Joseph was convicted
of the murder of his wife Jane Whitcroft on 9 August 1859. Joseph came from
Ware in Hertfordshire and that is where the couple lived. They had married two
years previously and Joseph seemed ‘strongly attached and dotingly fond’ of his
new wife. However, ‘his wayward disposition and irritable temper, before long
rendered them unhappy, and they frequently quarrelled’. He was also prone to
‘unfounded fits of jealousy’ which caused more arguing. Jane decided to leave
him on 8 August and walked the long journey back to her parents’ home in Luton.
The next day Joseph followed her and persuaded her to return with him. Unfortunately
on the way back he killed her by cutting her throat and stabbing her. Jane also
had cuts to her hands suggesting that she put up a fight. Joseph then left her
body in a ditch with her bonnet and shawl beside her. The crime was soon
discovered as there was ‘a great quantity of blood on the road’ and the police were
called. On the way home Joseph stopped in Welwyn at the home of a policeman he
knew where he confessed to having ‘had a row with my wife’ and having ‘struck
her’.
The case was
heard at Bedford assizes on 14 March 1860. The evidence was so overwhelming
that the jury took only 15 minutes to return a verdict of guilty. Joseph
remained ‘passive, silent and reserved’ throughout the trial. He ‘expressed
himself satisfied with his counsel and attorney; and of the verdict of the jury
and the sentence of the judge he has made no complaint’. In the time after his
conviction he had interviews with one of Jane’s sisters and his father-in-law
but there is no record of what they said. The hanging took place in Bedford on
31 March 1860 at noon before a large crowd. However, the area ‘was unusually boarded
in front and at the ends, which obstructed the view and disappointed the
spectators’. Why were lacemakers so interested in this hanging? Ware was not a
traditional lacemaking area so it is unlikely that lacemakers in Bedfordshire knew
the couple personally. However, because the case was heard at the Bedford
assizes, and that is where the hanging took place, it would probably have been of
great interest in the local lacemaking area. The case was also very shocking
and murders were not common, and we know from our own times how interested people
are in ‘true crimes’ that they have no personal link to. Thomas Wright in his
history of the Midlands lacemaking areas records ‘that “on the night of
Castle’s public execution the friends of his deceased wife held a ball” and
every guest on departing was presented with a bobbin as a memento of the
occasion’. This seems unlikely to me, as I don’t think Jane’s family had the means
to organise a ball or any links to the lacemaking world. However, Wright
includes the text in speech marks indicating that he was told this by someone
he interviewed during his research, albeit 50 years after the event. There are
certainly lace bobbins commemorating the occasion, but hanging bobbins were sold
by bobbin makers as souvenirs and were more likely to be bought by lacemakers
who were present in the crowd at the hanging, to show they were there on the
day.
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