The front entrance of Knowsley Hall, pictured in 2011
The Knowsley Hall shootings occurred on the evening of 9 October 1952 in Knowsley Hall, Merseyside,[nb 1] England. Harold Winstanley, a 19-year-old trainee footman at the house, shot his employer, Lady Derby, and three colleagues. Two of those shot died: the butler, William Stallard, and the under-butler, Douglas Stuart. Winstanley fled the scene, assaulting the chef while doing so, and went to a local pub. He later took a bus into Liverpool, where he surrendered to the police. Winstanley was tried for the two murders and found guilty but insane and committed to Broadmoor Hospital.
An MP-40 submachine gun, commonly known as a "Schmeisser"
Knowsley Hall is the ancestral home of the Earls of Derby, located in Merseyside,[nb 1] England. In 1952, it was the residence of John Stanley, 18th Earl of Derby, and his wife, Lady Derby, Isabel Milles-Lade, daughter of Henry Milles-Lade. The couple had married in 1948 and were childless.[3] In contrast with some other aristocratic families, who had down-sized their staffs considerably to save costs in the post-war years, the Derbys continued to maintain a large staff at Knowsley, though much of the house was unused and shut off.[4][5]
Among the staff was Harold Winstanley, a 19-year-old trainee footman.[5][6] Winstanley had been born in Aintree, around 5 miles (8.0km) north-west of Knowsley Hall. His father had died when Winstanley was three years old, and some of his siblings and half-siblings had been taken into care. Winstanley remained with his mother and studied at the Walton Technical College, where he performed well academically.[7] Winstanley's mother was admitted to a mental institution in August 1946 and remained there until after the events of 1952.[8] After her committal Winstanley spent some time in an orphanage.[9]
Winstanley had briefly served with the Scots Guards but was invalided on account of tuberculosis.[8] After his discharge he spent a period with the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Wirral before joining the staff at Knowsley Hall on 15 December 1951.[6][7] Winstanley was trained in his role by the house's 40-year-old butler, William Stallard, and 29-year-old under-butler, Douglas Stuart, and was well-regarded by his colleagues.[6]
On 7 October 1952 Winstanley met a friend at Hoylake and became aware that he owned a SchmeisserMP-40 sub-machine gun, originally taken as a trophy during the Second World War.[5][10][nb 2] Winstanley expressed an interest in the weapon and agreed to purchase it, together with 400 rounds of ammunition, for £3 (equivalent to £109in 2023) and a pair of trousers.[6] His intention was to use it to shoot rabbits on the estate.[10]
Winstanley took possession of the MP-40 at 5:00pm on 8 October and smuggled it into Knowsley Hall down his trousers. That evening, he filled the gun's magazines, finding he possessed only 200 rounds. He test-fired the gun in the grounds, showing it to a servant named Cooke. On 9 October, he cleaned and oiled the weapon and showed it to Anne Mitchell, a housemaid, telling her to keep it secret as he could be arrested for not having a gun licence. Later in the day, he asked Lord Derby's secretary when Lord Derby was expected home, but the secretary did not know.[6]
Shootings
Layout of the smoke room showing locations where the victims were found
At around 8:15pm, Lady Derby was dining alone in the first-floor smoke room. She was eating a dinner brought to her by the staff while seated at a table facing the corner of the room, watching a television set to her left. The door from the first library was to her right, and the locked door to the second library was to her left.[6]
Winstanley entered the room from the first library, smoking a cigarette, which was not permitted for the staff.[5] Lady Derby asked him what he wanted, stood up, and turned to face him when she noticed he was holding the MP-40. Winstanley told Lady Derby to turn around, and when she did, he shot her. Lady Derby was wounded slightly in the neck and fell forwards onto the floor, where she feigned death. She was struck by one round, which had entered the back of her neck and exited near her left ear.[6] In a statement made to the police after his arrest,[nb 3] Winstanley said he had intended to ask Lady Derby to help him dispose of the gun but had shot her after he became frightened. He said he told her to turn around as he did not want to shoot her when she was looking at him.[8]
As she was lying, Lady Derby heard Stallard enter and address Winstanley before he was shot and killed. Stallard was hit by five bullets, two of which caused fatal wounds to his head. It was established at the trial that Stallard was responding to the staff call bell activated from the smoke room, and the prosecution stated that only Winstanley was in a position to do so. The prosecution maintained that Winstanley had hidden in the first library as Stallard passed through and shot him after he entered the smoke room.[6]
After Stallard's killing, Lady Derby also heard Stuart, who is thought to have heard the first shots and come to investigate, enter the smoke room and say "no".[6] He pleaded for his life, noting that he had a wife, to which Winstanley told him "I will look after your wife" before shooting a burst of fire. Stuart made for the locked door to the second library but was hit by a second burst of fire and killed.[6][8] He was struck by five bullets in the head, chest, and abdomen, and the police surgeon thought that all bar one would have been fatal alone. The police determined that 17 shots had been fired in the smoke room, all from a position near the door to the first library. They thought seven had been directed at Lady Derby and five each at the butlers.[6]
After killing the two men, Winstanley moved to the first-floor hall where he met William Sullivan, Lord Derby's valet. Sullivan had heard the shots from the second floor and moved to investigate. Sullivan asked Winstanley what he was doing, but he did not answer, instead asking Mitchell and another housemaid, watching from the floor above, to come down. When the housemaids refused, Sullivan ran downstairs to the ground floor, pursued by Winstanley. On reaching the ground floor, Winstanley opened fire, wounding Sullivan in the hand with one of eleven shots. Sullivan collapsed into the entrance to the lift shaft, and Winstanley was aiming at him when other staff arrived on the scene.[6]
The housekeeper, Turley, tried to calm Winstanley down. He told her he had killed Stallard, Stuart, and Lady Derby but would not hurt the female staff. Turley made to call for the police, but Winstanley threatened to shoot her if she did. In the meantime, Lady Derby's lady's maid, Doxford, had found her and called the police from an upstairs telephone at 8:45pm. Winstanley went to his room on the ground floor to get his coat, and the chef, Dupuy, tried to reason with him. Dupuy tried to seize the gun as they walked down a corridor to the exit. Winstanley struck him over the head with it, causing nine rounds to discharge into the wall. Dupuy was only lightly wounded in the head. Winstanley then left the house.[6]
Police search
The Lancashire County Police responded to the call, with eighteen patrol cars routed to Knowsley Hall by radio.[12][13] A police surgeon treated Lady Derby and took her to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary in his car.[14] Superintendent W. J. Wooff of the Lancashire County Police took charge of the search for Winstanley. Some 100 officers from the Leigh, Seaforth, Wigan and Widnes divisions were mobilised and additional detectives were sent from the neighbouring Liverpool City Police.[13][12] The search eventually involved some 200 officers.[15]
Winstanley had gone to the Coppull House,[nb 4] a local public house, where he drank a pint of beer.[14] He then caught a bus to Liverpool city centre where, at 11:42pm, he called 9-9-9 from a public telephone box to hand himself in.[5][14] Liverpool City Police officers arrested him as he was in the act of leaving the phone box and pulling the gun from under his coat. On arrest, Winstanley said repeatedly, "I don't know why I did it". The MP-40 was recovered with a round in the breech and one full magazine, and 131 loose rounds were recovered from Winstanley's person. Under police questioning, Winstanley admitted to carrying out the shootings.[6]
Trial
Rose Heilbron, pictured in 1949
Winstanley was charged with the murders of Stallard and Stuart. He was brought before PrescotMagistrate's Court for a committal hearing at 10:34am on 5 November. F. D. Barry led the prosecution case, and solicitor Rex Makin the defence. Some 23 witnesses attended, including Lady Derby. The bench of three magistrates judged that there was sufficient evidence to proceed, and the case of the murder of Stallard was committed to trial at the court of assizes.[6] The charge of the murder of Stuart was left to lie on the books.[17][nb 5] Winstanley was held on remand in Walton Gaol.[6]
At the Manchester Assizes in December, the charge was prosecuted by Henry Ince NelsonQC and Robert Shenstone Nicklin and his defence led by Rose Heilbron QC[nb 6] and George Currie; the judge was Justice Jones. The defence did not dispute the facts of the killings and focused instead on Winstanley's previous good character and his state of mind at the time of the shootings. Heilbron suggested that Winstanley had suffered a schizophrenic episode and could not, at that time, distinguish between right and wrong. The only witness called by the defence was Francis Brisby, the medical officer at Walton Gaol, who stated that Winstanley had schizophrenia.[7] Heilbron told the jury that Winstanley had suffered a change in mental state: "this normally pleasant young man had become a man with staring eyes ... this man went berserk with the gun".[9]
The case concluded on 16 December. The jury did not need to retire to consider their decision but, in a conference in the jury box, quickly returned a verdict of guilty but insane on the count of murder of Stallard.[7] Justice Jones ordered Winstanley to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure, and he was committed to Broadmoor Hospital.[7] No motive for the killings was ever established, with Winstanley and the other staff stating that relations with their employers were amicable.[5]
Legacy
Lady Derby made a full recovery from her injury.[14]
In the aftermath of the killings Lord Derby ordered that the doors to the smoke room be locked indefinitely.[17] The killings, together with Lord Derby's role as lord lieutenant, that meant he would need to welcome Elizabeth II to Lancashire on a visit in 1954, led to him ordering a remodelling of Knowsley Hall by architect Claud Phillimore, 4th Baron Phillimore. As around 40 house rooms were unused, and to save their heating expense and the risk of dry rot, Phillimore decided on a considerable reduction in the floor plan.[5] Between January 1953 and April 1954, an entire wing of the house and a library were demolished, reducing the footprint by a third. Considerable remodelling was also carried out to the servants' quarters. This was the last time an English home was designed to accommodate a large domestic staff.[5] Winstanley was later released from Broadmoor; thereafter, he would write to solicitor Rex Makin every year, updating him on his life.[19]
↑ The MP-40, developed by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, was commonly known as a Schmeisser after the weapon designer Hugo Schmeisser. Schmeisser played no role in developing the MP-40, though he did help design the MP-41 variant, which saw very limited production.[11]
↑ At the trial, Winstanley's defence barristers applied for this statement to be discounted over the circumstances in which it had been taken, but the judge permitted the statement to be read after a short delay.[8]
↑ The 1958 1:1,250 Ordnance Survey mapping shows a "Copple House Hotel" public house in Fazakerley, around 4 miles (6.4km) north-west of Knowsley House[16]
↑ A case left on the books at the Crown Court in England and Wales is not proceeded with but can be brought against the defendant at a later stage.[18]
↑ The selection of Heilbron, England's first female Queen's Counsel, attracted considerable press attention because of her gender.[9] Because she served in this case Heilbron missed the opportunity to defend Derek Bentley who was charged for the murder of a policeman; his conviction was the subject of a miscarriage of justice and was quashed decades after his execution.[17]
Related Research Articles
Prescot is a town and civil parish within the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley in Merseyside, United Kingdom. It lies about eight miles (13 km) to the east of Liverpool city centre. At the 2001 Census, the civil parish population was 11,184. The population of the larger Prescot East and West wards at the 2011 census totalled 14,139. Prescot marks the beginning of the A58 road which runs through to Wetherby, near Leeds in West Yorkshire. The town is served by Prescot railway station and Eccleston Park railway station in neighbouring Eccleston.
Huyton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. Part of the Liverpool Built-up Area, it borders the Liverpool suburbs of Dovecot, Knotty Ash and Netherley.
Edward Smith-Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby KG, styled Lord Stanley from 1776 to 1832, and Baron Stanley of Bickerstaffe from 1832–4, was an English politician, peer, landowner, builder, farmer, art collector and naturalist. He was the patron of the writer Edward Lear.
Edward George Villiers Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby,, styled The Hon. Edward Stanley from 1886–93 and Lord Stanley from 1893 to 1908, was a British peer, soldier, Conservative politician, diplomat and racehorse owner. He was twice Secretary of State for War and also served as British Ambassador to France.
Knowsley, commonly known as Knowsley Village, is a large village and civil parish in Merseyside located on the north-east outskirts of Liverpool, within the much larger Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley It gave its name to the wider borough when it was formed in 1974.
Events from the year 1952 in the United Kingdom. This year sees a change of monarch.
Knowsley Hall is a stately home near Liverpool in the Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley, Merseyside, England. It is the ancestral home of the Stanley family, the Earls of Derby. The hall is surrounded by 2,500 acres (10 km2) of parkland, which contains the Knowsley Safari Park. Though the hall is still owned by the Stanley family, it is no longer a family home, but is instead used for corporate events, conferences and weddings. Since 1953, it has been designated a Grade II* listed building.
Edward Richard William Stanley, 19th Earl of Derby, is a British hereditary peer and landowner.
The siege of Lathom House was a military confrontation between a Parliamentarian army and a Royalist stronghold in Lathom near Ormskirk in Lancashire, during the First English Civil War. The first siege lasted from late February to late May 1644, when the siege was lifted. The second siege took place a year later from July to December 1645. Lathom House was captured and slighted.
The Executive Residence is the central building of the White House complex located between the East Wing and West Wing. It is the most recognizable part of the complex, being the actual "house" part of the White House. This central building, first constructed from 1792 to 1800, is home to the president of the United States and the first family. The Executive Residence primarily occupies four floors: the ground floor, the state floor, the second floor, and the third floor. A sub-basement with a mezzanine, created during the 1948–1952 Truman reconstruction, is used for HVAC and mechanical systems, storage, and service areas.
Edward John Stanley, 18th Earl of Derby,, styled Lord Stanley from 1938 to 1948, was a British hereditary peer, landowner and businessman.
The Virginia Tech shooting was a spree shooting that occurred on Monday, April 16, 2007, comprising two attacks on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate student at the university, killed 32 people and wounded 17 others with two semi-automatic pistols before committing suicide. Six others were injured jumping out of windows to escape Cho.
"Twenty-One Guns" is the 22nd and final episode of the 12th season of American television series ER, and the 267th episode overall. Written by David Zabel and directed by Nelson McCormick, the episode originally aired on May 18, 2006 on NBC.
Fire, Burn! is a 1957 historical mystery novel by John Dickson Carr. Carr considered this one of his best impossible crime novels.
The Dundee school shooting was a 1967 incident at St John's Roman Catholic High School in Dundee, Scotland.
Hamlet Winstanley (1698–1756) was an English painter, engraver and art agent. As a painter, he was mainly active as a portraitist and copyist.
On December 14, 2012, a mass shooting occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, United States. The perpetrator, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot and killed 26 people. The victims were 20 children between six and seven years old, and 6 adult staff members. Earlier that day, before driving to the school, Lanza fatally shot his mother at their Newtown home. As first responders arrived at the school, Lanza killed himself with a gunshot to the head.
On October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The motive for the shooting is officially undetermined.
On 22 August 2022, Olivia Pratt-Korbel, a nine-year-old girl, was shot by Thomas Cashman in Liverpool, England, and was pronounced dead the same day at the city's Alder Hey Children's Hospital. The attack took place at the doorstep of the Pratt-Korbel's family home in Dovecot; the intended target of the attack was Joseph Nee, a 35-year-old gang member who had criminal convictions for drug dealing and burglary. During the attack, Olivia Pratt-Korbel was with her mother. A shot by Cashman passed through her mother's hand and into Olivia Pratt-Korbel's chest.
On the evening of 24 December 2022, one person was killed and five others were injured in a mass shooting at the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, Merseyside, England. The perpetrator, 22-year-old Connor Chapman, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder; it is not believed that the victim was targeted.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
