Sherlockian Sojourns – Special #15: ‘A Couple of Complex Minds’

Introduction

In ‘The Illustrious Client’, when discussing Baron Gruner with Sir James Damery, Holmes references two Victorian criminals by their real names (rather than Watson’s usual pseudonyms) – Charles Peace and Henry Wainwright:

“A complex mind. All great criminals have that. My old friend Charlie Peace was a violin virtuoso. [Henry] Wainwright was no mean artist. I could quote many more”  - Sherlock Holmes  [ILLU]

I therefore set out to visit sites connected to these two individuals whose ‘complex minds’ so attracted Holmes. I intend to mention the sites in chronological order rather than the order that I visited them for ease.

 

Part 1: Charles Peace  (September 2026)

Finding myself back in my alma mater, the City of Sheffield, I decided to visit sites connected with Charles Frederick Peace, who was born on 14th May 1832, and was hanged on 25th February 1879. He was a prolific burglar and eventually a murderer.

Peace was born in grim surroundings at Angel Court, Nursery Street, Sheffield S3, on what is now the site of the former ‘The Big Gun’ Public House (visited by me second). His father, John, was a cobbler, picture framer, and subsequently travelled with the Wombwell Menagerie as a one legged lion tamer. His mother was a naval surgeon’s daughter. 

Peace initially went to school, but then got employment at Millsands Works as an apprentice Tinsmith, then as a foundry worker at Kelham Island, where at the age of fourteen, he accidentally had a red hot iron bar through his leg. Eighteen months in the Sheffield Infirmary ensued, where he had his left kneecap removed, leaving him permanently crippled, but he learnt to play the violin (to a level appreciated by Holmes, a fellow violinist), regularly playing Paganini at The Prince of Wales Public House, Ecclesall Road, Sheffield S11  (my penultimate stop).

However, as well as his musical ability, he had also but acquired housebreaking skills.  He was short, with a limp, and also had two fingers missing from a firearms incident. He also probably had suffered with rickets and could dislocate his jaw at will. At the age of nineteen, he had one year in prison after housebreaking with his sister, using a hinged ladder which looked like a pole, when folded. At twenty-two, he was back in Wakefield prison for burglary, for four years’ hard labour, during which time he tried to escape.

After his release, in 1859, he married a widow named Hannah Ward, who already had a son. They had two further children, but he continued to be arrested and convicted of burglary offences over the next thirteen years, meaning that he spent much of that time in custody. On release in August 1872, he started a picture framing business, and also sold musical instruments, but still went thieving. He also briefly worked for the North Eastern Railway, but was sacked for absenteeism.

Three years later, he and Ward moved to a semi-detached house in Britannia Road, Sheffield S9  (my first stop)  which was situated next door but one to a house occupied by a civil engineer called Arthur Dyson and his wife Katherine, which would prove fateful in due course.

Meanwhile, at Whalley Range, Manchester, Peace was seen by two policemen entering the grounds of a house on 1st August 1876, about midnight. One of them, PC Nicholas Cock, caught him as he was trying to escape. Peace took out his revolver and warned Cock to stand back but PC Cock stood his ground and Peace fired, but deliberately wide of him. Cock drew his truncheon, and Peace fired again, this time seriously wounding Cock, who died the following day on 2^nd August. After the fatal shot was fired Peace made his escape in the dark, returning to Sheffield, where he became obsessed with Katherine Dyson, who was described as “boozy and buxom”. In June 1876, Dyson threw a card into the garden of Peace’s house, reading: “Charles Peace is requested not to interfere with my family.” On 1st July 1876, Peace approached Mrs Dyson and threatened her and her husband. Dyson took out a summons against Peace, and moved to Banner Cross, another part of Sheffield.

On 29th October 1876, their first day in the new house - 959 Ecclesall Road, Sheffield S11 (visited fourth), Mrs Dyson was accosted by Peace, who said: “You see, I am here to annoy you, and I’ll annoy you wherever you go.” That evening, a little after eight o’clock, Peace observed Mrs Dyson coming out from her back door and entering a nearby outhouse. When she duly emerged, he confronted her with a revolver, shouting: “Speak or I’ll fire.” In terror, Mrs Dyson retreated back into the outhouse, and her husband came out to investigate.

  

Peace fled down the passage, where Dyson followed him. Peace fired twice at Dyson, the second shot passing fatally through his temple. As Mrs Dyson cried: “Murder!”  The passageway no longer exists, and its site - 955 Ecclesall Road, S11 (visited fifth) is now a barber’s shop, Crystal Barbers.

Dyson was buried in the nearby All Saints Churchyard, Sheffield S11 (visited last), ironically opposite the public house where Peace regularly played the violin. A quick search of the churchyard for the grave proved unfruitful.

   

  

Peace escaped and made his way by train to Hull, there was an immediate hue and cry, with a price of £100 on his head. The police issued a description that was somewhat inaccurate, but in any case, Peace was changing his appearance, concealing his missing finger with an ingenious prosthetic arm. In Nottingham, he made another fateful meeting, with a Mrs Sue Thompson, who would become his mistress, but would eventually betray his whereabouts to the police.

In early 1877, he moved to London under the pseudonym John Thompson, where he was finally caught by a Constable Robinson, whom he attempted to shoot. He was convicted of attempted murder and burglary. He confessed to being Charlie Peace, which wasn’t at first believed, but was confirmed by his wife and Mrs. Dyson. His family sold up as he was sentenced to hard labour in Pentonville prison, for life, so he decided he wanted to die, and admitted to his past crimes, leading to the Habron brothers who had been convicted of PC Cock’s murder being exonerated.

Peace was taken back to Sheffield, where he appeared before the stipendiary magistrate at Sheffield Town Hall, Pinstone Street, Sheffield S1  (visited third), and charged with the murder of Dyson.

     

Peace was taken back to London to await the second hearing. But it had to be adjourned a further eight days, because on the journey back to Sheffield, Peace jumped out of the train window whilst handcuffed to an officer. He was injured in the ensuing kerfuffle, being found unconscious beside the track, but, reaching Sheffield, he was tried in a corridor in the Sheffield Courts. It took 10 minutes for the Judge to sentence him to be hanged at Armley Gaol by chief hangman William Marwood, the ‘’long drop’’ pioneer. The year was 1879. On the morning of his execution, Peace ate a hearty breakfast of bacon, and calmly awaited the coming of the public executioner, On the scaffold, Peace died instantly and was buried at the Gaol, in a coffin in unconsecrated ground.

 

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2: Henry Wainwright  (October 2026)

A sojourn closer to home, mainly covering the #25 bus route through Whitechapel. Born on 12th July 1832, thirty-seven year old Henry Wainwright appeared to be a highly respectable, hard-working businessman who had inherited his family’s brush-making business at 84 Whitechapel Road, London E1 (visited fourth), now the East London Mosque.

As well as being a successful manufacturer and warehouse owner, Wainwright was a temperance lecturer, living with his wife and four children in a comfortable house at 40 Tredegar Square, London E3 (visited first).

But Wainwright was not all he appeared to be on the surface. Despite his apparent comfortable home life, he had a more complicated side. He had met a young, attractive twenty-year-old milliner’s apprentice called Harriet Lane in 1871. Totally infatuated, he set up a home for her as his mistress in a property at 70 St Peter Street, Mile End (since demolished) where Harriet took to calling herself ‘Mrs Percy King’. Over the course of the next two years, the love-struck pair had a couple of children. However, the financial cost of trying to run the two homes was playing havoc with Wainwright’s financial situation. He tried moving Harriet and the two children to cheaper accommodation at 3 Sidney Square, London E1 (visited second), but this did little to alleviate the problem, and he found himself moving ever closer to bankruptcy. By 1874 his business was starting to founder, and his debts were mounting.

    

To compound the problem, Harriet liked to drink, becoming loud and demanding when she had had a few too many. She was continually demanding additional money from Wainwright to help support his two illegitimate children, and eventually she began to threaten to expose their affair to his wife if he did not increase payments. In desperation, Wainwright began to hatch a plan and turned to his brother, Thomas, for assistance. Without divulging his eventual intentions he asked Thomas to pretend to woo Harriet through a series of written letters, which Thomas duly did, using the pseudonym Edward Frieake.

At 4pm on Friday 11th September 1874, an excited Harriet arranged for a couple of friends to look after her children and she left the property in Sidney Square. From then on, all communication with her friends ceased, and she appeared to vanish into thin air. Later that day, a small group of men working outside Wainwright’s warehouse at 215 Whitechapel Road, London E1 (visited third), now a clothes shop, heard what they thought to be three gunshots. A cursory examination of the immediate area failed to discover the cause, and they continued with their work.

   

When friends expressed concern over Harriet’s disappearance, Wainwright stated that he had given Harriet 15 Shillings and informed them that to the best of his knowledge, she had travelled to Brighton. Shortly afterwards, the friends received a letter from ‘Edward Frieake’ explaining that he had asked the young Harriet to marry him and that they were going to Paris to live together. Twelve months passed, but despite Harriet’s disappearance, Wainwright’s financial situation continued to cause him problems. Finally, he made the fateful decision to sell the warehouse, as passers-by had started to notice the obnoxious odours.

Exactly a year after the murder, on 11th September 1875, Wainwright went to the warehouse and used a spade to loosen the earth on a shallow grave that had been dug just below the floorboards. He had used lime chloride in an attempt to cover the foul stench of the rotting human remains. Using a small hatchet, he proceeded to dismember the decomposing body and wrapped the pieces into two heavy parcels, covered in black American cloth and tied with rope. He then enlisted the help of an unsuspecting employee, Alfred Stokes, who he asked to help him move the two parcels. Stokes was told to wait with the parcels while Wainwright went for a cab. Due the parcels’ dreadful odours, while Wainwright was away Stokes stole a peek inside the largest parcel. As he opened it, the first thing he saw was a human head, and then a hand which had been cut off at the wrist. Appalled, he quickly repacked the parcel and waited until Wainwright returned.

Wainwright put the two parcels into the cab, instructed Stokes that he would see him later that evening, and departed. Stokes pursued the cab on foot until he saw two police constables by Leadenhall Street, London EC3A (visited fifth). He drew their attention to the cab, begging them to stop it, but they laughed at him and said, “Man, you must be mad”.

    

Stokes continued to run after the cab as it turned over London Bridge, eventually stopping outside the Hen & Chickens Public House, 54 Borough High Street, London SE1  (visited last).

  

He alerted two other police constables; PCs Turner and Cox, and said “For God’s sake run after the man with the high hat with the parcels in his hand, there is something wrong.” This time, the two constables took Stokes’ protestations at face value, and as he left the cab, they accosted Wainwright.

As PC Turner reached for one of the packages Wainwright said “Don’t open it, policeman, pray don’t look at it, whatever you do don’t touch it”. The policeman pulled the cloth package open and discovered that it contained part of the remains of a human body. As Cox went to get the cab, Wainwright attempted to bribe the police constable saying, “I will give you 100 shillings, I will give you 200 shillings if you will let me go“.

Wainwright was subsequently charged with murder, and the police also tracked down and arrested his brother, Thomas. A search of the warehouse revealed the site of the shallow grave and patches of what appeared to be old blood. The victim had been shot in the head with a small calibre pistol, with her throat cut afterwards. Wainwright was known to possess a gun of a type consistent with the murder weapon. Wainwright was dubbed the "Whitechapel murderer"

At his trial at the Old Bailey (visited previously) in November 1875, before Sir Alexander Cockburn, Wainwright claimed that he had no idea what the parcels contained. His flimsy defence was that he had been asked by a mystery man to take the parcels from the warehouse for a sum of money.

   

The jury deliberated, found Wainwright guilty and he was duly hanged by William Marwood on 21st December 1875, at Newgate Gaol (visited previously). 

Despite taking place after public executions had ended, it is reputed that roughly two hundred people witnessed his execution in prison, testifying to his local notoriety. Thomas Wainwright was sentenced to seven years penal servitude as an accessory after the fact.