Chapter XIV: The Southwark Poison Mystery

In the last week of July, 1902, a girl named Maude Marsh, about twenty years of age, was admitted as a patient into Guy’s Hospital suffering from internal inflammation and vomiting. She was placed under treatment, and in a few weeks’ time her condition so improved that she was discharged from the institution. She was employed as a barmaid at The Crown, a licensed house in the Borough High Street. There she passed as the wife of the proprietor, with whom she lived. About a month after her return to The Crown she was again seized with a similar illness, and was attended by a local medical practitioner and also seen by a medical man from Croydon who had visited her at her father’s request. The former was told by the sick girl that the doctor at Guy’s Hospital thought she was suffering from peritonitis, but after visiting her several times he came to the conclusion she was suffering from inflammation of the stomach and bowels. On calling to see his patient on the afternoon of October 22, the doctor was told she had died two or three hours earlier. He refused to give a certificate and insisted on a post-mortem examination. The examination failed to reveal the cause of death, and the doctor removed certain internal organs and submitted them for analysis. In consequence of the report he received, he then communicated with the police.

On October 25 South London was gaily decorated in honour of the State procession of the King and Queen, and the streets were thronged with people. Shortly before the royal procession was due to pass through the Borough High Street, two detectives entered The Crown public-house, which was festooned with flags, and passed into the bar. A notice on the wall announced seats to let to view the pageant, and the windows were already filled with sightseers, who took no notice of the two men who had entered so quietly.

Behind the bar was the landlord, a small, dark-complexioned man with prominent cheek-bones and sallow skin.

“Are you George Chapman?” asked one of the detectives.

“Yes,” was the reply.

“I am an inspector of police and wish to speak to you quietly.”

Chapman motioned the detectives towards the billiard-room at the rear and the three men entered together.

“Maude Marsh, who has been living with you as your wife, has been poisoned with arsenic,” said Detective-Inspector Godley at once.

“I know nothing about it; I do not know how she got the poison. She has been in Guy’s Hospital for the same sort of sickness,” replied Chapman.

Chapman was asked to accompany the inspector to the police station, where he was detained pending inquiries, and at 10.15 that night he was formally charged with the wilful murder of Maude Marsh.

When the accused man quietly took his place in the dock at the police court the following morning, no one could imagine that the curtain was about to be withdrawn from a series of murders which for sheer heartlessness are almost unprecedented in the annals of crime.

The only witness was Inspector Godley, who gave but sufficient evidence to obtain a remand pending the inquest. He stated that from inquiries he had made, he had found that Chapman was the only person who had fed the girl, and that he would not allow anyone else to give her food or to go into the kitchen when it was being prepared. He found five books, all dealing with medicine, in the possession of the accused, and also some white powders which had not yet been analysed. Arsenic, however, had been discovered in a portion of the viscera which had been removed from the body of Maude Marsh at the time of the post-mortem. The doctor who had attended Chapman’s former wife during her fatal illness had been called in to attend Maude Marsh, and he had noticed that both women had displayed the same symptoms. Chapman was then remanded.

Meanwhile, a further examination of the body was made by Dr. Stevenson, the official analyst to the Home Office, the result of which was given at his next appearance before the magistrate. He stated that he found no evidence of natural disease to account for death.

“Was arsenic suggested to you as the cause of death?” asked the solicitor who prosecuted on behalf of the Treasury.

“Yes, but I suggested to the other doctors present I did not think arsenic had been the cause,” replied Dr. Stevenson. “I attributed it to another metallic poison, antimony, which I found in the stomach and its contents, the liver, the spleen, the kidneys, the brain and elsewhere in the following quantities:—

_Metallic Antimony_
In the stomach 0·23 grains.
„ „ abdomen 5·99 „
„ „ liver 0·71 „
„ „ kidneys 0·14 „
„ „ brain 0·17 „
————
Total 7·24 grains.
_Tartar Emetic._
In the stomach 0·64 grains.
„ „ abdomen 16·64 „
„ „ liver 1·98 „
„ „ kidneys 0·39 „
„ „ brain 0·47 „
—————
Total 20·12 grains.

“In every organ and tissue that I examined I found some antimony,” added Dr. Stevenson.

He further stated that two grains of antimony had been known to produce fatal results in a very weak person, but in the case of an ordinary person, fifteen grains would kill. In the case of repeated doses three grains taken at a time might be expected to result in death. From the position of some of the antimony he thought a dose was taken within a few hours of death. Dr. Stevenson said he received from the police over thirty articles, including pills and ordinary medicines, and analysed them, but found neither arsenic nor antimony in any but one. This bottle was apparently empty when he received it, but he found there were a few drops of a liquid in it and looking into it he saw a little bit of white powder sticking to the side. He rinsed the bottle out with water and then analysed it and found the water contained both bismuth and antimony.

At this stage the case was adjourned; meanwhile the coroner’s inquest on the body of Maude Marsh was concluded, which resulted in a verdict of wilful murder against Chapman.

When he was brought before the magistrate for the tenth time on December 31, 1902, the Counsel for the Treasury had the sensational announcement to make that Chapman had since his last appearance been further charged with the murder of two other women, viz. Mary Isabella Spink (or Chapman) on Christmas Day, 1897, and Bessie Taylor (or Chapman) on February 13, 1901.

These two women, said the counsel, had lived with him for some time prior to their deaths. It had also been discovered that the prisoner’s real name was Severino Klosowski, and that he had assumed the name of George Chapman since coming to live in England. He was a Polish Jew and had studied medicine and surgery in Warsaw.

The story of Klosowski’s life is an extraordinary one. He was born in 1865 and educated at a military school in Poland. Afterwards he became a male nurse in a hospital at Warsaw and learned something of medicine. In 1888 he emigrated to England and obtained work in a small barber’s shop in Whitechapel Road, London. After he had been in London about twelve months, he married a woman named Lucy Baderski, who was then living. At one time they went to America, but she returned alone, and does not appear to have lived with him again.

In 1895 he left Whitechapel and was next heard of in a barber’s shop at Tottenham, where he was recognized by a hairdresser’s traveller who had known him in Warsaw. He next started a small shop on his own account, and at this time was living with a girl called Annie Chapman, whose name he afterwards adopted. His business failing, he again took a situation in Church Lane, Leytonstone, where he earned thirty shillings a week. While living at Leytonstone in 1895 he became acquainted with a Mrs. Spink, whose husband deserted her. Klosowski, or Chapman, as he now called himself, became on intimate terms with Mrs. Spink, and after a time he informed a Mr. Ward with whom he lodged that he and Mrs. Spink were going to be married. One day in October, 1895, they went out, and on their return stated that the wedding had taken place, and afterwards lived together as husband and wife.

Mrs. Spink had about £560, which was vested in a trust deed, and while she lived with Chapman some £250 had been advanced to her by the trustee. In 1897 the balance was handed over to the couple and they left London for Hastings, where Chapman purchased a barber’s business in George Street.

About February, 1897, Chapman’s affection for his wife seemed to wane, as he is said to have treated her cruelly, and she complained of his treatment to people they knew. Then she became ill, suffering from irritation of the stomach, which resulted in great weakness and depression. In April of that year Chapman is known to have purchased an ounce of tartar emetic (tartarated antimony) from a chemist in Hastings. In August they left Hastings and took a beerhouse called The Prince of Wales in Bartholomew Square, St. Luke’s, London. Mrs. Chapman, who had been better for a time, again became ill with the same symptoms, and her husband is said to have recommenced his ill-treatment of her. As she grew worse, a Dr. Rogers was called in to see her. Here a Mrs. Doubleday came upon the scene, and she noticed that Chapman frequently felt his wife’s pulse, and was much occupied in consulting medical books. He prepared her food and also her medicine, sending every one out of the room while he did it. She suffered terrible pain with vomiting and diarrhœa and finally died on Christmas Day, 1897. The doctor appears to have had no suspicion of poison and gave a certificate that the cause of death was phthisis.

After her death Chapman advertised for a barmaid and eventually engaged a woman named Bessie Taylor in that capacity. She came from Cheshire and had been in a situation as housekeeper at Peckham before coming to Chapman at Easter in 1898. She told a friend she was going to be married before going to live with Chapman at The Prince of Wales. In August, 1898, they left London and went to live at Bishop Stortford, where Chapman took an inn called The Grapes. In March, 1899, the couple again returned to London, Chapman first becoming tenant of The Monument, a public-house in Union Street Borough, and afterwards removing to The Crown in High Street. A Miss Painter, a friend of Bessie Taylor’s, who called to see her at The Crown, noticed that Chapman treated her with indifference and once even threatened her with a revolver. Calling to see her on another occasion some time later, Miss Painter found she was very ill and was troubled with persistent vomiting. Chapman attended to her, cooking her food and feeling her pulse.

In January Dr. Stoker, a local practitioner, was called in to see the sick woman, and he attended her until her death in February, 1901. The doctor had no suspicion she had been poisoned and certified the cause of death as intestinal obstruction, vomiting and exhaustion. The bodies of both women were exhumed under an order from the Home Secretary, and an analysis was made in each case by Dr. Stevenson.

The analysis of various organs removed from the body of Mary Isabella Spink revealed the presence of antimony in all the viscera examined:—

In the stomach 0·08 grains
„ „ intestines 1·15 „
„ „ liver 2·42 „
„ „ kidneys 0·18 „
————
Total 3·83 grains of tartarated antimony

Dr. Stevenson remarked on the amazing preservation of the body after being interred for five years. He found the head and features were so well preserved that they were as little altered as though only buried a day. This he attributed to the preservative properties of antimony, which in sufficient quantity practically mummified the body. He could find no case like this on record, and he regarded it as unique. There was no indication of phthisis, the cause of death being gastro-enteritis caused by the administration of antimony.

The analysis of the body of Bessie Taylor also revealed the presence of antimony in the following quantities:—

In the stomach and its contents 0·32 grains
„ „ intestines „ „ 23·43 „
„ „ liver 4·55 „
„ „ kidneys 0·82 „
—————
Total 29·12 grains of tartarated antimony.

Taylor’s body was also in a remarkably good state of preservation after being buried twenty-one months, and showed no appearance of recent disease, but signs of acute non-ulcerative gastro-enteritis set up by antimony were evident.

It was about eighteen months after Bessie Taylor’s death that Chapman engaged Maude Marsh as a barmaid at The Monument public-house, and her illness and death, the story of which closely resembles that of the other women with whom Chapman had consorted, has been already related.

He was committed for trial on December 19, 1902, and was arraigned before Mr. Justice Grantham at the Old Bailey on March 16, 1903.

For the defence the counsel for the prisoner urged the absence of motive for the crimes, and although he admitted that antimony had been found in the bodies of the three women, he asked if the methods of science were absolutely conclusive? There was, he contended, room for mistake unless such evidence was accompanied by corroborative evidence of the most powerful kind. There was no proof that Chapman had antimony in his possession since 1897, and his behaviour had been that of an innocent man.

The Solicitor-General, Sir Edward Carson, in his reply, said that although the prisoner was indicted only with regard to Maude Marsh’s death, the cumulative evidence of the two earlier murders was perhaps the most fatal testimony. One woman after another was betrayed and abandoned, and all poisoned in the same way and with the same poison. Each received the same “attention” on Klosowski’s part during their fatal illnesses. As to motive, the history of the man was one of unbridled, heartless, cruel lust. If a man were proved a murderer, one need not look for motive, but if motive were wanted in this case, it was easily to be found.

The judge, in summing up, said the case was unique from three points of view, viz. legally, chemically and medically. Chemically, it was unique by reason of the discovery which it enabled Dr. Stevenson to make of the power of antimony to preserve the tissues of the body in almost a perfect state of embalmment; from the legal point of view, because it was the first time the antecedents of a prisoner had been investigated in the way they had been in this case.

Medically, it was a sad reflection that a man who had only been a hairdresser’s assistant should be able to defy the doctors of this country, and for years carry on a practice of this kind without the slightest fear of being found out. The only question for the jury to determine was by whom the antimony was administered.

After a consultation of ten minutes, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, the foreman adding “We are all agreed.” Klosowski, or Chapman, was then sentenced to death, and paid the penalty of his crimes at Wandsworth Gaol on April 7, 1903.