The Staunton case revisited

On 13 April 1877, 36-year-old Harriet Staunton died in a common lodging-house in Penge, which was then in Kent but which is now in Greater London. Four of her family members were later charged with her murder by malicious starvation. All were convicted, but did they murder her? Indeed, was she unlawfully killed at all?

Harriet was said to be of “weak intellect” because of her difficulties with writing and spelling. A photograph of her as a young woman shows her to be of unremarkable appearance with no obvious signs of imbecility, and possibly she was simply suffering from dyslexia. However her mother considered that her mental faculties rendered her unfit for married life, and to secure her spinsterhood applied to have her certified as a lunatic. In this she was unsuccessful.

In 1875 Harriet married Louis Staunton, a clerk some 10 years her junior. Initially they lived in Brixton, London, but within a few months they had moved, together with other members of the Staunton family, to Cudham, a village deep in rural Kent. Here a rather irregular domestic situation developed. As well as Louis and Harriet, there were then in Cudham Louis’s brother Patrick Staunton, Patrick’s wife Elizabeth Staunton, and Elizabeth’s sister Alice Rhodes. Louis and Alice lived as “man and wife” (as they were described in this now sexist language at the trial) in one farmhouse, whilst Harriet lodged with Patrick and Elizabeth at a different farm a short distance away. Also living with Patrick, Elizabeth and Harriet was a servant girl, 15-year-old Clara Brown, who was a cousin of Elizabeth and Alice.

In March 1876 Harriet gave birth to a son, who died a year later, and at the time of her confinement her medical attendants thought she was in good health. However from six months after her delivery to shortly before her death she disappeared from public view. She was kept in isolation and her mother was prevented by threats from seeing her – it was alleged that Patrick told her he would “blow her brains out” if she attempted to visit. The local tradespeople who frequently called at the house were not even aware of her existence.

By 12 April 1877 Harriet had become unwell and the family decided that she should be moved from Cudham to Penge where they thought that medical attention for Harriet would be better than that given locally. Louis and Elizabeth travelled there to book lodging accommodation and to engage a practitioner, Mr Longrigg, to visit. Mr Longrigg described himself as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons but “not a physician”. Louis and Elizabeth went back to Cudham to collect Harriet, Patrick and Alice, and the five of them then returned to Penge, firstly by wagonette for the eight miles to Bromley railway station and then onwards by train. By this time it was clear that Harriet was seriously ill. She was drowsy, unresponsive and unable to speak, and the station staff and cabdriver in Penge gave evidence that she had to be assisted or carried on and off the train and into the lodgings.

They asked Longrigg to visit immediately but he was not available and called the following day. He found Harriet to be comatose and unresponsive, she was grossly emaciated, dirty and infested with lice, her pulse was rapid and weak, her pupils were irregular and her arms were rigid. He concluded that she was terminally ill and indeed she died a few hours later. Longrigg issued a death certificate giving the cause as “cerebral disease and apoplexy”, but there then followed one of those amazing coincidences which would be thought far-fetched if described in a work of fiction. Penge lay on the border between Kent and Surrey and one of the Staunton brothers called at the local Post Office to find out where the death should be registered. The conversation was overheard by a Mr Casabianca, Harriet’s brother-in-law, no less, and hearing of “Cudham” and “death” his suspicions were aroused and the coroner was informed. The death certificate was withdrawn and a post-mortem examination (PM) ordered, this being done six days after death.

By modern standards this seems to have been a rather casual affair. It was done by Longrigg himself with five assistants in the very house where Harriet had died. It confirmed the dirty, emaciated and verminous state of the body, and here “dirty” seems to be a euphemism for faecal soiling. They also noticed “bronzing” or hyperpigmentation of the skin. Internally there was “not a particle of fat”; there was congestion of the stomach and rectum, inflammation of the peritoneum, a deposit of tuberculosis (TB) in one lung and another small TB deposit in the meningeal coverings of the brain. There was no microscopy done but the tuberculous nature of the lesions in the lung and brain was not disputed. With no cause of death being apparent they initially thought that she had been poisoned, but when analyses were negative revised their opinion to death from starvation. The prosecution case at the trial rested essentially on the PM findings and this medical opinion – that the three Stauntons and Alice Rhodes had maliciously conspired to starve Harriet to death.

The defence of course did not need to disprove this allegation, or even to prove death from some other cause, merely to throw “reasonable doubt” on the prosecution case. They did this by calling expert evidence that she had died from meningeal TB which would account for the emaciation as well as the muscle rigidity and eye signs. They also briefly raised the possibility of two other conditions, namely Addison’s disease and diabetes. The prosecution relied on Longrigg and those others present at the PM, who were not experts, whilst the defence called on specialists in pathology and medicine, who however were reliant for their views on the reported PM findings. The defence did not dispute these findings, merely their interpretation, but the judge, in his summing up, tended to dismiss their expert opinions.

Tuberculosis – infection by the TB bacillus – was considered “poorly understood” in the 1870s. Even its infectious nature was doubtful until the organism was identified by Koch in 1882. It principally affects the lungs – “consumption” – but can involve lymph nodes, abdomen, bones and brain, particularly its meningeal coverings. Meningeal TB was uniformly fatal (even with modern treatment the mortality may be 30%), and it usually has a rapid course – too rapid for gross wasting to develop. I would accept the diagnosis of TB of the lungs and brain in Harriet’s case, and that meningeal TB could account for some of the signs noted by Longrigg, but would agree that TB in these organs was insufficient to cause wasting and death.

Another site of TB infection is the adrenal glands, small organs at the back of the abdominal cavity. These secrete hormones including cortisol, which is essential to life. Failure of cortisol production gives the disease first described by Joseph Addison (1793–1860) in 1849, but even at the time of the trial this was described as an “obscure” illness. Addison’s disease is a chronic condition with loss of appetite, weakness, wasting, diarrhoea, low blood pressure, and – an important sign, this – hyperpigmentation or bronzing of the skin. This arises because loss of cortisol stimulates other hormones which increase cutaneous deposition of the brown pigment, melanin. Further, the slowly progressive course can be interrupted by an acute “crisis” with collapse, coma, shock and death.

Tuberculous Addison’s disease thus accounts for many of the features, not only the wasting but also the skin bronzing, diarrhoea (noted by the attending nurse), and hypotension (the weak pulse found by Longrigg). How long had it been going on? The defendants told the coroner that she had been well until a few days before the move to Penge, but this was before the Prisoner’s Evidence Act of 1898 so they could not speak at their own trial. The only other witness to this period was the servant, Clara Brown, but her testimony was so contradictory as to be hopelessly unreliable. I would say that evidence of ill-health which may appear gross on first seeing the patient can be less obvious to family members if the signs develop gradually, and also suggest that the wasting could to some extent be concealed under Victorian clothing. Further, the sudden deterioration described by the Stauntons and her collapsed state en route to Penge are almost classical descriptions of an Addisonian crisis.

The key question is now: What was the state of the adrenal glands at PM? In short, they were not examined. One of those present said that this was “overlooked”, but the Attorney-General, in his closing address, made the astonishing observation that it was omitted because “Addison’s disease did not suggest itself”. On the contrary I believe this diagnosis is so highly probable as to be a virtual certainty, and that there was no murder, or even manslaughter, as there was no treatment then available.

Nevertheless, the Staunton family had treated Harriet appallingly. She was isolated, neglected, separated from her mother and abandoned by her husband, but not, in my view, killed by them. The defendants received the death sentence but following an outcry in both the medical and the lay press Alice was pardoned and the other three given life sentences; Patrick died in prison but Elizabeth and Louis were released after several years. It may give some satisfaction that at least they escaped the hangman’s noose.

The Trial of the Stauntons by JB Atlay is a contribution to the “Notable British Trials” series, first published in 1911. The case was also discussed by Dr H Sutherland in the Transactions of the Medico-Legal Society (1921) and he concluded that Harriet was probably murdered, but clearly I disagree with his assessment.

Geoffrey Nicholson

B.Sc., M.B. Ch.B., M.R.C.P., M.D., J.P.

Consultant Physician (Retired)