The Victoria and Albert Museum’s website has a fascinating history of samplers. They began as records, or samples, of different embroidery stitches before there were printed patterns. Embroiderers would see a motif or a stitch that they wanted to remember and would embroider it onto a piece of fabric for future reference; or they would experiment with effects created by using different threads, colour combinations or stitches. Most of the early samplers were created by adult women and even professional embroiderers. Much later, samplers evolved into learning tools for young girls. The needlework that they used when stitching their samplers taught them skills that they would use as adult women, mistresses of their own households. Today, samplers are still used to develop those abilities, but mostly they are created by a variety of girls and women for decorative purposes.
One day, I was looking at my sampler, and on a whim, I decided to Google the name of the girl who made the sampler. Maybe I would find out where she was born and lived, where her descendants lived now, and what kind of life she had.
What I discovered, much to my shock, was that the young girl who stitched the sampler grew up to become the victim of one of the most notorious murder cases in Victorian England.
Her name was Julia Martha Batterbee, and when she stitched her sampler in 1833, she was ten years old.
The historian in me took over full force, and I had to know more. I wanted to know more about her murder but also her life. Who killed her? And why? So I dug a little deeper, using genealogical sites, reading a book that was written about the murder and the trial, and checking some historical research databases for contemporary newspaper accounts. There is not a lot of information about Julia; as is typical, the public was much more interested in the murderer than the victim, but I did fill in a few gaps.
Julia Martha Batterbee was born on April 16, 1823 and baptized on July 23, 1823 in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, Middlesex. Her father, Barnabas, was a printer who was born around 1796 and her mother Martha was born ca 1797. Julia had a least one brother, named Charles, born October 2, 1817 and baptized November 18 at Westminster. The family tree seems to extend only through Charles, at least online; he married a woman named Martha and had 5 children. In the 1861 British Census, Charles, Martha and 3 of their children (one of who, incidentally, was named Julia Martha) were living in Shoreham, Sussex, and Charles was listed as a glass and china dealer. Ten years later, presumably Martha had died, as Charles and his new wife Elizabeth were living in Brighton, Sussex with the two youngest children, William and Rhoda. Charles and Julia might have had at least one other brother named Joseph, but I could not find any link to connect them definitively.
Julia married a Scotsman, James Murray, probably in March 1847 at St. James. There is no mention of any children, but there is a record of a James Murray born in 1849 who lived only a year, and who was buried at St. James. I suspect this was an infant son of Julia and James; perhaps there were others who were miscarried or died as infants, fairly typical in that era.
In any case, Julia was widowed fairly young. The 1861 census recorded Julia, a widow, living in Winchester, Surrey with her mother Martha, who was also a widow by then, and two of Martha’s young granddaughters. These granddaughters might have been the daughters of an unknown brother of Julia and Charles (maybe Joseph?), as their names and ages do not match any of the offspring of Charles and his wife. Julia is listed as a schoolmistress.
In 1862, Julia’s fortunes appear to have taken a turn for the better, as she married again, this time a man named James Thomas. James Thomas was born and baptized on September 21, 1823 at Christ Church in Southwark, Surrey. In 1841, he was an apprentice printer living with his cousin Francis Robert Thomas and his aunt Elizabeth Scott (née Thomas) in Middlesex. By 1871, he and Julia were living at 1 Montague Place on Seven Sisters Road in Islington, Middlesex, and Mr. Thomas was a printer's reader. They were reportedly staunch Presbyterians, and until her death, Julia attended the local Presbyterian church. Sadly, by 1873, he also had died, and Julia was again a widow.
At some point, Julia Thomas moved to 2 Vine Cottages, around the corner from the Hole-in-the-Wall public house, in Park Road, Richmond. 2 Vine Cottages was a
semi-detached “villa” with gardens in the back and front, and is still
standing today. Her landlady, Mrs. Ives, lived in the other half.
Julia took in the occasional boarder, and appeared to live the life of a
genteel widow. In January 1879, she hired a housekeeper named Kate
Webster.
We do not know very much more about Julia. After her sensational murder, many people gave testimony (both in court and in the newspaper accounts) as to her personality, and naturally, much of the testimony is contradictory. She was described by some as someone who was easily excited, eccentric and a difficult employer. Others described her as a “pleasant, lively lady,” “amiable and good-natured,” and an accomplished piano player. At a height of approximately 5'3" she was not a large woman, and seemed to be in reasonably good health. Some people suggested that Julia’s desire to have live-in help and the care that she took with her appearance were part of an effort to appear more prosperous than she was.
What do we know about Kate Webster? She was Irish, taller than Julia and stout, with an impressive criminal record. She reportedly had been married and had four children, but her husband and all of their children mysteriously died. Kate was portrayed as a “loose woman,” and at the time of her employment with Julia, had a small son who lived with a friend. She identified different men as the father of the child, but it was largely believed that a man named Strong, who was her partner in several crimes, was the father. She had many aliases, and claimed that her life of crime (mostly petty crimes such as theft and larceny) was an attempt to look after her child, after being abandoned by all those who should have cared for her.
Remarkably, Julia did not ask for a reference before she hired Kate. Almost immediately, there was dissatisfaction with the quality of Kate’s work, and within a week, Julia had given Kate her notice. Kate convinced Julia to allow her to stay until the end of February, a fatal decision.
Matters between Kate and Julia deteriorated quickly. Julia became fearful of Kate, and tried to convince friends to come and stay with her until Kate had left her employ. Ultimately, however, by the end of February, the only two people living in the house were Kate Webster and her employer, Julia Thomas. Inexplicably, Julia agreed to let Kate stay on for several additional days.
On Sunday morning, March 2, 1879, Julia went to church as usual. Kate was in the habit of taking Sunday afternoons to spend with her son, with the understanding that she would be back at Vine Cottages in time to help Julia prepare for the evening service. On this day, however, she was late returning, and Julia and Kate argued. Julia arrived at the church late, sitting in a back pew instead of her usual place, and was visibly agitated. That is the last time she was seen alive.
Warning: if you don’t like blood and gore, perhaps the next part isn’t for you....
When Julia arrived home from church, the argument between Julia and Kate escalated. Kate, in a fit of temper, pushed Julia down the stairs. When she realized what she had done, and saw her employer lying on the ground moaning, Kate, in her own words, “lost all control,” and choked her to death. She spent the night cutting up the body with a razor, a meat saw and a carving knife, and, in an attempt to prevent the remains from being identified, boiled some of the body parts in a large copper kettle. She burned other parts of the body, including the stomach contents. Later, neighbourhood children claimed that in the following days, Kate fed them lard made from the body, but this particularly gruesome rumour was never mentioned in evidence or in her confessions, so I am assuming that the sensationalism surrounding the trial encouraged the children’s active imaginations.
Meanwhile, on that fateful evening, Mrs. Ives, the landlady who lived next door, heard noises coming from 2 Vine Cottages which continued all day Monday, consistent with a heavy fall, which she attributed to moving a heavy chair, and frantic cleaning. Several people noticed a particularly foul odour coming from Mrs. Thomas’s house, but probably the occasional unpleasant smell wasn’t terribly unusual.
Early on Wednesday, March 5, a coal porter who was driving along the Thames about a mile away from 2 Vine Cottages spotted a wooden bonnet box tied with cords drifting in shallow water. Opening it, he found body parts wrapped in brown paper. Further investigation by the police confirmed that the body parts were the trunk, legs and one foot of a woman. On March 10, a foot and ankle were found in Twickenham in a dunghill.
At Kate’s trial, testimony from Dr. Thomas Bond, a forensic surgeon, described his examination of the remains. He found the upper part of the chest with part of the ribs, the heart and part of 1 lung attached, the right shoulder and part of the right upper arm, the left upper arm, the right thigh cut off below the joint, the right leg which had been separated from the thigh at the knee joint, part of the pelvis with the uterus attached, and the left foot cut off above the ankle. He described most parts of the body as dry, shrivelled, shrunken and very brown, consistent with having been boiled. One thigh, however, was in a “natural state” and had not been boiled. The bones had been sawed roughly without any consideration of anatomical structure. Only 1 bone was complete, and that was the arm bone, which measured 11½ inches. He extrapolated from that measurement, and from the smallish foot, that the body belonged to a woman over 50, just a little over 5 feet in height. He also noted brown hair under the armpits.
In the meantime, Kate was busy trying to pretend that everything was normal. She shooed away visitors to the house but ordered provisions as usual. On Tuesday, two days after the murder, she visited some friends of hers with whom she had lived previously, but hadn’t seen for several years. She was dressed in Julia Thomas’s clothing and wearing her jewellery, and told her friends, the Porters, that since she had seen them last, she had been married to a Mr. Thomas and then widowed, that her “aunt” had died and left her property in Richmond, and that she was planning to move to Ireland with her young son. When she arrived at the Porter house, she was carrying a black bag, which she placed at her feet under the table while she had tea. She later admitted that the bag contained the head of Julia Thomas, as well as some other body parts. She asked Mr. Porter if his son could go back to Richmond with her and help her deliver a large box, which he did; this box was the same one later pulled out of the Thames with the remains of Julia Thomas. Kate later used the involvement of the Porters to try to implicate them in Julia’s murder, but upon investigation, they were found to be innocent participants in Kate’s schemes.
Over the next few days, Kate enlisted the help of Porter and a friend of his, Mr. Church, to dispose of the contents and possessions of her “aunt’s” house. They made various trips back and forth between the Porter home and Richmond, and when Porter and Church began to empty the house on Monday, March 17 and Tuesday, March 18, the landlady, Mrs. Ives, began to get suspicious. Realizing that she had not seen Mrs. Thomas in quite some time, she asked Kate where Mrs. Thomas was, and why her belongings were being removed. Kate became visibly nervous, and Church, who was watching the interaction between Kate and Mrs. Ives, also became alarmed, and told Kate he would not take the goods as he believed that she had deceived him.
At this point, Kate must have realized that she was in danger. She borrowed some money from Church’s wife, picked up her child, and was not seen again until March 28, when she was arrested at her uncle’s home in Ireland.
Church and Porter were somewhat perturbed by Kate’s disappearance, and started to make inquiries. Mrs. Church went through the pockets of some clothing that Kate had left behind, and found a letter addressed to Mrs. Thomas from a friend named Mrs. Menhennick. Church and Porter went to the Menhennick home, and described the “Mrs. Thomas” they knew as a big, tall woman with a strong Irish accent. The Menhennicks confirmed that this was not the Julia Thomas that they had known for several years, and advised Porter and Church to consult with Mrs. Thomas’s executor, Mr. Hughes, who had known her for thirty years. Mr. Hughes was ill, so they consulted with his brother, who also knew Julia Thomas.
Hughes also confirmed that the woman that Church and Porter had been acquainted with was not Julia Martha Thomas, and they immediately went to the police station in Richmond. Accompanied by Inspector Pearman, a preliminary search was made of 2 Vine Cottages, where a photograph that “Mrs. Thomas” had identified as her solicitor father was identified by Mr. Hughes as actually portraying his father. Around this time, based on evidence given by Porter and his son about the box they had helped Kate move, connections were made between the disappearance of Julia Thomas and the body parts that had been discovered in the Thames and in other parts of the area.
When Inspector Pearman returned to 2 Vine Cottages for an intensive search of the property, he discovered charred bones and dress buttons in the kitchen grate and underneath the copper kettle, several bloodstains throughout the house, and “fatty substances” on the copper kettle. He also found the tools that Kate used to dismember the body. A handle which fit the box found in the Thames was discovered as well as the same type of cord used to tie the box. The Inspector also found a bonnet which was identified has having been made for Mrs. Thomas; it had a thick clot of blood on it as well as several smaller blood spots. And he discovered correspondence belonging to Kate Webster which included her address in Ireland. The one thing that was not found was the bag containing Julia Thomas’s head.
Dr. Bond examined the remains that had been brought to him after the police search of 2 Vine Cottages. He found a variety of bones that had been burned, none of which were duplicates of the bones he had examined previously, and concluded that they were part of the same body. All of these body parts were eventually buried in an unmarked grave in a nearby cemetery.
Irish police arrested Kate Webster for the murder of Julia Martha Thomas at her uncle’s home in Killane on Friday, March 28 and she was brought back to London. After a hearing, Kate was committed for trial in the murder of Julia Martha Thomas. The trial commenced on Wednesday, July 2, 1879 and ended on July 8 with a guilty verdict. At the trial, despite her portrayal of the murder occurring in a moment of passionate anger, evidence pointing to premeditation was presented, with witnesses stating that as early as Shrove Tuesday (February 25), Kate was talking about coming into an inheritance from an aunt, and her plan to move home to Ireland.
Kate gave a final confession in Wandsworth Prison on July 28, which she swore was the truthful version of events. She had made several previous statements to authorities in the time between her arrest and execution, which she also swore were the true account of events. All of her confessions and statements had highly differing accounts of what had happened, but the presumption is that the final confession was likely the most accurate.
Kate Webster was hanged at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 29.
And that, my friends, was the end of the story.
Until 2010, when Sir David Attenborough decided to do some renovations to an old pub known as the Hole-in-the-Wall beside his house which he had purchased to save it from the hands of developers. The location of his house? Right next door to 2 Vine Cottages, in now-upscale Richmond-upon-Thames.
Remember Julia’s missing skull? Well, during the renovations to Sir David’s yard, a skull was uncovered. Unfortunately, because there was no record of the location where Julia’s remains were buried, and no relatives could be traced, DNA testing could not be done. However, it was determined through carbon dating and forensic testing that the location of the skull and its injuries were consistent with the testimony of Kate Webster, and that it was the skull of Julia Martha Thomas, murdered 130 years earlier.
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| From Google maps; Julia Thomas's house on the left, Sir David Attenborough's house in the centre, and Hole-in-the-Wall pub on the Right. |
Although Julia herself was not famous and there is not very much information about her, the sensational coverage in the newspapers of Victorian England ensured that her murder became infamous. According to that source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, there were ballads written about the trial. Mme Tussaud created a wax figure of Kate. The fact that the murderer was a woman, and that it was so gruesome, caused even more of a sensation, and the case has been studied by scholars into the present day. The discovery of Julia’s skull and the connection with the Attenborough family no doubt revived interest in the murder, as the TV series “Deadly Women” included it in one of their episodes.
And THAT is the end of the story. Except that I have the sampler that little Julia Martha Batterbee stitched. I have touched the fabric and examined the stitches that she made, a young girl innocently contemplating her future, perhaps picturing a house full of children, a nice house, and a kind husband, or maybe, thinking about her next social outing, with absolutely no inkling of the gruesome end that awaited her.
My sources of information were: Wikipedia, The Trial of Kate Webster edited by Elliot O’Donnell which includes the trial transcript and the texts of Kate Webster’s various confessions, ancestry.com, Google maps, and various contemporary British newspapers. There is still part of the story to discover; the trial transcript mentions that a diary belonging to Julia Thomas was found during one of the searches. WHAT HAPPENED TO IT???
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