Early on the morning of Wednesday, 22 January 1879, Peace was taken, manacled and in his convict’s garb, from Pentonville Prison to Sheffield for the magistrate’s hearing into the Dyson murder. Attended by two warders, he was put on the 5.15 am express from London to Sheffield. It was very cold; up north there was snow on the ground. Peace was very troublesome during the journey, but all went well until the train neared Sheffield. It passed through Worksop and going full speed reached the Yorkshire border, where the railway line ran parallel with a canal. Phillips wrote:
Peace was well acquainted with the locality. He expressed a wish to pass water, and for that purpose the window was lowered and he faced it. He was wearing handcuffs and with a chain six inches long, so that he had some use of his hands – and he immediately sprang through the window. One of the warders caught him by the left foot. There he held him suspended, of course with the head downwards. He kicked the warder with the right foot and struggled with all his might to get free. The Chief Warder was unable to render his colleague any assistance because the Warder’s body occupied the whole of the space of the open window. He hastened to the opposite side of the Carriage and pulled the Cord to alarm the Guard, but the Cord would not act. But some gentlemen in the next compartment, seeing the state of affairs, assisted the efforts of the Chief Warder to stop the train. All this time the struggle was going on between the Warder and the Convict, and eventually Peace succeeded in kicking off his shoe and, his head striking the footboard of the Carriage, he fell on the line.
When the train eventually came to a halt, the two warders ran for over a mile back along the railway line and found their prisoner prostrate in the snow and apparently dead. To their relief he soon recovered consciousness, professing to be in great pain from a bloody wound in his head and dying of cold. A slow train heading for Sheffield chanced to appear and was stopped by the two warders. Peace was lifted up and dumped in the guard’s van at the rear. The train then proceeded on its way, arriving at Sheffield at 9.20 am. Phillips later described the scene:
An immense crowd had assembled to get sight of this great Criminal and the excitement became intense when the 8.54 Express arrived without him. The Guard reported that Peace had escaped. The crowd were unbelieving and they suggested that the statement was a ruse to get the crowd away. But when they saw a sword and a rug and a bag belonging to the Warders brought from an empty carriage and handed to Inspector Bird, it was then generally believed that the statement was true and that Peace had escaped from Custody and that the Warders were on his track. At the Sheffield Police Court great preparations had been made for the reception of Charles Peace and the Court was crowded. All the persons required to be in attendance were present, except one, and that was the Prisoner … Mr Jackson, Chief Constable of Sheffield, entered the Court in a state of some excitement and made the startling statement to the Bench that Peace had escaped from the Warders. The ordinary business of the Court proceeded, when it suddenly became known that Peace had been captured and was actually in Sheffield.
In a police station cell, Peace was examined by two surgeons. He had a severe scalp wound and concussion and vomited periodically. He complained of being cold. His wounds were dressed and he was laid on a bed in the cell and covered with rugs. ‘There the little old man lay,’ wrote Phillips, ‘with his head peeping out of the rugs, guarded by two Officers. During the first hour he was frequently roused and he partook of some brandy. At first, force had to be used to get him to take it, but subsequently he drank without any trouble. At the same time he said he should prefer whisky.’
Two days later, the surgeons certified that Peace was fit enough to attend court. In fact the court went to him, and the magistrate’s hearing was held on Friday, 24 January, by candlelight in the corridor outside his cell.
Still swathed in rugs and bandages and hunched on a chair, Peace cursed, groaned, complained and endlessly interrupted the proceedings. ‘What are we here for? What is this?’ he protested. The magistrate replied: ‘This is the preliminary enquiry which is being proceeded with after being adjourned.’ Said Peace: ‘I wish to God there was something across my shoulders! I’m very cold! It isn’t justice. Oh, dear. If I killed myself it’d be no matter. I ought to have a remand. I feel I want it, and I must have one!’
The hearing was attended by Mrs Dyson, who had been brought back to England from America, whither she had gone after her husband’s death. As the prosecution’s principal witness she seemed to enjoy the drama of her situation and was evidently not put out by Peace’s appearance and aspersions. When she took the oath without lifting her veil, Peace remarked: ‘Will you be kind enough to take your veil off? You haven’t kissed the book.’
Committed for trial at Leeds Assizes, he was taken by train to Wakefield Prison. A large crowd again assembled at Sheffield’s railway station, this time to witness his departure. Professing to be helpless, he was carried from the police van by prison warders. He looked pale and haggard, despite his brown complexion, and had a white bandage around his head. ‘He wore his Convict suit,’ wrote Phillips, ‘and very comical he looked in the cap surmounting the bandage and appeared as feeble as a Child.’
In Wakefield Prison, Peace spent the next few days writing penitential and moralising letters. One, on 26 January, was to Susan Thompson:
My dear Sue – This is a fearful affair that has befallen me, but I hope you will not foresake [sic] me, as you have been my bosom friend, and you have oftimes said you loved me, and would die for me. What I hope and trust you will do is sell the goods I left you to raise money to engage a Barrister to save me from the perjury of that villainous woman Kate Dyson … I hope you will not forget the love we have had for each other … I am very ill from the effects of the jump from the train. I tried to kill myself to save all further trouble and distress, and to be buried at Darnall. I remain your ever true lover till death.
Sue Thompson replied:
Dear Jack, I received your letter and am truly sorry to receive one from you from a Prison … I sold some of the goods before Hannah and I went away and I shared with her the money that was in the house … I had nothing to depend upon, and have not a friend of my own, but what have turned their backs upon me, my life indeed is most miserable. I am sorry you made such a rash attempt upon your life … You are doing me a great injury by saying I have been out to work with you. Do not die with such a base falsehood upon your conscience, for you know I am young and have my home and character to redeem. I pity you and myself to think we should have met … Yours, etc – Sue.
On Tuesday, 4 February 1879, Charles Peace was put on trial at Leeds Assizes before Mr Justice Lopes; the prosecutor was Mr Campbell Foster, QC, and the accused was defended by Mr Frank Lockwood. The court was packed, many of the women being armed with opera glasses. Peace, wizened and unshaven, his scarred head and hollow features bristling with thin grey hairs, sat in an armchair within a spiked enclosure.
The prosecution’s chief witness, Mrs Dyson, although evidently embarrassed by the implications of some of the prosecution’s more personal questions, behaved with a degree of indecorum, even levity. When asked by Campbell Foster how wide the passage was outside the closet she replied: ‘I don’t know, I am not an architect.’ To the question: ‘Did anything touch your husband before he fell on his back?’ she replied: ‘The bullet touched him.’ ‘I didn’t ask that,’ scolded Campbell Foster. ‘Did Peace touch him with his foot?’ She retorted: ‘No, but the bullet touched him.’ There was laughter in court. Campbell Foster was more successful in implying that Mrs Dyson had had an association with Peace, that he gave her a ring, that she continued to meet him after her husband had expressed his dislike of Peace, and had been photographed with him at the Sheffield Summer Fair in 1876. She denied that letters and notes referring to assignations were in her handwriting. But she was forced