'Peppermint Billy' about to go on Trial again.

           ' Peppermint Billy  William Brown and the Tollgate Murders of 1856'    By Joanne Vigor Mungovin 

                                                       

             A few months ago,the Leicester Museum service website announced :

On July 14, 2023, The Guildhall in Leicester will recreate the trial of William 'Peppermint Billy' Brown - 167 years to the day after he was convicted of the murder of Edward and James Woodcock in Melton Mowbray. Peppermint Billy was the last man publicly hanged in Leicester in 1856.
His conviction has always been questioned and shrouded in mystery.
In order to make this event more memorable, we have found descendants of the witnesses to read the words of their ancestors during the trial.
The trial is then recreated with a defence and prosecution, witnesses and the actual court transcript, in order to provide the most accurate account possible. A jury of twelve people will be sworn in, and after all the evidence has been given, they will deliberate and come to a decision on whether William Brown is guilty or innocent

                   The organiser of the above event is Jo Vigor Mungovin, who favours the  label of authoress. Certainly she  has great expertise with regard to the history of Leicestershire, and her joint biography of Joseph Merrick with Michelle Merrick  -'The Life, Times and Places of the Elephant Man', was published in 2016. Highly worth reading. In 2022 her biography of 'Peppermint Billy' was published by 'Mango Books'. To the best of my knowledge there is only one other book about 'Peppermint Billy' a.k.a. William Brown of Scalford, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire- 'The True Story of Peppermint Billy', by John McQuaid.

On the 19th June 1856 the bodies of seventy year old Edward Woodcock  and his grandson nine year old James Woodcock were discovered in the Thorpe Tollgate House where Edward lived.The older man ran the tollhouse, and appeared to have got up in the night to open the toll-bar, which he was employed to do.  A bullet passed through his body, and he appeared to have been stabbed twelve times. James had his throat cut, his head very nearly severed from his body, and had other wounds. 

The authoress, has presented a thorough job about the wretched life of Peppermint Billy, one of nine children. and born in 1819. At the age of eighteen Billy was convicted of stealing a children's magazine, and sentenced to a month in prison and a whipping in Leicester gaol. In 1840 Billy was sentenced to  twelve months hard-labour for theft of a watch, which he later pawned, and was sold as not redeemed. In January 1843, Billy was convicted of the theft of silver cutlery and plate belonging to his employer. As a third offence had been convicted, he was sentenced to ten years transportation. 

What follows is some well presented and detailed research into the conditions of Billy's time on board a prison hulk, his voyage to Van Diemen's Land, ( now Tasmania), and tries to establish what exactly happened to Billy during the ten years penal servitude. Not all readers may want such a wealth of background information, and the family histories of people he encountered but I learnt a great deal. The authoress also provides footnotes, and had managed to view Billy's convict records. She discovered that Billy was a patient of New Norfolk Asylum in 1846-1847. His condition was diagnosed as 'Mania' -'a type of disorder disorder characterised by euphoric mood, excessive activity, talkativeness and impaired judgement, effects all operations of the brain'. On 15th April 1847, Billy was declared insane. Sketchy medical records survive.

Billy did sewing and also farm work as a patient, and went missing in 1853 only to give himself up, By then his sentence had expired and appears not to have returned to the Asylum. In the Summer of 1854 Billy acquired a gold-diggers licence. For seventeen months, it is not clear how Billy was living, but in 1856, he had raised enough money from gold-digging to purchase his passage home to Britain. The authoress makes the interesting observation that the number of convicts returning after their sentence had expired seemed to be low. (It was a capital offence to return before the sentence was completed.)

Billy's re-appearance in his home county was plagued with problems. He became rootless , angry and argumentative. One trial witness described how during a family argument Billy brought out a pistol, similar to one found at the scene of the crime. Billy showed such a pistol to another witness on a different occasion. Several witnesses spotted Billy in the vicinity of the Thorpe Tollgate on 17th June 1856, and he was observed talking to Edward Woodcock. Billy was also known to be sleeping on local outhouses, including a hovel very near the Tollgate .On the 16th June 1856,  another witness maintained -

My Father said to the prisoner;"Billy, you must mind, if they get hold of you again you will go for life." The prisoner said "I should not like to be transported any more, I'd sooner by hung, and maybe I shall be yet." 

It was not surprising that once the murdered bodies were discovered, a manhunt was launched for Billy as the prime suspect. On the 22nd June 1865 Billy was apprehended in Wetherby, Yorkshire. His trial began in Leicester on the 14th July 1856. Billy had legal representation, and plead not guilty to two charges of 'Wilful Murder', and on 19th July 1856, the Jury found him guilty after deliberating for some three minutes. 

Peppermint Billy was hanged on the 25th July 1856. Some twenty five thousand spectators descended on the city of Leicester. His father was given a complimentary window seat in a pub to watch the execution. 

The book contains four helpful appendices about the trial, including Prosecution witness statements and the criminal connections of Billy's family.There are some great illustrations, and extensive bibliography. This book could well become quite a crucial study of Victorian criminology, 

But a Retrial? 

Well there are going to be problems with possibly trying to quash the verdict handed by the Victorian  Courts because it doesn't match the standards we demand in today's society, especially in relation to what is known about Billy's mental state. The authoress has highlighted the poor care and even ill treatment of patients that were reported at the New Norfolk Asylum during the 1850's, but how would a Leicestershire court know this? But to  be fair to the authoress, an official from Tasmania who examined Billy was on leave in Britain at the time, but not called to the Court to offer an opinion. Then the issues become more complex : Presumably there were large numbers of individuals who underwent the misery of transportation and experienced poor medical care if they fell ill, who did not go on to commit murder. 

There is also a danger of a circular argument : The brutal murder of an old chap and a child by a fully able adult is just so ghastly and beyond normal comprehension -representing an appalling abuse of strength and power over someone too old and someone too young to defend themselves.The most logical conclusion is that the criminal concerned was insane because nobody in their 'right' mind could possibly  commit the crime. Therefore  there would have to be grounds for Billy's  'innocence ' as he must have been insane to have murdered two individuals in such a frightful way. 

However it is fair to point out that the writer references the fact that after the trial 'Several gentlemen at once drew up a statement to Sir George Grey ........appealing for the sentence of death to be respited until his mental health could be satisfactorily established' . These included seventy leading Leicester residents. So yes the verdict was not automatically accepted as being the correct one even in 1856. Some petitioners may well have been opposed to capital punishment in principle rather than felt that Billy was innocent. 

 The authoress raises the contention "It is conceivable that the murders were committed by another person or persons, and William was an unknowing and naive accomplice ..." .Moreover, she also believes that Billy was present at the scene of the crime but not guilty of murder. Yet even if Billy had an accomplice, this does not make him innocent if he was present during the murders by the law of the time. The verdict handed down in the Frederick and Maria Manning during the murder trial of 1849 helped to re- establish this principle when both individuals accused each other of the murder. And the concept of 'Joint Enterprise' exists today,albeit in a different form.

So thought highly of the book, not sure about the re-trial. 

Sources

Aside of Jo Vigor Mungovin book, have used Victorians Undone-tales of the flesh in the age of decorum by Kathryn Hughes, 4th Estate ,2017 for some background : Particularly  its section on the convicted child murderer Frederick Baker , hanged for the murder of Fanny Adams (of 'Sweet Fanny Adams' fame) in 1869. Of course the latter contained a strong sexual element which makes it distinct from the case of Peppermint Billy. 

Also 'The True Story of Peppermint Billy', by John McQuaid, available on Amazon Co UK in a kindle edition, listed as being as from 2021. Nothing more seems to be forthcoming about the author and I am not sure if a printed edition ever appeared.

For the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, and their subsequent trial , I would recommend Linda Stratmann's 'Trial of the Mannings' , Mango Books, 2021. 

Weblinks 

Leicester Museum Services webpage on Peppermint Billy retrial (Tickets now sold out). 

Jo Vigor Mungovin's book is available from Mango Books (UK) Not able to find it on AmazonUK. date of search 27th March 2023. 

Melton Times 28th October 2022 coverage of the retrial. 

Earlier blogpost about Maria Manning hanged along with her husband Fred for murder in 1849. 

Another active blog by Michael Bully 

A Burnt Ship   17th century warfare and related literature. 

Have now opened an Instragram account as 'Mrbleak 5'.