides these mass murderers, there are ten Yorkshiremen who between them caused the deaths of over 1,200 men and women. James Berry, chief executioner, was born in Heckmondwike, south-west of Leeds (between Christie and Haigh), and lived in Bradford. The three Pierrepoints – Tom, Harry and Albert, all chief executioners, who between them hanged 834 people – came from Clayton, a western suburb of Bradford. The last two also lived in Huddersfield, as did another executioner, Thomas Scott. Executioner Steve Wade was yet another Yorkshireman, from Doncaster. The four executioner Billingtons – father James and his three sons, Thomas, William and John – all came from Bolton in Yorkshire. Whoever said that God was a Yorkshireman was worshipping some strange gods indeed.
THE MURDER OF ARTHUR DYSON, 1876
Murder is often compounded with theft and sex – which is to say that it frequently results from a compulsive desire to deprive, or a compulsion not to be deprived of, one’s desire. Fortunately, much thieving seems to be related to a low or inadequate sexual capability. But not always. A randy thief or robber has therefore more problems than his undersexed counterpart – problems that can lead to murder. As they did in the case of Charles Frederick Peace.
He was born in Sheffield on 14 May 1832, the son of a respected shoemaker. He was not a good scholar, but was very dexterous, making artistic shapes and objects out of bits of twisted paper. Apprenticed at a rolling mill, he was badly injured when a piece of red-hot steel rammed his leg, leaving him with a limp. He learned to play the violin with sufficient flair and skill to be billed at local concerts as ‘The Modern Paganini’. He also took part in amateur theatricals. When he was about twenty, in search of other excitements and reluctant to earn a living, he began to thieve. He was unsuccessful at first, and was jailed four times, with sentences of one month, four, six and seven years. During this period he wandered from town to town, and in 1859 met and married Mrs Hannah Ward – a widow with a son, Willie. He returned to Sheffield in 1872. Three years later, he set up shop in Darnall as a picture-framer and gilder. He was also a collector and seller of musical instruments and bric-a-brac.
In 1875, Peace was forty-three. He was, according to a police description: ‘Thin and slightly built, 5 ft 4 ins or 5 ins, grey hair … He looks ten years older. He lacks one or more fingers of his left hand, walks with his legs rather wide apart, speaks somewhat peculiarly, as though his tongue was too large for his mouth, and is a great boaster.’ He was also shrewd, cunning, selfish, salacious, ugly, agile as a monkey and very strong.
Peace became involved with his neighbours in Britannia Road, the Dysons. Very tall (6 ft 5 in) and genteel, Arthur Dyson was a civil engineer, working with railway companies. He was in America when he met his future wife, a young Irish girl called Katherine. She was tall, buxom and blooming, and fond of a drink. They married in Cleveland, Ohio. The couple often had rows. Peace – ‘If I make up my mind to a thing I am bound to have it’ – became familiar with the Dysons and enamoured of young Mrs Dyson, who unwisely responded to his attentions. It seems they visited pubs and music halls together and that their place of assignation was a garret in an empty house between their two homes. Peace took to calling on the Dysons at any time, including mealtimes. Mr Dyson put his foot down. But Mrs Dyson continued, accidentally or intentionally, to associate with Peace. In June 1876, he was forbidden to call on them any more. Arthur Dyson wrote on a visiting card, ‘Charles Peace is requested not to interfere with my family,’ and threw it into Peace’s yard.
This was something Peace could not endure. He pestered and threatened the Dysons. ‘We couldn’t get rid of him,’ said Mrs Dyson, talking later to the Sheffield Independent’s reporter. ‘I can hardly describe all that he did to annoy us after he was informed that he was not wanted at our house. He would come and stand outside the window at night and look in, leering all the while … He had a way of creeping and crawling about, and of coming upon you suddenly unawares … He wanted me to leave my husband.’
One Saturday in July 1876, Peace tripped up Mr Dyson in the street, and that evening pulled a gun on Mrs Dyson as she stood outside her house complaining to neighbours about the assault. He said: ‘I will blow your bloody brains out and your husband’s too!’ A magistrate’s warrant was obtained for his arrest and he fled with his family to Hull, where Mrs Peace ran an eating-house.
For a time the Dysons were, it appears, undisturbed. But on 26 October, they moved house, to Banner Cross Terrace in Ecclesall Road, and when they arrived (their furniture had gone ahead), Peace walked out of their front door. He said: ‘I am here to annoy you, and I will annoy you wherever you go.’
A month later, on Wednesday, 29 November 1876, Peace was seen hanging about Banner Cross Terrace between 7 and 8 pm. It was later suggested in court that Mrs Dyson and Peace had had a rendezvous in the Stag Hotel the evening before.
At eight o’clock on the 29th, Mrs Dyson put her little boy, aged five, to bed. She came downstairs, to the back parlour where her husband was reading, and about ten past eight she put on her clogs, took a lantern and, leaving the rear door open, went to the outside closet, which stood in a passage at the end of the terrace. It was a moonlit night. Peace later claimed that she left the house when he whistled for her. Her closet visit was brief. When she opened the door to emerge, Peace stood before her. ‘Speak, or I’ll fire,’ he said, presumably meaning the opposite. She shrieked, slammed the door and locked it. Mr Dyson rushed out of the rear door of the house and around the corner of the building. As he did so his wife fled from the closet. He pushed past her, pursuing Peace down the passage and on to the pavement. According to Peace, there was a struggle. He fired one shot, he said, to frighten Dyson. It missed. ‘My blood was up,’ said Peace. ‘I knew if I was captured, it would mean transportation for life. That made me determined to get off.’ A second shot was fired, striking Dyson in the head. The shots were fired in quick succession. Mr Dyson fell on to his back, and his wife screamed: ‘Murder! You villain, you have shot my husband!’ Within