Chapter XVIII: The Mystery of the Seddons

There have been few cases in the history of poisoning where a man and his wife have been charged on the capital charge, therefore the trial of Frederick Henry Seddon and Mary Anne, his wife, on the charge of murdering Elizabeth Barrow at 63 Tollington Park, N., on September 14, 1911, is one of some interest. The mysterious circumstances connected with the case are also somewhat out of the ordinary, as the evidence largely was of a circumstantial character.

In 1901 Seddon, who was a superintendent of canvassers for an industrial insurance company, was living with his wife and three children at 63 Tollington Park, and on July 26, 1910, a Miss Eliza Mary Barrow, a woman of 49 years of age, came to lodge with them. She appears to have been a person of a somewhat strange temperament. She was very deaf, and had in her charge a small boy named Ernest Grant, an orphan of some people with whom she formerly lived. Miss Barrow was the possessor of a considerable sum of money, amounting to about £4,000, part of which was invested in stocks, and she was also the owner of some leasehold property. She had a curious, but not unusual, characteristic of hoarding gold and notes to a large amount in a cash-box, which she kept in a box in her room. There was probably £400 in gold and a considerable number of five-pound notes, said to be at least thirty-three, kept in this cash-box.

All this property disappeared by September 14, 1911, and on that date there appeared to be little cash left in her possession. All the property had found its way into the hands of the Seddons, which included £600 of India stock, the leasehold property and some £200 in cash as well. During October both Seddon and his wife were dealing with five-pound notes which undoubtedly belonged to Miss Barrow, and which had been in her cash-box. On the day when the India stock and leasehold property were transferred, Mrs. Seddon changed two five-pound notes, endorsing them with a false name and address. Six other notes were also paid into Seddon’s banking account.

According to Seddon, the money had been transferred to him by agreement with Miss Barrow, and he was to give her an annuity of a pound a week in exchange for the interest on it. He said that he had a verbal agreement with her by which he was bound to pay her an annuity of £72 a year in addition to the rooms in the house, in return for the property of the India stock.

On September 1 Miss Barrow became ill, from what her medical adviser diagnosed as epidemic diarrhœa, and this continued for at least eight or nine days, after which she began to improve and seemed to be getting better. While she was ill, Mrs. Seddon was the only one who attended to her, with the exception of Seddon, who was known to have gone into her room on September 11, when she made a will, appointing him as her sole executor and trustee. Mrs. Seddon saw after the cooking of Miss Barrow’s food and did everything necessary for her, and no servant went near the apartment.

On the night of the 13th she became rapidly worse, but the doctor was not called in until about six o’clock in the morning of the 14th, when she died. Seddon saw the doctor and obtained a certificate to the effect that death was due to epidemic diarrhœa, and two days afterwards the funeral took place. There were some significant facts with regard to what happened after her death. No relative was present at the funeral, nor were they informed of her death until September 20.

After the funeral there was some inquiry from one of the relatives, a Mr. Wonderahe, who had an interview with Seddon. His suspicions being aroused that all was not well, he communicated with the authorities, and inquiries were instituted, which resulted in an order being given for the exhumation of the body on November 15. A post-mortem examination was made, and it was found that Miss Barrow died from the effects of arsenic, the poison being widely distributed throughout her body. The doctor had not prescribed arsenic in his treatment during her illness, and as Seddon and his wife were the only two people who had come near her during the period, they were arrested and charged with the crime.

How the poison was obtained, and who administered it were the paramount questions at the trial.

During Miss Barrow’s illness no one else appeared to have entered her bedroom but the man and his wife, and yet the quantity of arsenic found in the body was so large, that it was found even in the hair and nails. Shortly after Miss Barrow’s death, Seddon was seen by two of his colleagues to be in possession of considerable sums of money, including £200 in gold and also jewellery. He bought shares in a Building Society, which he paid for in cash, and made several payments amounting to £150 in gold.

A chemist at Crouch Hill stated, that a girl he had since identified as Seddon’s daughter, purchased from him a packet of six arsenical fly-papers; she asked for arsenical papers and not the “sticky” ones.

A doctor who treated Miss Barrow in August, 1911, said she was then suffering from congestion of the liver, and at the end of the month had an attack of asthma, but the symptoms were not severe, and she made no complaint of pain or sickness. The doctor who was called in to attend her on September 2 had attended the Seddons for some years. He found her suffering from sickness and prescribed for her. On the 13th the symptoms of the illness had returned, but he did not consider her condition critical. The following day Seddon came to see him and said Miss Barrow was dead, and he gave a certificate that death was due to epidemic diarrhœa, but he never prescribed arsenic in any form for her during her illness.

Dr. Spilsbury, who conducted the post-mortem examination, stated that the body was in an abnormal state of preservation, and after witnessing tests made by Dr. Willcox, he was of the opinion that death was due to acute arsenical poisoning, which meant poisoning by one or more large doses of arsenic. He had found no sign of internal disease, and in this particular case he could find no external or internal indication of chronic arsenical poisoning.

Dr. Willcox, who made the analysis for the Home Office, said he found arsenic in all the remains and tissues, the largest proportion being in the stomach, intestines, liver and muscles; there was arsenic in the skin, heart and nails, and it was distributed throughout the body. He agreed with Dr. Spilsbury as to the cause of death. He estimated that there was in the remains 2·01 grains of arsenic, and that would indicate to him that more than that amount had been taken. There might have been an amount of five grains taken within three days of death. In his opinion the fatal dose was given within two or three days of death, probably two days. Two grains of arsenic would be a poisonous dose, and might be enough to kill an adult person, and two or three such doses within a short period of time would be fatal.

Dr. Willcox said he had heard a suggestion in this case that carbonate of bismuth contained arsenic. He had made an analysis of some and found a very faint trace of about one in a million, so at least two hundredweight of bismuth carbonate would be required to give two grains of arsenic.

He made an analysis of the arsenical fly-papers and found arsenic in a quantity varying from 3·8 to 6 grs. per paper. If the paper was actually boiled in water for some minutes, practically all the arsenic would be got out, and he had obtained 6·6 grs. by boiling one, 6 grs. from another and 3 grs. from another. In his opinion the 2·01 grs. he found in Miss Barrow’s body would be sufficient to kill an adult person.

A considerable point was made by the counsel for the prosecution in the cross-examination of Dr. Willcox as to the finding of arsenic in the tips of the hair. Counsel remarked, that one of the most important subjects of investigation before the Royal Commission of inquiry into arsenical poisoning, was the presence of arsenic in the hair and the length of time it must have taken before it reached the hair tips. Counsel said that the fact that arsenic was found in the tips of Miss Barrow’s hair proved that it must have been given for a period extending over two or three months. Dr. Willcox said that it need not mean that arsenic was being taken continuously, but some might have been taken a year or more previously, and in the present case he was inclined to the opinion that there had been one fatal dose given in the last three days before death.

Mr. Marshall Hall, who defended Seddon, submitted that there was not sufficient evidence to give to the jury, and suggested the case was absolutely a unique one. In all other cases of poisoning there was some direct tracing of the poison, and in the cases of some men who had been tried previously, such as Lamson and Cream, there had been medical knowledge in the possession of the prisoners, but in this case there were two people charged on circumstantial evidence and it could not be said which of them did it. Beyond the evidence of the chemist who said he had sold Margaret Seddon certain fly-papers, there was no proof of any poison being in the possession of either party. Mrs. Seddon said that she herself bought some fly-papers in consequence of the request from Miss Barrow, that something should be done to mitigate the nuisance of flies in the room. She remembered that on one occasion, the contents of four saucers were emptied into one which was placed on the washstand in the room.

Seddon was then called to give evidence and stated that Miss Barrow had asked him about reinvesting her money, as she was losing capital, and he suggested an annuity, which she agreed to in exchange for her India stock and the lease of her property. He denied ever handling the fly-papers which came to his house and beyond giving her a little brandy the last night when she was very ill, he had never given her anything to eat or drink. He had not the smallest suspicion at that time that she was fatally or dangerously ill. He declared he had never purchased arsenic in his life in any shape or form, and swore that he had never either administered or instructed the administration of it.

Mrs. Seddon, who also went into the box, said there were a great many flies in Miss Barrow’s room, and Miss Barrow asked her to get some fly-papers, “Not the sticky ones, but those you wet.” She herself bought them at the shop of a neighbouring chemist and took four on being told she could get them at a reduced price. The papers were shown to Miss Barrow and placed in a saucer in her room with water on them. During Miss Barrow’s illness, she waited upon her, and on one occasion, only, did Mr. Seddon give Miss Barrow any medicine. She had never bought a fly-paper until she bought these, and she had never sent her daughter for anything of the kind. She began by putting them in saucers singly, two on the mantelpiece and two on the chest of drawers. Then there was an accident, she remembered, and she emptied them into a soup-plate and repeatedly moistened them if they were going dry.

Mr. Justice Bucknill, in summing up, said if the prisoners were guilty, it was a crime which had been carefully thought out and carefully committed in secret. The history of great poisoning cases showed that the poisoner did not poison in open daylight, in the presence of other persons. It was a secret crime, done in the dark, and if this particular crime was proved against these people there could be no doubt as to its being an abominable one, and that the love of gold led to it.

The question to answer was, what was the cause of Miss Barrow’s death? A considerable amount of arsenic had been found in the body; how did it get there? There was no direct evidence that Seddon had ever been seen to handle a fly-paper or the water in which one had been soaking. In view of the medical evidence it ought not to be difficult to decide that Miss Barrow died from arsenical poisoning, and it was for the jury to decide whether that arsenic was administered by the prisoners or either of them.

After considering for an hour and five minutes, the jury found Seddon guilty and his wife “Not Guilty.” Before sentence was passed upon the man, he read a long statement in which he again denied that he was guilty of the crime. Seddon was condemned to death and his wife was acquitted, and he suffered the extreme penalty of the law on April 18, 1912.

The verdict was much discussed in the Press, and some ten thousand persons, including Mrs. Seddon, assembled in Hyde Park and presented a petition at the Home Office to get the verdict set aside. The Court of Criminal Appeal was asked to quash the conviction, but the judges said they saw no reason to say the verdict was wrong or unreasonable.

In November, 1912, Mrs. Seddon made a remarkable statement in the Press which was published in the _Weekly Dispatch_ of November 17. In it she stated, that Seddon committed the crime, that she saw him give the poison to Miss Barrow, that on the fatal night he deliberately substituted for the medicine the water from the fly-papers and white precipitate powder and gave it to Miss Barrow. She continued:—

“Soon afterwards she breathed her last and I threatened to call the police, but he pointed his revolver at my head and told me if I informed on him he would blow my brains out. He had always slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow. It was Seddon who told me about the flies in Miss Barrow’s bedroom and asked me to buy the fly-papers. He would not let me arrange them in the room but took them himself. Late that night Miss Barrow complained to me about the medicine tasting funny. Something made me look round. I found a saucer that I had not put there. It was damp, and I put my finger to it and then on my tongue. It tasted very queer. On the night of her death Seddon went out to a theatre; several times during that evening Miss Barrow had called out “I am dying,” and I told my husband this when he came in, but he laughed. Later on he went to the bedroom and I followed him. Miss Barrow begged him to send for the doctor, but he refused; I left the room for a few minutes. On coming back Seddon did not notice me standing near the doorway. I saw that the doctor’s medicine had been put on one side, and my husband was mixing water from fly-papers and white precipitate powder which was to make the mixture look like that sent by the doctor. Then I saw him approach the bed and give Miss Barrow several doses.”

Sir William Willcox, commenting on this case,[9] said it was of interest because arsenic was found in all the organs of the victim, Miss Barrow, and a computation of the total amount of arsenic in the body was made by a determination of the arsenic present in each organ. The corpse was actually weighed for this purpose, as well as the individual organs. A fatal poisonous dose of 2 gr. was proved to be present in the body. For the purpose of this analysis the electrolytic Marsh-Berzelius test was used for the first time in determining quantitatively the amount of arsenic in each organ.

Footnote 9:

Presidential Address before the Harveian Society, Jan. 11, 1923.