Louisa Masset - for the
murder of her son.
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Louisa
(or Louise) Josephine Jemima Masset was the first
person to be executed in Britain in the 20th century when she was hanged at
Newgate prison on Tuesday, the 9th of January 1900. Louisa was the name given at trial so is used
here.
Louisa
was 36 years old and was half French (on her father's side) and half English.
She was described as a "cultured" woman (photo here). On
April the 24th, 1896 she gave birth to an illegitimate son called Manfred Louis
and felt forced to leave France due to the stigma attached to illegitimate
births in those days - it was considered "quite scandalous." She came to England and settled at 29 Bethune
Road, Stoke Newington in London. It does not seem as if she was very maternal
and soon placed Manfred in foster care with a Mrs. Helen Gentle who lived in
Tottenham. Mrs. Gentle looked after
Manfred from a baby and was paid 37 shillings a month (£1.85 or about $3),
which allegedly came from the child's natural father in
Sometime
in 1899, Louisa took on a "toy boy," 19 year old Eudore
Lucas, as her lover. Eudore was a young French bank
clerk who lived next door to her and was in
On the 16th of October 1899, Mrs. Gentle received a letter from Louisa telling
her Manfred's father was going to have the boy to live with him in France and
that Louisa would collect him on Friday, October 27th to take him to France.
However, Louisa had also made another arrangement, she was going to
The
murder.
On the Friday, Louisa put a clinker brick from her garden
into her Gladstone bag before going to meet Helen Gentle at Stamford Hill.
After tearful farewells, she led Manfred away with a parcel of his clothes that
Mrs. Gentle had packed for the journey to
Manfred was dressed in a blue "frock" and had a sailor's hat on.
Frocks were quite normal for small boys in those days. Mother and son were next
seen at
At Dalston
Junction station, Mrs. Rees, the waiting room attendant had a
horrible shock when she went to the lady’s
toilets at about 6.20 p.m. and discovered the body of a child. It was a male
child and was naked except for a black shawl. The face and head had been
battered and there were two pieces of a broken clinker brick lying by the body.
These were of the same type found in Louisa's garden. Manfred had been beaten
unconscious and then suffocated perhaps using a hand over his mouth and nose
according to Dr. J. P. Fennell, the doctor who examined the still warm body at
6.55 p.m. Louisa was familiar with this
station as she went there regularly on her journey to one of her piano pupils.
Saturday's newspapers were full of the story of Manfred's discovery - the
Victorian's were very fond of a "good murder" and every prurient detail
was reported.
Louisa had sent Helen Gentle a letter which arrived on Monday the 30th saying
that Manfred was missing her, and that he had been sick crossing the channel on
the ferry but that all was well now. However, Helen Gentle was suspicious of
the letter, having read about the discovery of the body of a child of Manfred's
age, and informed the police of her suspicions. She later identified the body
as Manfred and was also able to identify the parcel of clothes which she had
made up for him and which were found in the left luggage office at Brighton
station together with the frock and sailor's hat.
Back in Stoke Newington, the black shawl found on Manfred was identified by a
shop assistant as having come from his establishment and being sold by him on
October 24th to Louisa, who being half French had a distinctive speaking voice.
She was also identified by witnesses on
Louisa had read about the discovery of Manfred's body and when she visited her
sister later, was clearly in a distressed state. She is reported to have said,
"I'm hunted for murder, but I didn't do it" and implicated Eudore in the crime.
She was soon arrested at her other sister's home. She was picked out in an
identity parade by Mrs. Rees, the waiting room attendant, and was duly charged
with murder. She was committed for trial at the Old Bailey in December 1899.
Trial.
Louisa was tried at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Bruce
between the 13th to the 18th of December 1899. Mr. Charles
Mathews and Mr. Muir prosecuted. Her defence, led by Lord
Coleridge Q.C., assisted by Mr. Hutton, claimed that Louisa had entered into an
agreement with two women, called Browning who on payment of £18.00 a year, were
going to look after Manfred for the foreseeable future and that it must have
been them who murdered him. She claimed to have given them a £12.00 deposit
before handing Manfred over to them. This may sound far fetched now, but would
have had a lot more credibility at the time when "baby farming"
murder cases were not uncommon. Much was
made of the time of the train Louisa took to Brighton whether it was the 4 p.m.
one or the 7 p.m. one. Given Dr. Fennel’s
evidence she could not have murdered Manfred if she had taken the 4 o’clock
train, but could have done if she had taken the later one.
However, as the two Mrs. Brownings could not be found
and a receipt for the £12.00 could not be produced, Louisa's story was not
believed by the jury. The evidence against her seemed conclusive and she was
inevitably found guilty. She collapsed in the dock on hearing the verdict and
had to be revived to hear her sentence, which was that she "be hanged by
the neck until she was dead."
She was taken from the court into the adjoining Newgate Prison and placed in
the condemned cell where she spent Christmas and New Year 1900 guarded around
the clock by pairs of matrons as female warders were called.
A petition got up by other French women working in London was sent to Queen
Victoria but was ignored. Four days before her execution the owners of Mutton
Restaurant in Brighton and one of their waiters signed official statements that
Louisa Masset had eaten at their restaurant in Brighton between 6 and 7 p.m. on
the night of the murder, the defence asked for a stay of execution to allow
positive identification to take place, but the Home Office refused the request.
Execution.
On Sunday the 7th of January Louisa was informed that there
was to be no reprieve. On the Monday
morning she was given back the long black dress she had worn at her trial and
was attended by the chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Ramsey. She was moved to the male condemned cell as it
was much nearer the execution shed.
At three minutes to 9.00 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday
the 9th of January Billington entered the condemned cell and placed a thick
leather body belt round her waist, to which her wrists were pinioned. The procession
to the execution shed consisted of the Under-Sheriff, Mr. Metcalfe, the
Governor, Colonel Milman, the Rev. Ramsey, James Billington and his assistant William
Warbrick, Dr. Scott, the prison surgeon and two male warders. She was able to
walk unaided to the shed. (Click
here to see an artist's impression of the scene). Once on the trap doors, her legs were
pinioned by a leather strap outside her skirt (to stop it blowing up as she
dropped) and the noose placed around her neck. When all was ready, Billington put
the white hood over her head and pulled the lever to "launch her into
eternity" to use the popular expression of the time. Louisa weighed 106 lbs.
and the drop given was recorded as 7’ 3”, causing instantaneous death. A few
minutes later the black flag was run up to tell the cheering crowd outside that
the execution had been carried out.
After hanging for the regulation hour, her body was removed from the
rope and prepared for inquest before the City Coroner, Mr. Langham. The inquest noted that her features looked
peaceful and only the rope mark on her neck bore witness to a violent death. The Governor of Newgate testified that she had
told the chaplain “What I am going to suffer is just, now my conscience is
clear”. She was later buried in an unmarked grave within the prison.
Comment.
By the standards of the day, she was seen as an immoral woman, the case
against her was strong and there was no doubt of her guilt or the justice of
her sentence for a crime that was clearly pre-meditated and violent. To many
people, the killing of a child by its mother is particularly shocking. But her
case is a good example of how social values have changed in 100 years.
In Victorian England, having an illegitimate child was a serious stigma and it
was no doubt considered equally scandalous behaviour to have a relationship
with a much younger man.
There was no effective contraception in the 1890's - a silk handkerchief being
about all that was available and so unwanted pregnancies were commonplace, as
were "back street" abortions and the practice of giving unwanted
children to people who purported that they were going to look after them, but
in fact, murdered them as soon as they had been paid by the mother. The so
called "baby farmers."
Bringing up a small child at that time also meant that it was virtually
impossible for the mother to find work in order to support herself. There was
no Social Security then nor any day nurseries in the modern sense. Helen
Gentle's charges were by no means cheap when one considers what people earned
at that time so, no doubt, Manfred was a financial burden on Louisa as well as
an emotional one.
It is probable that the motives for the murder in Louisa's mind was that she
perceived Manfred as an encumbrance to her relationship with Eudore. One
wonders if she had ever really bonded with him and whether she actually loved
the child or found him an embarrassment in Victorian society.
