Edwardian tragedy: the 1902 funeral in Croydon of Maud Marsh, as drawn for The Penny Illustrated Paper. Marsh is thought to be the final victim of serial killer George Chapman
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: A teenaged girl from Croydon proved to be the final victim of a notorious serial killer in Edwardian London, a man who was even linked to Jack the Ripper, as DAVID MORGAN explains
In November 1902, there was a small entry in the local paper telling readers that the funeral of Maud Marsh would take place at Croydon Cemetery. The funeral procession was to begin at the undertaker’s premises at the corner of Friar Street and Southwark Bridge Road at 12.30pm, and was due to arrive at the cemetery at 3pm. The police, it was reported, had made arrangements to deal with what was expected to be a tremendous crowd.
For Maud Marsh had been a victim in a story which generated local, national and international interest.
The Penny Illustrated Paper, dated November 15, ran the story of the funeral, complete with a sketch of the crowds assembled at the graveside. The funeral cortege was led by Maud’s parents, Robert and Eliza, without whose persistence Maud’s fate would never have been uncovered.
Maud Marsh’s name appeared in the baptismal register of Croydon Parish Church on May 27 1883. Her birth date was February 17, and at little more than three months old she was brought to the church for her christening, which was conducted by the curate, Rev George Lewis. She was the fourth child in the Marsh family, following Louisa, Alfred and Alice. At that time, the family were living at 48 Stanley Road, and Robert Marsh’s occupation was listed as “a carman” – someone who drove a cart to transport goods, including coal.
Official record: the 1891 census, showing the Marsh family – mother, father and four children – living at Stanley Road
In the 1901 census, Maud Marsh, by now 18, was recorded working as a housemaid for the Docking family, who lived in Hazeldean Road. But she didn’t remain in this post long. In the August 1901, she responded to an advertisement from the Monument pub in Whitechapel, where they were seeking bar staff.
Maud went with her mother to meet the pub landlord, a man calling himself George Chapman. He offered young Marsh the job on the spot.
Marsh’s mother was pleased that her daughter had got a new job, but soon began to have some misgivings. She later discovered that in the interview, Chapman had not been truthful about his situation. First, he had told Maud and her mother that a family were living above the pub. Secondly, he said he was a widower.
Both statements were untrue.
In early October 1901, Marsh and Chapman turned up in Croydon, on bicycles, with Chapman informing her parents that the couple were going to get married. Chapman was a man who by then was in his 30s. On October 13, the couple went out and Maud Marsh returned with a ring on her wedding finger. They lived as man and wife and, by June 1902, they had moved to take over the Crown pub on Borough High Street in Southwark. Marsh told her sister they had been married in a nearby Catholic Church.
That July, Marsh fell ill. Her sister, Louisa, by now herself married, came to see how she was. When Louisa asked Chapman where her sister was, he replied that she was in bed and dying fast. Louisa quickly formed the opinion that young Maud ought to go to hospital.
Villain of the piece: George Chapman was convicted of the murder of three women. He became notorious as ‘The Borough Poisoner’
Chapman disagreed, but he gave Louisa some money to take Maud to see a doctor. Louisa, however, took her sister to nearby Guy’s Hospital. Maud Marsh stayed in hospital from July 28 to August 20. The doctors never established the cause of her illness, but she recovered enough to be sent home.
Once back at the Crown, Maud’s symptoms soon returned. On October 10, a Dr Stoker came to the pub to see her. He prescribed some medicine. Chapman had been the only person attending to his wife up to that point but he then employed a nurse, Jessie Toon.
Marsh’s mother came to the pub to visit her daughter and she was in the room when Chapman offered Maud a brandy. Maud couldn’t swallow it and her mother, on taking a sip from the glass, noticed that the drink burned the back of her throat. It also made her violently sick a couple of hours later.
The Marsh family’s doctor in Croydon, Dr Grapel, was called. He quickly assessed that Maud was suffering some kind of poisoning. He questioned Chapman, who said that he and Maud had both eaten rabbit that day. Dr Grapel could find nothing wrong when he examined the remains of the meal.
Maud’s health continued to deteriorate. On October 22, her father raised his growing concerns with Chapman, who told him that his daughter wouldn’t get up out of bed again. The next day, while her mother was with her, Maud Marsh died.
Dr Stoker attended but informed the family that he couldn’t issue a death certificate until there was a post-mortem. Chapman was against this idea, but Marsh’s parents insisted.
The Home Office appointed Dr Stevenson to perform the post-mortem, which discovered traces of tarter emetic in Marsh’s organs.
Tarter emetic, also known as antimony potassium tartrate, had been used since the Middle Ages as a means of inducing vomiting. Thirty years before the death of Maud Marsh, tarter emetic had been used to poison a victim in what is acknowledged as the first modern detective novel, The Notting Hill Mystery.
A white powder, tarter emetic would not colour a fluid when dissolved and had no obvious smell, but if administered in even minute doses over a period of time, it would lower the pulse, weaken the heart, cause gastroenteritis and, eventually, death.
On the basis of Dr Stevenson’s post-mortem, the police arrested Chapman for murder.
Trial by jury: an account of the court case
A search of the public house discovered various medicines, including one bottle which had recently been cleaned, containing the remains of some white powder. This was the source of the tarter emetic.
When he was arrested, Chapman said that he didn’t know how his wife had got the poison and it certainly was not him who gave it to her. He would not, he told them, have hurt her for the world.
The police delved ever deeper into Chapman’s past. They quickly discovered him to be a bigamist, making the marriage with Marsh invalid.
In fact, Chapman wasn’t his real name. Severin Klosowski had been born in Poland in 1865, arriving in London in early in 1887, getting a job in a barber’s shop in the West India Dock Road in the East End. Within months, Klosowski/Chapman had established his own hairdressing business in Cable Street.
Some time during 1890, he moved to a barber’s shop on the corner of Whitechapel High Street and George Yard. He also got married around this time to a woman named Lucie Baderski.
In 1891, the couple emigrated to America, to New Jersey, with their new baby. Things never worked for them and Lucy returned, alone, in 1893, and had their second baby. Klosowski came back to London and they were briefly reunited. The relationship broke down soon after and Lucy went off with the children.
Klosowski took up with a young woman named Annie Chapman. They lived together as man and wife and it was during this relationship that he changed his surname to Chapman. Annie Chapman fell pregnant but left “her Mr. Chapman”, as he had already had his eye on someone else.
Scotland Yard tried tracing the women that Klosowski/Chapman had got together with, and detectives were quickly concerned at what they found out. The bodies of Mary Spink, who died in 1897, and Bessie Taylor, who died in 1901, were exhumed. The deaths of Spink and Taylor had been under circumstances very similar to Maud Marsh.
Examination of the women’s bodies confirmed the police’s suspicions, as they found large amounts of the same drug which killed Marsh.
Klosowski was charged withthree murders and put on trial at the Old Bailey.
The evidence against the accused was outlined in great detail. No evidence was given by the defence.
No reprieve: the Home Secretary, Aretas Akers-Douglas, did not intercede to prevent this hanging
In the summing up by the judge, Mr Justice Grantham, he said it was a sad reflection that a man should have been able to carry on these practices for a number of years, defying several medical men. He was sorry that he had to make these comments but doctors had to be alive to these possibilities.
Judge Grantham explained to the jury that they had to consider who had administered the poison. During the closing remarks, Klosowski collapsed in the dock, weeping.
It took the jury just 12 minutes to come up with the verdict: Guilty!
The judge duly called for the black cap, which was placed over his formal wig as was the custom whenever a sentence of death was to be delivered.
Klosowski was hanged at Wandsworth prison on April 7 1903. Before the execution he was offered brandy and water. He never confessed his guilt.
In a last letter, he wrote to friends saying: “If I was guilty I would say. They can take my body, but they can’t take my soul.”
Klosowski became notorious in the newspapers of the time as “The Borough Poisoner”, though it wasn’t long before speculation grew linking his time in Whitechapel in the late 1880s and early 1890s with perhaps the most notorious serial killer of all time: Jack the Ripper.
No hard evidence was ever produced, some Scotland Yard detectives harboured their suspicions, and others pointed out that while the Ripper murders stopped in London, when Klosowski was in New Jersey, a similar murder was committed there…
Maud Marsh’s funeral procession was joined by the chief mourners when it reached Longfellow Road, which is where her parents were living in 1902.
The newspaper report of the funeral concluded with a chilling sentence.
“Amongst the wreaths sent was one from Chapman. It was composed of lilies and bore the inscription, ‘From a devoted friend. G.C.’.”
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Dr Warder’s book The True Amazons made him the bee’s knees
- Day that ‘Croydon Boys’ mourned their Secret Army heroine
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
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