In 1885, the inmates of Walton Goal trembled at the sound of a new set of gallows being built within the confines of the prison grounds. A total of sixty-two convicted murderers would meet their makers at the dropping of the trap door – but few could have expected the identity of its first victim, a child killer described as “cold-blooded, merciless, and cruel”.
Elizabeth Berry was a respectable 31-year-old widow, a mother, and a nurse employed at Oldham Workhouse. She was also, if contemporaneous reports are to be trusted, fiendishly cruel and “almost inhuman”, snuffing out the life of her innocent daughter for a paltry sum.
Berry was tried at Liverpool’s Assize Courts at St George’s Hall in February 1887. The case, described in the now-defunct Manchester Courier, was that Berry poisoned her 11-year-old daughter Edith Annie in order to obtain a £10 life insurance payout – about £1,687 today.
It was heard that Edith had not lived “for some years” with her mum, and was looked after by a Mr and Mrs Saunderson of Miles Platting, Manchester. Berry paid three shillings per week for Edith’s maintenance, six pence a week for school fees, and a penny a week for insurance, as well as clothing costs, totalling about £12 or £13 a year.
On December 27 1886, Berry visited the Saundersons and returned to Oldham Workhouse two days later, taking Edith with her for the Christmas holidays. Edith was said to have been “in good health” at this time.
At around 9.30am on January 1 1887, Edith was seen by workhouse staff and appeared her usual self. At 10.15am she was seen with Berry in the surgery, where drugs used by workhouse medics were stored. Half an hour later, the child was seen vomiting.
The Manchester Courier read: “This was the first indication they had of the illness which ultimately proved fatal. When seen in the surgery the prisoner (Berry) had a tumbler in her hand, and the deceased was heard to say, ‘Oh, mamma, I cannot drink it.’
“Afterwards the deceased was to be vomiting about every five minutes, and after a time it was noticed that the vomit contained blood.”
Edith continued to suffer for several days, and doctors noticed an acidic smell on the towels used to clean up her vomit. They also noticed a suspicious blistering on the child’s upper lip, which Berry claimed was caused by her daughter eating an orange.
Edith’s condition worsened, with bouts of vomiting blood and abdominal pain. She died at around 5am on December 4 1886, after which Berry “stated that the child was not insured, and that she would have to pay all the expenses herself”. This was not true however, as she received a £10 insurance pay-out for funeral costs.
It was heard that, in April 1886, Berry had proposed to insure her daughter for £100. The directors of the insurance company refused the application – but Berry was not aware of that fact at the time Edith died.
Doctors were so suspicious of the girl’s sudden illness and death that they arranged for photographs to be taken of the body – a rarity in 1887. A post-mortem was carried out, revealing blood in the stomach, lower intestine and gullet, and doctors agreed the girl died from “from some corrosive or irritant poison”.
From the start, Berry emerged as the sole suspect, though she strongly denied the charge, telling a fellow workhouse employee that she gave her daughter “nothing but a seidlitz powder (laxative)”.
But if Edith had indeed been poisoned, it seemed only Berry had the opportunity – and motive – to do so. Her behaviour drew the suspicions of several witnesses: her co-worker, Ann Dillon, had volunteered to stay up all night to watch over Edith, but was turned down by Berry.
Another witness, Ellen Thompson, noticed a bottle of medicine the doctor had given Berry for treating her daughter had not been opened. When she questioned this, Berry said she did not want to “punish” her daughter with the medicine, and that she would “pour some away and tell the doctor the child had had some”.
Further cause for concern was the fact that Berry’s past was plagued by unusual deaths: she had lost her husband to illness five years previously, and both her mother and young son the previous year. What appeared to be a series of family tragedies were now cast in a more sinister light, as Berry had collected insurance pay-outs on each death.
This, of course, did not escape the attention of the press – nor the jury and public at large. Berry was convicted of her daughter’s murder and sentenced to death.
Passing sentence, Judge Justice Hawkins told the doomed woman: “Elizabeth Berry, the law of this country knows but one punishment for the crime of murder, a crime of which the jury have just convicted you of murder so cold-blooded, so merciless, and so cruel upon that little girl to whom you gave birth, and whose sufferings you seem to have witnessed with a callousness surpassing all belief.”
Indeed, the murderous crime of Berry was, at the time, as sensational as her eventual death on the gallows at Walton prison on March 14 1887. Her social status as a devoted wife and loving mother – the stereotypical “angel in the home” – clashed violently with the revelation of her true character, and captured the minds of the general public.
A short article published in the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail in February 1887, bluntly headlined “WOMEN AS MURDERERS”, read: “It is a sad fact that some of the cruel and atrocious murders upon record have been committed women, and that exceptional brutality in murder is just as frequently met with where the criminal is a woman where is a man.
“A more horrible case than that at Liverpool Assizes on Thursday could hardly be imagined. A woman named Elizabeth Berry was convicted of having tortured her own child, a girl of ten years of age, to death by means of sulphuric acid. She had insured the child’s life for £10 and for the sake of obtaining this paltry sum she was guilty of this dreadful crime.”
Berry went to the newly-erected gallows at Walton prison still proclaiming her innocence. After a restless final night, and the religious consolation of the prison chaplain, she was taken to her execution.
The Burton & Derby Gazette described the scene: “She was wearing a black silk dress, and when she first came into the open air her features bore a calm and placid expression, although there were indications of the mental suffering and bodily anguish which she had gone through.
“She was in a very feeble condition, and, fell back in a fainting state into the arms of the female warders, by whom she was partially carried along. On reaching the scaffold she appeared to be almost unconscious, but suddenly revived, and whilst Berry was completing the final preparations she gave a very clear tone of voice the responses to the chaplain’s prayers.”
Around 200 people gathered outside the prison, anticipating Berry would be given a last-minute reprieve. But as the warder raised a black flag on one of the prison towers, it was known the execution had been carried out.
An article published in the Manchester Evening News on the day of Berry’s death said: “There is something peculiarly horrible in the idea of the infliction of capital punishment upon a woman, but it is almost impossible to extend any sympathy to the unfortunate creature who this morning suffered the extreme penalty of the law.”
The journalist, whose name was not recorded, went onto write: “The punishment was terrible, but it was not out of proportion with her crime. Dealing only with the case on which she was tried and condemned, she subjected her little daughter to the cruel torture of a corrosive poison, and watched her die before her eyes without once flinching from her murderous purpose.
“Duty and affection counted for nothing with her, and she exhibited in her crime a fiendish cruelty which was almost inhuman.
“The temptation in cases of this kind is to believe that the accused could not have been guilty of the horrible ferocity which is alleged against them, and when the prisoner happens to be a woman and the victim her own child, it is almost impossible to believe the criminating evidence which submitted.
“But, as the judge pointed out, cases of this kind are not uncommon. They have been known in all ages, and we are unable to account for the crook in the moral character of a person who would commit so fearful a crime. In nearly all cases the motive is totally inadequate. The victim has given no cause of offence, and should, under ordinary circumstances be an object of affection, but the ruthless poisoner is apparently blind to all human feelings
“It is not surprising that the career of poisoner should exercise a fascination the mind the public. It rarely happens that the criminal finds only one victim. The ease with which life is taken appears to give encouragement to the murderer, and when one victim is disposed a reason is soon found for the removal of another person.
“In the case of the woman Berry, who was executed this morning, there is more than suspicion that she had at least another victim, and there can be doubt that she thoroughly deserved the awful fate which has overtaken her.”
