Florence maybrick trial

Florie thought she had fallen in love with a successful cotton merchant who lived in Liverpool but also spent much of each year in Norfolk, Virginia.

Unknown to Florie, Maybrick had an English mistress with whom he had several children. Also unknown to Florie, Maybrick had a bad drug habit. He was hooked on arsenic and strychnine. People with double lives are often very good at keeping personal secrets. James Church in London's Piccadilly, she knew her husband had contracted Malaria during one of his trips to Norfolk. Malaria had spread in epidemic proportions during the Civil War.

While Maybrick had recovered from the disease itself, he had not recovered from the treatment. He would remain addicted to the ingredients of Fowler's Medicine arsenic and strychnine for the rest of his life. A chemical element, arsenic was a component of other interesting products during the late 19th century.

Women including Florie Maybrick sometimes used it as a cosmetics base and chemists used it in flypaper, among other things. Even Queen Elizabeth I used arsenic as part of the preparation that made her face appear white. It wasn't until Florie found "white powder" stashed in various places around her house that she knew her husband had a drug habit.

But that was several years after her wedding. And it was well after Florence had two children: James Chandler called "Bobo" born in , and Gladys Evelyn, born in Long before , Maybrick was a full-fledged "arsenic eater. He was short tempered and started to beat Florie.

Ever the headstrong woman, Florie took a lover - Alfred Brierly - a friend of the Maybricks. It came as no surprise to family friends, but when Maybrick realised the truth he was outraged. The fact that Maybrick had kept a mistress throughout his marriage was beside the point. From Maybrick's recently discovered diary maybe genuine, maybe not we learn that Maybrick decided to stop taking huge doses of arsenic during the spring of Medical knowledge available at the time stated such a step could produce fatal results for a long-standing "arsenic eater.

Just before her husband became desperately ill, Florie lost her arsenic-based cosmetic prescription. In Mid-April, , she decided to make up the concoction herself by soaking flypaper to distill out the arsenic. Not making any effort to hide what she was doing, Florie and her flypaper were spotted by all the Maybrick's house servants. Unknown - at least initially - to Florie, Nurse Yapp's tongue started to wag: Was the mistress trying to poison Master Maybrick?

By early May, as Maybrick's condition deteriorated, Nurse Yapp talked to a family friend. Briggs telegraphed Maybrick's brothers with the words:.

Come at once; strange things going on here. Michael Maybrick took charge. By all accounts he saw to it that Maybrick changed his Will. Michael was now given the authority to handle his brother's estate. Florie was all but cut out. It never was completely clear - and still isn't to this day - whether Maybrick's last Will was a forgery. The certified copy of the Will is hard to read, but contemporary newspapers published transcriptions of it. Florie was essentially banned from her husband's sick room, although she was able to see Maybrick occasionally.

She continued to see Alfred Brierly and, to her everlasting regret, Florie wrote a note to Brierly which she asked Maybrick's nurse, Alice Yapp, to post. By using our site, you agree to our collection of information through the use of cookies. To learn more, view our Privacy Policy. To browse Academia.

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Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Kieran James. A short summary of this paper. Critical Accounting, Vol. James uws. James99 yahoo. Maybrick was tried for murdering her husband via arsenic poisoning. However, the trial became a morality trial when the learned judge, Mr. Justice James Fitzjames Stephen, linked Mrs. The case is a timely reminder today for an international audience of the fallibility and inherent weaknesses of the legal system and the desperate need to retain Courts of Criminal Appeal within the courts system.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: James, K. He was formerly the Accounting Professor at the University of Fiji. He researches in accounting education, business ethics, industrial relations, popular music, and sports history. His primary research project is the sociology of the death metal music scenes in Indonesia.

He is also jointly writing the memoir of former Fiji international football player Henry Dyer. James 1 Introduction The criminal trial of Mrs. The case presented here is a timely reminder today for an international audience of the fallibility and inherent weaknesses of the legal system and the desperate need to retain Courts of Criminal Appeal within the courts system. It also suggests that senior judges aged over 55 years, and especially those who have suffered strokes or head injuries, need to be regularly evaluated by their peers or by other qualified persons.

Mental decline can occur earlier than expected and can have disastrous consequences. Whilst gathered around the bar on the first evening offshore, Mr.

Maybrick was introduced by General J. Maybrick had been in the New World to attend to his cotton interests. Christie , p. This criteria must have been fulfilled because the couple duly wed in St. While unquestionably sincere in his affections [how can Christie, from the vantage point of , be so sure about this point?

The mother, for her part, was nearing the end of her financial rope and envisioned a life of ease in her twilight years with the aid of a seemingly rich son-in-law. Genuinely in love for the first time [how can Christie, from the vantage point of , be so sure about this point also?

They first rented a house known as Beechville in the suburb of Grassendale Park North [Christie, , p. According to Christie , p. As Christie , p. Sometime during Florie discovered that James was regularly seeing and maintaining a mistress and it was from this point onwards that the Maybricks slept in separate beds [Christie, , p.

Maybrick almost certainly had an arsenic addiction; the eating of arsenic by middle-class men as a medicinal or sexual tonic seems to have been a 19th century phenomenon. Lumley and Lumley presents evidence that a Mr. Valentine Charles Blake signed a statutory declaration to the effect that he had procured for Mr. Mary Howard of Norfolk, Virginia, the madam of a brothel Mr. Maybrick patronised at least three times a week for several years prior to his marriage, spoke as follows about Mr.

Stansell testified that, in his first year of service, he was asked three or four times to go the drug-store and buy arsenic for Maybrick without a prescription [Christie, , p. The quantity of arsenic found in his body post-mortem, one-tenth of a grain total in the liver, kidney, and intestines, was consistent with an arsenic eater who had left off the habit for some time perhaps even for a couple of months [Christie, , p. The gastro-enteritis which killed Mr.

Maybrick was probably caused by bad food or drink or by excessive consumption of the same or by Mr. The effects of arsenic withdrawal may well have been a factor in his death [Christie, , p. In fact, Christie , p. The Florence Maybrick trial of 89 3 Key participants at the Florence Maybrick trial For the first nine decades of the 20th century James and Florence Maybrick were remembered because of the notorious criminal trial of the American Florence when she was convicted of murdering her older English husband James by arsenic poisoning Schoettler, During the trial the jury and court reflected on the salacious details of her affair with Alfred Brierley and the trial was widely regarded as a trial of Mrs.

Consistent with the ethos of Victorian times Mr. It was easy for many people of the era to believe that a woman capable of committing adultery was easily capable of committing murder as well.

In fact, the aging Mr. Generally it is perceived that the defence erred in not asking for the trial to be moved away from Liverpool [Graham and Emmas, , p. Maybrick had requested in a letter to her mother from Walton Jail dated 28 June [Maybrick, , p. However, Mrs. Maybrick herself suggested in her book My Fifteen Lost Years that the reason had been a funding shortfall [Graham and Emmas, , pp. Confirming this assertion, he rose to the pinnacle of the English legal system, the Lord Chief Justice of England.

However, Sir Charles performed only moderately well in defence of Mrs. The reason for this was that he was mentally exhausted following his important role in the earlier Parnell Commission hearings which had included his finest hour, a six-day defence speech [Christie, , p. Justice Stephen exhibited signs of approaching insanity during the trial and he was widely regarded as being only a shadow of his former self [Graham and Emmas, , p. He was forced to resign in April [Christie, , p.

Maybrick , p. James after her trial [Christie, , p. Maybrick on the first afternoon but inexplicably changed his tone when he began again the next morning [Christie, , p. It was the closing day section of Mr. Ultimately Mrs. Over the span of fifteen days from Saturday, April 27th [] to Saturday May 11th, this deadly cabal did its work at Battlecrease House. The aptly-named Miss Alice Yapp was also named by Christie, a nosy domestic-servant who opened a letter of Mrs.

Alice Yapp was arguably bitter after suffering a recent relationship breakup of her own. Miss Yap brought the letter to Edwin Maybrick who telegraphed his brother Michael with instructions to come to the house straight away from London [Christie , p.

Miss Yapp was also the one who reported to Mrs. Briggs seeing flypapers in the bathroom and these were later tested for arsenic. In a recent murder trial in Liverpool two working-class women had been convicted for murder by obtaining arsenic from flypaper.

Maybrick was implicated [Christie, , p. After the cross-examination of Dr. Humphreys at the trial, Christie , p. Maybrick was found guilty largely based on the flypaper containing arsenic [Edwards, , p. Maybrick, whether poisoner or not, seems to have untied to her natural gifts qualities which would go far to make a great criminal.

The correspondence of her own friends exhibits her in the unpleasing character of a shameless intrigant, a notorious liar, and an adulteress, false to her husband, and false to both her so-called lovers. And the evidence of the nurse, which was rebutted, showed that Mrs.

Maybrick could be so cold and heartless as to refuse to chafe the benumbed limbs of her sick and dying husband. The jury had to say whether Mrs. Maybrick took that step; and in forming their opinion, they had to be guided by the evidence. On the one hand several eminent medical men, who saw Mr.

Maybrick during his illness, and who had examined his body after death, positively asserted that he died of arsenic poisoning; it was shown that Mrs. Maybrick did not love her husband, had predicted his death, and had in her possession large quantities of this very poison.

For the defence it was asserted that this poison had been used as a cosmetic, but not a particle of evidence was called to prove this — though the prisoners claimed that her mother was cognisant of the fact; it was also asserted that Mr.

Maybrick was habitually dosing himself, and that arsenic was among one of his favourite medicines, but this again was not proved; and again it was asserted by medical gentlemen who never saw the deceased, and who were not present at the post mortem, that he did not die of arsenic poisoning.

Lastly, as though these varying and shifting defences were not enough, Mrs. Maybrick herself stated that she put a white powder into some extract of meat at the request of her husband. Having regard to the broad facts of the case, we do not see how the jury could have decided otherwise than they did, and it is a matter for profound concern that the verdict should be received with clamour and denunciation.

We are far from saying that our legal system is perfect, or that there should not be opportunities for reviewing verdicts; but we do say that the most unfit court of appeal is that of popular opinion.

Today mobs of excited people — if they could have their own way — would release Mrs. Maybrick and lionise her; tomorrow the self-same mobs would lynch without trial almost any man who happened to be accused of being Jack the Ripper.

The Judge Is Hooted.