Harriet Staunton: A Victorian Murder Ballad
Posted on May 4, 2006
M J Weller turns his attention to the Penge murder mystery of 1877, chronicling the sad life and death of Harriet Staunton, and the dramatic trial of her accused killers: her husband Louis and his mistress Alice Rhodes; her brother-in-law Patrick and his wife Elizabeth. It is the compelling tale of a fasting girl of weak mind, but of financial providence, who escapes the damnable company of a harridan mother and unkind sister for the precarious interdependence of an ill-advised marriage. Her husband is soon loving and living in criminal intercourse with the housekeep; her brother-in-law painting under Harriet's patronage; and she confined to bed, a convenient concealment facilitated by her deteriorating health.
With sympathetic sobriety, Weller depicts a troubled soul caught in the momentum of mental illness, driving herself and others to despair. Hollowed-out by a progressive emaciation fuelled by an eating disorder, Harriet Staunton's disease of the mind sucks all semblance of selfless Christian charity from those caught in her orbit, and imposes on carers a fatalistic acceptance and philosophy of futility. Ultimately, the resultant deterioration of their collective conscience, the complicit abandonment of responsibility, and the nineteenth century's lax notion of accountability relating to the treatment of the mentally ill, allows both the demise of Harriet and of Thomas, the wizened being that was her son.
For those eager to bask in the resilience of the human spirit, there is little comfort here in Weller's fact-filled prose (and insinuations?). However, the bond of immovable lovers – an expression of the solidarity of the four accused – offers redemption of sorts as it frustrates the tactic of defence counsels to trade off degrees of guilt. Here then were four accused of the same crime, but unwilling to fall out of love. "How can love be a mortal sin," asks the manipulative Patrick Staunton early in this penetrating book. Other questions too are posed, specific to the case and otherwise, but Weller sensibly offers no conclusions. 'Res ipsa loquitur,' he might say as he points to the evidence. The thing speaks for itself.
M J Weller turns his attention to the Penge murder mystery of 1877, chronicling the sad life and death of Harriet Staunton, and the dramatic trial of her accused killers: her husband Louis and his mistress Alice Rhodes; her brother-in-law Patrick and his wife Elizabeth. It is the compelling tale of a fasting girl of weak mind, but of financial providence, who escapes the damnable company of a harridan mother and unkind sister for the precarious interdependence of an ill-advised marriage. Her husband is soon loving and living in criminal intercourse with the housekeep; her brother-in-law painting under Harriet's patronage; and she confined to bed, a convenient concealment facilitated by her deteriorating health.
With sympathetic sobriety, Weller depicts a troubled soul caught in the momentum of mental illness, driving herself and others to despair. Hollowed-out by a progressive emaciation fuelled by an eating disorder, Harriet Staunton's disease of the mind sucks all semblance of selfless Christian charity from those caught in her orbit, and imposes on carers a fatalistic acceptance and philosophy of futility. Ultimately, the resultant deterioration of their collective conscience, the complicit abandonment of responsibility, and the nineteenth century's lax notion of accountability relating to the treatment of the mentally ill, allows both the demise of Harriet and of Thomas, the wizened being that was her son.
For those eager to bask in the resilience of the human spirit, there is little comfort here in Weller's fact-filled prose (and insinuations?). However, the bond of immovable lovers – an expression of the solidarity of the four accused – offers redemption of sorts as it frustrates the tactic of defence counsels to trade off degrees of guilt. Here then were four accused of the same crime, but unwilling to fall out of love. "How can love be a mortal sin," asks the manipulative Patrick Staunton early in this penetrating book. Other questions too are posed, specific to the case and otherwise, but Weller sensibly offers no conclusions. 'Res ipsa loquitur,' he might say as he points to the evidence. The thing speaks for itself.
A5 pbk, 176 pp, £6 (+ £1 UK, £2 Europe, £3 airmail USA p&p) – available from www.homebakedbooks.co.uk