On November 21, 1852, the Weekly Dispatch reported on the murder of Mary Horler, a married woman of 25, the subsequent apprehension of her husband Henry Horler and his commital hearing. In December, 1852, Henry Horler was tried and convicted of the murder of his wife. (Note that other reports name the victim as Anne Horler).
“A murder of a most horrible character, which produced the greatest sensation in the eastern portion of the city, was perpetrated at an early hour on Tuesday morning in Sun Street, Bishopsgate Street Without. The unfortunate creature who perished was a young married woman, named Mary Horler, aged twenty-five, and the party who has been apprehended on suspicion of destroying her life is her husband, Henry Horler, a journeyman shoemaker, who is about the same age as his unfortunate victim. They had been married about twelve months, and occupied an apartment at No. 76 in the above street, but in consequence of his intemperate habits, they do not appear to have lived happily together.
In the course of the morning, the prisoner was charged at the Mansion house with perpetrating the deed, and after some brief evidence, he was remanded, as it was evident he was then laboring under the excitement of drink. After a slight detention in the cells, he was removed to the Compter in a cab.
On Wednesday Horler was re-examined before Alderman Finnis, at the Mansion house.
Dixon, the police sergeant, gave the following statement: — ‘ I conveyed the prisoner, when he was remanded on Tuesday, to prison. In going along, he said— ‘After mother left the night before, I had talked with my wife respecting her leaving me in the morning to go home with her mother, which, I believed, she did not want to do, and we then agreed to destroy each other. She took a knife, and I took one also. I then was on the bed with her, and said to her, ‘ Remember, this will be the last time.’ I was then on the point of cutting her throat with the knife I had in my hand. She then said, ‘ Henry, stop, I will tell you where your razor is, by which you can do it quicker.’ I (the officer) said to the prisoner, was she undressed? ‘No,’ said he, ‘ we were not undressed, either of as.’ He also said it occurred before day, early in the mornings. When I first discovered the body it was dressed. The prisoner, upon being asked whether he wished to ask any questions of the witness, said, ‘ Oh, not at all, not at all.’ Witness, in continuation, said—’ on the evening before I was sent by the inspector to the prisoner’s house. I saw the deceased and her mother sitting in the room. We came down stairs together, and there met the prisoner, and the mother said she had come for her daughter. The prisoner said he had worked very hard to keep her and make her happy and comfortable, and he should do so still, and they would be very happy together, if the mother would not interfere with them. The deceased
said to him, ‘ Henry, if you ill-use me I certainly shall not stop with you.’ I said, ‘ It’s a pity you cannot settle your affairs; if your husband ill-uses you, you know where to apply.’ She said, ‘It’s not the first or second time he ill-used me.’ He made no reply to that observation.’ The prisoner: ‘ It’s an untruth to say I ill-used her; but she said so, I know.’
Thomas Balcher (city police, 618): ‘ I accompanied Sergeant Dixon to the room in which the body of the deceased lay. A counterpane was thrown over the body, and covered it completely. I turned down the counterpane, and saw the corpse of a female with her throat cut.’
Alderman Finnis: ‘ Was there any appearance of a struggle in the room?’ Witness: ‘ Not the slightest. I then went to the station to report. The prisoner was in the cell at the time. He asked me for some water, which I gave him, and he said, ‘ I can tell you more than all the world can. I have done it. I know I must die for it. I know I must be hanged, but her mother has been the cause.’
O. Saunderson (station Sergeant), said: ‘ On Monday evening, at a little after five o’clock, the prisoner came to the station house, and said he wished for advice. He said that he and his wife lived exceedingly comfortable, and were going on as well as any man and wife could go on, but her mother and aunt were at his house, and were inducing his wife to leave him and to go with them to Bath. He stated that his wife’s mother was a fortune-teller, and earned a great deal of money, as much as £5 a day ; that she had several other married daughters, all of whom had children, and that his wife being without children, her mother was the more anxious for her to keep the door of her fortune-telling room. He asked me what he was to do, and I asked him whether his wife was inclined to leave him, to which he answered that they had so worked upon her that he believed she would leave him. He intimated that he had £40 or £50 in the savings bank, and that they wished to have it. He left the station apparently satisfied. At a little before six o’clock he returned to the station-house and mentioned that he had been home, and that they had treated him roughly. After nine o’clock he came again, accompanied by a young man, to whom he said he wished to deliver over his book and money. He was perfectly sober and collected during the whole time. On Tuesday morning I was in the station-house when the prisoner was brought in, at half-past ten o’clock, on the charge of being drunk. He said that his mother-in-law charged him with doing away with her daughter, and he was very drunk and foolish at the time. He was asked repeatedly by his mother-in-law what he had done with his wife—the daughter. He always evaded answering the question, and talked in a foolish manner about her being a fortune-teller. He afterwards said his mother-in-law, the fortune-teller, had brought him to that. I asked him what had become of his wife, and he said she was right enough, and that he had slept with her last night.’
Mr. G. B. Childe, surgeon to the police force, said : ‘ I was sent for by Dixon to attend at 76 Sun street, Bishopsgate, and I saw lying on a bureau bedstead in the attic the corpse of a young woman, apparently twenty-two or twenty-three year? Of age.’ The prisoner: ‘Older, older.’ Witness: ‘She was dressed in a claret-colored gown. Her right hand was raised towards her throat. Her left hand was lying straight by her side. She was lying on her back, with her chin slightly inclined towards the right shoulder. An extensive wound was in the throat on the left side. The muscles and windpipe, together with the principal nerves and arteries on that side of the neck, were cut through, as also was the tube leading to the stomach, and the vertebrae at the back of the neck were exposed. She must have been dead several hours, the body was quite cold and stiff, and the muscles were rigid. I believe that, at the time the act was committed, she was either stupefied by drink or sleeping. There was no appearance of struggling having taken place. The hand had been raised too late to arrest the fatal weapon.’
Mr. Henry Shaw, surgeon, of Bishopsgate Street, said: ‘ I saw the body at about 11 o’clock yesterday. I believe the act was committed when the deceased was asleep, and my impression was, that from the coldness and rigidity of the body, life must have been extinct ten or twelve hours.’
Ann Rogers, mother of the deceased, said: ‘ I am the wife of a mason who resides at Bath. The prisoner married my daughter Ann on the 10th of June, 1851, at St. James’s church. Bath. I came to London on Monday last, in consequence of a letter which I received from Ann. I went with my sister to her lodging, at 76 Sun Street, Bishopsgate, and had not time to speak a dozen words to her when he came in. In answer to my inquiry after his health, he said he was very poorly. I said I did not wonder at it from his usage of poor Ann, and I told him I was come to fetch her away.’ After a few words, expressive of the determination of the witness to take away her daughter, the prisoner went away and soon afterwards returned with a police-sergeant, who told her she was breaking the peace in forcing the man’s wife away from him. To that she replied by stating that it was the wish of her daughter to go; and the deceased confirmed the statement, at the same time acknowledging that she had no objection to live with him if he would keep his hands off her. ‘I said to my daughter (continued the witness), ‘Are you ready to come with me, Ann? I have got a return ticket to Bath at 9 o’clock.’ She said, ‘ Yes, I shall, but I hardly think I am going.’ She then began to pack her things in the trunk. The prisoner then said she should not go that night, but she should go with me at 10 ‘o’clock in the morning. I told him that I did not consider her safe with him. He then took her by the hand and pulled her .upon his knees, saying to her, ‘ You are not afraid of me, Ann, are you, dear!’ She replied, ‘ No, provided you keep your hands off me.’ After some further conversation, he said he would next morning get her clothes out of pawn, and she should be ready to go with me to the country. She then wanted me to sleep in the room, but the prisoner objected, and told me I should have some coffee in the morning, and that my daughter would be ready to go with me. I told him I did not think she was safe with him, and I asked him what I could think when he strove to strangle her last week, and her neck was bruised? He said, ‘Was your neck bruised, Ann?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘it was bruised; I’ll never run from my word.’ All this took place while she was sitting on his knee. I got lodging in the neighborhood, and in about a quarter of an hour afterwards I returned and got a bed-gown from her, and told her to be in readiness to come with me next day. They both replied that she would. I did not see either of them that night again. Next morning, at a little after 10, I went up stairs, and called ‘Ann’ at their door, about five minutes. I heard him say, as if speaking to somebody, ‘ Oh, that’s Mrs. Rogers.’ I said, ‘ Why don’t you open the door to me, Henry? Where is Ann?’ He said, ‘she’s all right.’ The witness then proceeded to state her suspicion of the desperate nature of the prisoner’s conduct, and the fact of alarming the police, as had been represented in effect in the other evidence.
Other witnesses, from the evidence of some of whom it appeared that the prisoner had contrived to get into a beastly state of intoxication, were examined, and the Alderman stated that he would commit the prisoner for trial for the murder of his wife.
The prisoner was again placed at the bar on Thursday, and the depositions having been formally read over, he was fully committed for trial.”
On November 21, 1852, the Weekly Dispatch reported on the murder of Mary Horler, a married woman of 25, the subsequent apprehension of her husband Henry Horler and his commital hearing. In December, 1852, Henry Horler was tried and convicted of the murder of his wife.
“A murder of a most horrible character, which produced the greatest sensation in the eastern portion of the city, was perpetrated at an early hour on Tuesday morning in Sun Street, Bishopsgate Street Without. The unfortunate creature who perished was a young married woman, named Mary Horler, aged twenty-five, and the party who has been apprehended on suspicion of destroying her life is her husband, Henry Horler, a journeyman shoemaker, who is about the same age as his unfortunate victim. They had been married about twelve months, and occupied an apartment at No. 76 in the above street, but in consequence of his intemperate habits, they do not appear to have lived happily together.
In the course of the morning, the prisoner was charged at the Mansion house with perpetrating the deed, and after some brief evidence, he was remanded, as it was evident he was then laboring under the excitement of drink. After a slight detention in the cells, he was removed to the Compter in a cab.
On Wednesday Horler was re-examined before Alderman Finnis, at the Mansion house.
Dixon, the police sergeant, gave the following statement: — ‘ I conveyed the prisoner, when he was remanded on Tuesday, to prison. In going along, he said— ‘After mother left the night before, I had talked with my wife respecting her leaving me in the morning to go home with her mother, which, I believed, she did not want to do, and we then agreed to destroy each other. She took a knife, and I took one also. I then was on the bed with her, and said to her, ‘ Remember, this will be the last time.’ I was then on the point of cutting her throat with the knife I had in my hand. She then said, ‘ Henry, stop, I will tell you where your razor is, by which you can do it quicker.’ I (the officer) said to the prisoner, was she undressed? ‘No,’ said he, ‘ we were not undressed, either of as.’ He also said it occurred before day, early in the mornings. When I first discovered the body it was dressed. The prisoner, upon being asked whether he wished to ask any questions of the witness, said, ‘ Oh, not at all, not at all.’ Witness, in continuation, said—’ on the evening before I was sent by the inspector to the prisoner’s house. I saw the deceased and her mother sitting in the room. We came down stairs together, and there met the prisoner, and the mother said she had come for her daughter. The prisoner said he had worked very hard to keep her and make her happy and comfortable, and he should do so still, and they would be very happy together, if the mother would not interfere with them. The deceased
said to him, ‘ Henry, if you ill-use me I certainly shall not stop with you.’ I said, ‘ It’s a pity you cannot settle your affairs; if your husband ill-uses you, you know where to apply.’ She said, ‘It’s not the first or second time he ill-used me.’ He made no reply to that observation.’ The prisoner: ‘ It’s an untruth to say I ill-used her; but she said so, I know.’
Thomas Balcher (city police, 618): ‘ I accompanied Sergeant Dixon to the room in which the body of the deceased lay. A counterpane was thrown over the body, and covered it completely. I turned down the counterpane, and saw the corpse of a female with her throat cut.’
Alderman Finnis: ‘ Was there any appearance of a struggle in the room?’ Witness: ‘ Not the slightest. I then went to the station to report. The prisoner was in the cell at the time. He asked me for some water, which I gave him, and he said, ‘ I can tell you more than all the world can. I have done it. I know I must die for it. I know I must be hanged, but her mother has been the cause.’
O. Saunderson (station Sergeant), said: ‘ On Monday evening, at a little after five o’clock, the prisoner came to the station house, and said he wished for advice. He said that he and his wife lived exceedingly comfortable, and were going on as well as any man and wife could go on, but her mother and aunt were at his house, and were inducing his wife to leave him and to go with them to Bath. He stated that his wife’s mother was a fortune-teller, and earned a great deal of money, as much as £5 a day ; that she had several other married daughters, all of whom had children, and that his wife being without children, her mother was the more anxious for her to keep the door of her fortune-telling room. He asked me what he was to do, and I asked him whether his wife was inclined to leave him, to which he answered that they had so worked upon her that he believed she would leave him. He intimated that he had £40 or £50 in the savings bank, and that they wished to have it. He left the station apparently satisfied. At a little before six o’clock he returned to the station-house and mentioned that he had been home, and that they had treated him roughly. After nine o’clock he came again, accompanied by a young man, to whom he said he wished to deliver over his book and money. He was perfectly sober and collected during the whole time. On Tuesday morning I was in the station-house when the prisoner was brought in, at half-past ten o’clock, on the charge of being drunk. He said that his mother-in-law charged him with doing away with her daughter, and he was very drunk and foolish at the time. He was asked repeatedly by his mother-in-law what he had done with his wife—the daughter. He always evaded answering the question, and talked in a foolish manner about her being a fortune-teller. He afterwards said his mother-in-law, the fortune-teller, had brought him to that. I asked him what had become of his wife, and he said she was right enough, and that he had slept with her last night.’
Mr. G. B. Childe, surgeon to the police force, said : ‘ I was sent for by Dixon to attend at 76 Sun street, Bishopsgate, and I saw lying on a bureau bedstead in the attic the corpse of a young woman, apparently twenty-two or twenty-three year? Of age.’ The prisoner: ‘Older, older.’ Witness: ‘She was dressed in a claret-colored gown. Her right hand was raised towards her throat. Her left hand was lying straight by her side. She was lying on her back, with her chin slightly inclined towards the right shoulder. An extensive wound was in the throat on the left side. The muscles and windpipe, together with the principal nerves and arteries on that side of the neck, were cut through, as also was the tube leading to the stomach, and the vertebrae at the back of the neck were exposed. She must have been dead several hours, the body was quite cold and stiff, and the muscles were rigid. I believe that, at the time the act was committed, she was either stupefied by drink or sleeping. There was no appearance of struggling having taken place. The hand had been raised too late to arrest the fatal weapon.’
Mr. Henry Shaw, surgeon, of Bishopsgate Street, said: ‘ I saw the body at about 11 o’clock yesterday. I believe the act was committed when the deceased was asleep, and my impression was, that from the coldness and rigidity of the body, life must have been extinct ten or twelve hours.’
Ann Rogers, mother of the deceased, said: ‘ I am the wife of a mason who resides at Bath. The prisoner married my daughter Ann on the 10th of June, 1851, at St. James’s church. Bath. I came to London on Monday last, in consequence of a letter which I received from Ann. I went with my sister to her lodging, at 76 Sun Street, Bishopsgate, and had not time to speak a dozen words to her when he came in. In answer to my inquiry after his health, he said he was very poorly. I said I did not wonder at it from his usage of poor Ann, and I told him I was come to fetch her away.’ After a few words, expressive of the determination of the witness to take away her daughter, the prisoner went away and soon afterwards returned with a police-sergeant, who told her she was breaking the peace in forcing the man’s wife away from him. To that she replied by stating that it was the wish of her daughter to go; and the deceased confirmed the statement, at the same time acknowledging that she had no objection to live with him if he would keep his hands off her. ‘I said to my daughter (continued the witness), ‘Are you ready to come with me, Ann? I have got a return ticket to Bath at 9 o’clock.’ She said, ‘ Yes, I shall, but I hardly think I am going.’ She then began to pack her things in the trunk. The prisoner then said she should not go that night, but she should go with me at 10 ‘o’clock in the morning. I told him that I did not consider her safe with him. He then took her by the hand and pulled her .upon his knees, saying to her, ‘ You are not afraid of me, Ann, are you, dear!’ She replied, ‘ No, provided you keep your hands off me.’ After some further conversation, he said he would next morning get her clothes out of pawn, and she should be ready to go with me to the country. She then wanted me to sleep in the room, but the prisoner objected, and told me I should have some coffee in the morning, and that my daughter would be ready to go with me. I told him I did not think she was safe with him, and I asked him what I could think when he strove to strangle her last week, and her neck was bruised? He said, ‘Was your neck bruised, Ann?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘it was bruised; I’ll never run from my word.’ All this took place while she was sitting on his knee. I got lodging in the neighborhood, and in about a quarter of an hour afterwards I returned and got a bed-gown from her, and told her to be in readiness to come with me next day. They both replied that she would. I did not see either of them that night again. Next morning, at a little after 10, I went up stairs, and called ‘Ann’ at their door, about five minutes. I heard him say, as if speaking to somebody, ‘ Oh, that’s Mrs. Rogers.’ I said, ‘ Why don’t you open the door to me, Henry? Where is Ann?’ He said, ‘she’s all right.’ The witness then proceeded to state her suspicion of the desperate nature of the prisoner’s conduct, and the fact of alarming the police, as had been represented in effect in the other evidence.
Other witnesses, from the evidence of some of whom it appeared that the prisoner had contrived to get into a beastly state of intoxication, were examined, and the Alderman stated that he would commit the prisoner for trial for the murder of his wife.
The prisoner was again placed at the bar on Thursday, and the depositions having been formally read over, he was fully committed for trial.”
