“The Bloody Steps” rape and murder of Christina Collins.

 

37 year old Christina Collins was a dressmaker who was living in Liverpool.  Her husband, Robert, had gone to London looking for work as he had been unable to find suitable work in his home town.  Having found a job he sent Christina money and asked her to join him.  The cheapest way for her to travel was by Pickford’s canal barge and she accordingly set off on Saturday the 15th of June 1839 and was scheduled to transfer to another canal boat, “The Staffordshire Knot”, at Preston Brook for the journey to London.  By noon on Sunday this boat had reached Stoke on Trent and reached Stone in Staffordshire at 8 p.m.  Here Christina complained to the Pickford’s representative that the crew under the captaincy of 39 year old James Owen had been drinking excessively and that she was afraid to continue the journey.  The rest of the crew comprised George Thomas (alias Dobell), William Ellis and a young cabin boy named Isaac Musson. 

 

Sometime around midnight on the Sunday Christina was attacked and raped and her cries were heard by the lockkeeper, James Mills and his wife Ann, at Hoo Mill lock.  They were told by the crew that Christina and her husband were on the boat and they tried to pass off the attack as having been committed by the husband, who was of course actually in London.

 

Christina’s body was thrown overboard between Colwich Lock between Colton and Rugeley at Brindley’s Bank in the early hours of Monday morning.  By 6 a.m. on the Monday the boat had reached Fazeley where Owen told a woman that one of his passengers had jumped from the boat and drowned herself.

 

The authorities at Fazeley were immediately suspicious of this and searched the boat, finding several items of women’s clothing and a bonnet.  The canal was searched and Christina’s body was found weighed down with an iron chain.  Her body was carried up what became known as the “Bloody Steps” at Brindley Bank by locals and taken to the Talbot Inn for examination.  Here two local surgeons found that she had been raped repeatedly.  The adult crew members were arrested and initially charged with rape.  Isaac Musson was not charged and was released, as he had been asleep in his bunk at the time of the crime. 

 

The three were tried for rape at the Staffordshire Summer Assizes of 1839 in the Stafford Shire Hall, however the jury were unable/unwilling to convict them.  The judge decided to postpone the trial of the murder charge against them until the next assize, the Lent Assizes at Stafford on the 16th of March 1840, before Mr. Baron Gurney.  Their defence to the murder charge was still that Christina had jumped/fallen overboard.  This was rebutted by a prisoner in Stafford Gaol, a man named Orgill, to whom Owen had confessed to the murder.  This time the jury were able to reach a guilty verdict.

 

It was decided to postpone the execution while some further enquiries were made and these led to a reprieve for Ellis to transportation for life, on the eve of his expected execution, Saturday the 11th of April 1840.  All three men received the sacrament from the chaplain around noon.  Ellis reportedly burst into tears on being told the news of his reprieve by the governor and hugged and shook hands with James Owen and George Thomas and exclaimed “God bless you, Dear Boys”.

 

William Calcraft travelled up from London to carry out the double hanging for which he requested an assistant.  None to the turnkeys at Stafford would volunteer so the governor was forced to ask among the prisoners and George Smith volunteered in return for an early release.  He would go on to become a hangman in his own right.

 

Some 10,000 people came to watch the hanging on the portable gallows that had been drawn out in front of the main gate.  Every vantage point was filled with spectators and it was reported that there were a lot of women in the crowd.  A little before 1.00 p.m. the prison bell began to toll and Own and Thomas emerged from the main gate and walked unaided to the gallows, climbing the steps without assistance.  Here Calcraft completed the preparations and as the chaplain intoned “in the midst of life we are in death” he drew the bolt.  Both men, who were described as being robust, struggled hard and were “greatly convulsed” before becoming still.  Their bodies were left hanging for the normal hour, before being taken down and later buried within the prison.  Here is the broadside printed for their execution.

 

Christina's body was buried in St. Augustine’s Churchyard in Rugeley. The headstone is engraved "To the memory of Christina Collins, Wife of Robert Collins, London, who, having Been Barbarously treated was found dead in the Canal in this parish on June 17th 1839, age 37yrs.”  A statue of Christina stands on the canal bank.

 

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