Detour No. 3... Berkeley Street, Royal Crescent and Sauchiehall Street...

As found at Top 40 Glasgow blogs at https://blog.feedspot.com/glasgow_blogs/

          

The irresistibly seductive Dr. Pritchard. 

    The third of Jack House’s celebrated cases is that of Dr Edward William Pritchard – ‘the human crocodile’. Dr Pritchard was the last man to be hanged in public in Glasgow. There is no dispute about Pritchard’s guilt, he confessed to two of the murders before he was hanged. House called Pritchard 'loathsome' and notes that he was hypocritical enough to have his wife’s coffin lid unscrewed so that he might kiss her one last time – after torturing her to death by slow poisoning. House believes that Pritchard did not murder for gain, revenge, elimination, jealousy, or even lust of killing, but… for fun. He had enjoyed committing each one of his murders.

            His first murder occurred in 1863, around the corner from Sandyford Place were Old Fleming had hacked Jess McPherson to death. Pritchard's servant, Elizabeth McGirn, was burnt to death in her attic room. Pritchard had been at home with his sons while his wife, three daughters, and other servant were away.  A newspaper report of the incident pointed out that, ‘the damage to the dwelling is, we understand, covered by insurance.’ But Pritchard had to accept a smaller sum than his original claim because no trace was found among the debris of the jewellery he had claimed was lost in the fire.

A house similar to Pritchard's at 11 Berkeley Street which no longer exists.

During the fire, a policeman had been passing, saw the flames and banged on the door. Pritchard opened it, claiming he had only just been awakened by his sons' cries moments before, but the policeman noted that he was fully dressed. The police also became aware of rumours that the servant girl was pregnant. Dr Pritchard, it seemed, had a reputation in England for 'interfering' with his domestic staff as well as his patients, single or married, and for which reason he’d come to Scotland two years previously. But Pritchard wasn’t charged. The case was put down to accidental death. The servant, it was said, was in the habit of reading in bed by the light of a gas lamp. After Pritchard was found guilty of the other two murders it was speculated that the servant girl hadn’t attempted to escape the fire as she was already dead or had been drugged when the fire was started by Pritchard. Pritchard never confessed to her killing, only those of the other two.

Following the fire the family moved across the road from where Old Flaming had lived to 22 Royal Crescent and hired a new servant girl to replace the dead one. She was described as a good-looking fifteen-year-old. When his wife was on holiday with the children at Dunoon, Pritchard began an affair with her.

Pritchard's house to the left at Royal Crescent

    Pritchard left England not only because he the affairs he was having with patients, he was also in debt. He had become a notorious figure in the locality. The locals said of him that ‘if he spoke the truth it was only by accident’. He claimed to have gone to King’s College for his medical studies but King’s College knew nothing about him. His diploma as Doctor of Medicine had been bought from the University of Enlagen where he had 'studied' in absentia. Despite glowing testimonials to his abilities, when he arrived in Glasgow he was regarded with suspicion. Some openly suggested his testimonials were forged. He also claimed to be a friend of Garibaldi and walked around Glasgow with a cane with a presentation inscription from Garibaldi. Unfortunately for his story, a number of people had seen him with the ornate cane long before when it bore no inscription. He was also in the habit of presenting complete strangers with a photograph of himself as though he were a star of the stage.

After moving from the house where the fire had occurred, Pritchard soon moved again, this time to an even grander house at 131 Sauchiehall Street, which no longer exists, and which wife's family paid for. He was, it is said, a charmer and his mother-in-law adored him. But before long, despite his growing practice, he was in debt again. More seriously for Pritchard, his new servant was pregnant and his wife had caught them together. There were rows. He told the servant that he’d marry her if his wife died. A few months later his wife became ill. Pritchard had bought his poisons from the same two pharmacists that had supplied Madeleine Smith, which is not surprising as her old home was only a minute's walk from Pritchard's. After a holiday in Edinburgh - without Pritchard - his wife returned in glowing health. She was soon ill again. Pritchard called in her cousin, a retired doctor. She looked better than he expected and he concluded that her illness was not serious. After he left, it became serious, so much so that Mrs Pritchard demanded to see another doctor. The new doctor, Dr Gairdner, called three times and each time became more unhappy with the treatment the sick woman was receiving. He recommended that she go and stay with her brother in Edinburgh, who was an old friend of his and also a doctor, a man by the name of Taylor. But Pritchard objected that she was too ill to travel.

On hearing that her daughter was seriously ill, Mrs Pritchard’s mother arrived from Edinburgh to look after her. She was 70 but strong, healthy and good at managing household affairs. She was also an opium addict. Her favourite pick-me-up was Battley’s Sedative Solution.

Everything went well until Mrs Pritchard decided she would like some tapioca. Her son was sent to buy some and, after he returned, the bag of tapioca sat on a hall table next to Pritchard’s surgery until the cook used it half an hour later. By the time the cook had prepared it, Mrs Pritchard had changed her mind and her mother ate it. Afterwards, the mother was violently ill. Soon, both women were regularly ill, until one day the old woman collapsed. Pritchard called in Dr Paterson who lived a few doors away. He looked at the old woman and was of the opinion she was under the influence of a narcotic. Pritchard told him she was an opium addict and had been ‘swigging’ from the bottle. The old woman died in the early hours of the morning and two-thirds of her estate passed to her daughter. Her son-in-law wrote her death certificate.

By an odd coincidence, the poison Pritchard used to kill his mother-in-law and his wife was called Fleming’s Tincture of Aconite - no relation to the Fleming family.

Pritchard’s wife died about three weeks later. After his wife’s death, Pritchard burst into tears and begged a servant to shoot him. Then, a few moments later, he recovered his composure and wrote a letter to his bank concerning his overdraft. Next, he wrote his wife’s death certificate, but that same morning the Procurator Fiscal of Glasgow had received an anonymous letter concerning the suspicious nature of the deaths of Mrs Pritchard and her mother. Many believed Dr Paterson was behind the latter as he was the only one in a position to have any doubts concerning the deaths of both women. He denied this. The police began an enquiry. After taking his wife to Edinburgh for burial, Pritchard returned to Glasgow and was arrested at Queen Street station. His wife’s family thought the police were behaving very stupidly but both bodies were examined and discovered to be full of antimony.

At his trial, Pritchard favourably impressed the courtroom. But each day, as more details of his crimes were revealed, opinion changed. They began to see a man, as the newspaper report says, of ‘consummate villainy and diabolic cruelty… a perfect fiend in human shape’. The final touch that ended any doubts was when the servant, Mary McLeod, revealed the details of their relationship and ‘rent aside the curtain which had hitherto veiled the inner life of that apparently happy home’.

The defence, of course, tried to blame the murders on the servant but the jury were unanimous in finding Pritchard guilty of both murders. When Pritchard left the court, he took off his hat and bowed to the waiting crowd as though it had all been a performance. While in prison, he wrote a confession in which he attempted to implicate Mary McLeod. This was ignored. He made a more detailed second confession in which he revealed that Mary McLeod had been pregnant and that he’d produced a miscarriage, which his wife knew of. He also stated that the day before her death, his mother-in-law had caught him in his consulting room with Mary McLeod. He denied that he killed his mother-in-law and claimed that she had killed herself by drinking an overdose of Battley’s Sedative Solution but he did confess to killing his wife.

A week before he was hanged, Pritchard made his third and final confession. In that, he finally confessed to killing his mother-in-law and his wife in a fit of ‘terrible madness’ and that Mary McLeod knew nothing of the poisonings. He was hanged on the 28^th July, 1865 and around 100,000 people turned up to watch the event, some arriving as early as the night before to secure a good view. 

    

Victorian domestic bliss. Pritchard, with wife, mother-in-law, and children.