The Pimlico Mystery or the Pimlico Poisoning Mystery is the name given to the circumstances surrounding the 1886 death of Thomas Edwin Bartlett, possibly at the hands of his wife, Adelaide Blanche Bartlett, in the Pimlico district of London.
A fatal quantity of chloroform was found in Mr Bartlett's stomach, despite having not caused any damage to his throat or windpipe, and no evidence of how it got there. Adelaide Bartlett was tried for her husband's murder and was acquitted. By the jury's own statement in court Mrs Bartlett's acquittal was partly secured because the prosecution could not prove how Mrs Bartlett could have committed the crime.[1][2]
Background
At the heart of the Pimlico Mystery is the odd relationship between a wealthy grocer, Mr. Thomas Edwin Bartlett (1845–1886), his younger French-born wife Adelaide Blanche de la Tremoille (born 1855), and the Reverend George Dyson, Adelaide's tutor and the couple's spiritual counsellor and friend. Dyson was a Wesleyan minister, and (if the story Adelaide and Dyson told is true) was encouraged to openly romance Adelaide Bartlett by Edwin's permission. Edwin himself was suffering several unpleasant illnesses (including rotting teeth and possibly tapeworms). Edwin was supposedly something of a faddist, believing in animal magnetism as a key to health, but his reported eccentricities are partly based on what was learnt from Adelaide and Dyson. Adelaide's father was rumoured to be a wealthy and possibly even titled member of Queen Victoria's entourage, who had indeed visited France in 1855,[1] possibly Adolphe Collot de la Tremouille, Comte de Thouars d'Escury.[3]
Edwin and Adelaide were married in 1875. According to Adelaide, it was intended to be a platonic marriage, but in 1881 she had a stillborn baby by Edwin; Edwin had refused her (female) nurse's advice to call a (male) doctor during a difficult labour because he did not want another man "to interfere with her".[1] Early in 1885, they met Dyson as the local Wesleyan minister and he became a frequent visitor. Edwin made Dyson executor of his will, in which he left his entire estate to Adelaide, on condition that she did not remarry (a common stipulation in those days).[4] Later Edwin redrew the will, four months before he died, removing the bar on Adelaide remarrying.[3]
Towards the end of 1885, Adelaide asked Dyson to get some chloroform that had been prescribed by the doctor treating Edwin, Dr. Alfred Leach. Leach would later admit that he prescribed it reluctantly, but at the insistence of his patient. Under the laws of the day, one had to sign a book at the chemist's pharmacy as a record of buying medical poisons, but only for large amounts; Dyson bought four small bottles of chloroform instead of one large bottle, and bought them in several shops, claiming that he needed it to remove grease stains.[3] Only after Edwin's death, did Dyson claim to suddenly realize how suspicious his actions were.
On New Year's Eve, 31 December 1885, Edwin Bartlett returned from a visit to the dentist and went to sleep alongside Adelaide in their Pimlico flat. Just before 4am the next morning Adelaide asked their maid to fetch Dr Leach, fearing Edwin was dead, before rousing the landlady. Edwin's stomach was filled with liquid chloroform. It is just possible that the stories of Edwin's alleged suicide might have been believed and his death considered free of foul play, except that his father, who had always detested Adelaide and had earlier accused her of having an affair with Edwin's younger brother, became extremely suspicious and persuaded authorities to look into the death.
An inquest under Mr A Braxton Hicks returned a verdict of wilful murder by Adelaide Bartlett, with George Dyson being an accessory before the fact, and they were both arrested.[4][5] The coroner tried to have Mrs Bartlett give evidence at the inquest because she was not permitted at that time to give sworn evidence on her own behalf at her trial, which only changed with the Criminal Evidence Act 1898.[6][7]
Trial
The trial opened on 12 April 1886,[8] attracting great press coverage both in the UK and abroad. At the opening of the trial, charges were read out against both George Dyson and Adelaide but the prosecution immediately asked for the charges against Dyson to be dropped and he was formally acquitted. This enabled the prosecution to call him as a prosecution witness,[4] but also made it possible for the defence to take advantage of his testimony.[9]
Adelaide Bartlett was defended by Sir Edward Clarke, who suggested Thomas Bartlett had committed suicide. Clarke's taking on the case was rumoured to be due to Adelaide's mysterious father's intervention.[1] The prosecution was in the hands (as was traditional in England and Wales until 1957[10]) of the Attorney General at the time, Sir Charles Russell.
Adelaide was not able to testify in her own defence (something not possible for defendants until the Criminal Evidence Act 1898)[11][12] and the defence called no witnesses,[9] although it did give a six-hour closing statement to the court.[3]
The main forensic aid to Mrs. Bartlett is that the liquid chloroform reached the stomach without burning the sides of the throat and the larynx. Edwin did not have such burns on his body. This bolstered the suicide theory, for such rapid drinking suggested that the drinker rushed the poisoned drink down. When the jury returned to court after considering its verdict the foreman said: "although we think grave suspicion is attached to the prisoner, we do not think there is sufficient evidence to show how or by whom the chloroform was administered." The foreman then confirmed that the verdict was not guilty, which was greeted with "rapturous applause", public opinion having moved in Adelaide's favour during the course of the trial.[3]
The issue of how the poison got into Edwin's stomach without burning him internally in the throat led the famous surgeon, Sir James Paget, to make his famous quip
"Now that she has been acquitted for murder and cannot be tried again, she should tell us in the interest of science how she did it!"
Adelaide's family
Adelaide was the daughter of Clara née Chamberlain (1834–1866) and her husband known as, among other names, Adolphus Collot de Thouars d'Escury (c1817–1860). Clara was the daughter of Susannah née Aynsley (1805–?) and William Robinson Chamberlain (1799–1860), a Stock Exchange Clerk. In 1851 she, her parents, a brother and sister were living in Hackney, Middlesex. On 19 January 1853 at St Leonard, Hackney, she married Adolph Collot De Thouars d'Escury, widower of 85 Holywell Street. He is described as a “Pensioned Naval Officer in the French Service” and son of "Adolphe de Thouars d'Escury, Duke of Thouars".
See: Rose Storkey: Oh Damn The Chloroform!' Adelaide Bartlett's Family of Secrets and The Pimlico Mystery (2022).
Her husband had been married twice before:
First on 2 December 1844 at St Luke, Finsbury to Helena Caroline[13] Hampton (?–1852), the daughter of Hannah née Muspratt (1785–1856) and Robert Hampton, Engineer (1777–1833). His profession was given as “Professor of Languages”. Adolphus and Helena had three children:
Walter Henry Prout d'Escury (1847–?). Emigrated to Australia where he married Sarah Ann Riley (1862–1888). Sarah left him for Edmund Duhamel, who subsequently killed her.[14] After their separation he appears to have gone to New Zealand where he was imprisoned in 1891 for ‘larceny and uttering’, and in 1893 for ‘larceny’.
Modestus Felix de Thouars d'Escury (1851–1851).
Marie Helen d'Escury (1853–?) who married Louis Marie Verguet and appears to have moved to France.
Second on 25 January 1848 at St Peter, Islington to Margaret Bearcock (1824–1886) the daughter of Margaret née Curtis (1799–1844) and John Bearcock, Brass and Iron Founder (1794–?). The marriage certificate gives his name as Henry Desbury (a variant of d’Escury) and his profession as “Lieutenant RN”.
After the wedding ‘Henry’ and Margaret moved to Cheltenham and “Henry Desbury a man of colour, aged 41, was charged with having, on the 25th of Jan. 1848, feloniously intermarried and taken to wife Maria Margaret Bearcock, his former wife, Helena Caroline Desbury, being then alive.”[15] The court report says that “The most singular feature in the case was that the prisoner had at one time (after his alleged second marriage) been living with his second wife, the first wife also living in the same house, and being represented by the prisoner as the wife of his cousin.” ‘Henry’ and Margaret later had a son Henry William Desbury (1853–?) baptised on 12 Oct 1853 at St Jude, Chelsea as an ‘infant’.
Margaret married a second time in 1869 to Col, David John Falconer Newall, late of the Bengal Artillery.
Clara and Adolphus had several children – brothers and sisters of Adelaide:
Henry Edward de Thouars, born 16 March 1853 in France, baptised 14 Sep 1855 at St Mark, Regents Park. The family name was De Thouars D’Escury, the address was 2 Chaleot Terrace, Regent’s Park and Adolph’s occupation was “Teacher of Languages”. Henry later emigrated to Australia and married there.
Adelaide herself, born 1855 in France, baptised 9 September 1856 at St Mary, Haggerston. The family name was de La Trouville De Thouars D’Escury, the address 8 Mayfield Street, Dalston, and Adolph’s occupation “Professor of Mathematics”.
Frederick ‘Freddy’ D’Escury, born about 1858 in France. In 1861 he was living in Havelock Terrace, Hackney with his mother, then a “Teacher of French” and her sister.
Clara Amelia, born 23 Jun 1859 in Kentish Town, in 1871 she was living in Hackney with Clara’s brother William Chamberlain and his family. She died in 1873.
Later life
After the trial both Adelaide Bartlett and Reverend George Dyson vanished from public notice. The authors of The Life of Sir Edward Clarke (1939) report that they had an "impression" that Adelaide Bartlett later married George Dyson, but that they had also heard a theory that the two never met again.
The novelist Julian Symons, in his novelization of the story Sweet Adelaide, suggested that Mrs. Bartlett emigrated to the U.S., settled in Connecticut, and died there some time after 1933, although others regard her post-trial life as mysterious.
As for Dyson, Richard Whittington-Egan's study of William Roughead's life reported that a woman in Maryland claimed in 1939 that Dyson had come to New York City, U.S., changed his name, and as a fortune hunter married and murdered a young bride, her sister, for her estate in 1916.[16] Alternatively, Kate Clarke reports that Methodist church records state that Dyson emigrated to Australia.[17]
According to John A Vickers, researching Methodist History (2002), George Dyson emigrated to America, changed his name to John Bernard Walker and became a naturalized citizen. Initially as a journalist he eventually became the editor of Scientific American and wrote several books.
Media
The movie My Letter to George, or Mesmerized, with Jodie Foster was "... loosely based on that of Adelaide Bartlett, who, in 1886, went on trial for the chloroform poisoning of her husband.”[18]
In the book Hitchcock/Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock tells French New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut that he once intended to make a film about this case, but later on he dropped the idea because Truffaut's film Jules and Jim also dealt with—according to his vision—a ménage à trois. He says that one of the scenes of the picture would feature Adelaide and Dyson making violent love while Edwin Bartlett just puffs smoke out of his mouth and stares at a pipe while sitting in a rocking chair.
The CBS radio program Crime Classics produced and aired an episode entitled "The Shockingly Peaceful Passing of Thomas Edwin Bartlett, Greengrocer" on 22 June 1953 that dramatized the story of this case for its audience with some changes of the facts.
The case was dramatised on the radio series The Black Museum in 1952 under the title of "Four Small Bottles".[19]
The BBC broadcast an eight-part drama about the case as part of the TV series A Question of Guilt in 1980.[20]
↑ Kate Clarke, The Pimlico Murder: Strange Case of Adelaide Bartlett (Classic crime series), ISBN0-285-62975-1 (1990), revised 2011, ISBN978-0-9553205-1-4, p. 264
Strong Poison is a 1930 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the first in which Harriet Vane appears.
The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen murders committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
Sir James Paget, 1st Baronet FRS HFRSE was an English surgeon and pathologist who is best remembered for naming Paget's disease and who is considered, together with Rudolf Virchow, as one of the founders of scientific medical pathology. His famous works included Lectures on Tumours (1851) and Lectures on Surgical Pathology (1853). There are several medical conditions which were described by, and later named after, Paget:
William Roughead (1870–1952) was a Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist, as well as an editor and essayist on "matters criminous". He was an important early practitioner of the modern "true crime" literary genre.
Edith Jessie Thompson and Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters were a British couple executed for the murder of Thompson's husband Percy. Their case became a cause célèbre.
Thomas Neill Cream, also known as the Lambeth Poisoner, was a Scottish-Canadian medical doctor and serial killer who poisoned his victims with strychnine. Cream murdered up to ten people in three countries, targeting mostly lower-class women, sex workers and pregnant women seeking abortions. He was convicted and sentenced to death, and was hanged on 15 November 1892.
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Henry Hawkins, 1st Baron Brampton,, known as Sir Henry Hawkins between 1876 and 1899, was an English judge. He served as a Judge of the High Court of Justice between 1876 and 1898. R. F. V. Heuston described him as "probably the worst judge on the English Bench in the nineteenth century."
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Constance Emily Kent (1844–1944) was an English woman who confessed to the murder of her half-brother, Francis Saville Kent, in 1860, when she was aged 16 and he aged three. The case led to high-level pronouncements that there was no longer any ancient priest-penitent privilege in England and Wales. Kent's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and she was released after serving twenty years. In later life, she changed her name to Ruth Emilie Kaye, became a nurse and for twenty years was matron of a nurses' home in East Maitland, New South Wales. She died at the age of 100.
Herbert Rowse Armstrong TD MA was an English solicitor and convicted murderer, the only solicitor in the United Kingdom ever hanged for murder. He was living in Cusop Dingle, Herefordshire, England, and practising in Hay-on-Wye, on the border of England and Wales, from 1906 until his arrest on 31 December 1921 for the attempted murder of a professional rival by arsenic poisoning. He was later also charged with, and convicted of, the murder of his wife, the crime for which he was executed.
Sir Edward George Clarke, KC was a British barrister and politician, considered one of the leading advocates of the late Victorian era and serving as Solicitor-General in the Conservative government of 1886–1892. His legal career included representing Oscar Wilde in his disastrous prosecution of the Marquess of Queensberry for libel, and representing the plaintiff in the "baccarat case", during which Sir Edward cross-examined the Prince of Wales. He was a member of the anti-women's suffrage movement.
The Green Bicycle Case was a British murder investigation and subsequent trial pertaining to the fatal shooting of Bella Wright near the village of Little Stretton, Leicestershire, England, on 5 July 1919. Wright was killed by a single bullet wound to the face. The case takes its name from the fact that on the evening of her death, Wright had been seen cycling in the company of a man riding a green bicycle.
Edward William Pritchard was an English doctor who was convicted of murdering his wife and mother-in-law by poisoning them. He was also suspected of murdering a servant girl, but was never tried for this crime.
Frederick Henry Seddon was a British murderer hanged in 1912 for the arsenic poisoning murder of his lodger Eliza Mary Barrow.
Oscar Joseph Slater was the victim of a notorious miscarriage of justice in Scotland. Wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, he was freed after almost two decades of hard labour at Scotland’s HM Prison Peterhead through the efforts of multiple journalists, lawyers, and writers, including Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
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David Albert Dowler is an American serial killer who poisoned three acquaintances in Odessa, Texas with chloroform and cyanide between 1983 and 1987. Convicted of a single murder, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988.
Sweet Adelaide is a 1980 historical crime novel by the British writer Julian Symons. It is based on the real-life 1886 Pimlico Mystery concerning the possible murder of Thomas Bartlett by his wife Adelaide. Symons had already enjoyed success with another Victorian-set mystery The Blackheath Poisonings.
Lustgarten, Ernest, Defender's Triumph (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), Victorian Trumpets: Edward Clarke defends Adelaide Bartlett, pp.8–80; the same essay appears in Lustgarten's The Murder and the Trial (New York, Charles Scribner's Son, 1958), pp.191–249.
Sir John Hall (ed), Notable British Trials Series, The Trial of Adelaide Bartlett (Edinburgh, 1927)
Beal, Edward, and Clarke, Edward, The Trial of Adelaide Bartlett for Murder, Held at the Central Criminal Court (1886), ISBN978-1-4373-4233-8
Roughead, William, The Rebel Earl and Other Studies, (Edinburgh: W. Green & So, Limited, 1926), The Luck of Adelaide Bartlett: A Fireside Tale, pp.215–252.
Stratmann, Linda, Chloroform: The Quest for Oblivion, ISBN0-7509-3098-5
Kate Clarke, The Pimlico Murder: Strange Case of Adelaide Bartlett (Classic crime series), ISBN0-285-62975-1 (1990), revised 2011, ISBN978-0-9553205-1-4
Storkey, Rose " "Oh Damn The Chloroform!" Adelaide Bartlett's Family of Secrets and The Pimlico Mystery" ISBN978-1-83952-476-9 (2022).
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