Mary Ann Higgins - the Coventry poisoner.

Mary Ann Higgins was the 19-year-old niece of William Moore Higgins of Coventry and was described in contemporary newspaper reports as being “a rather good looking girl with fresh colour and a clear complexion, but not an intellectual countenance.

When William’s brother died he in effect adopted Mary and intended to leave her his savings in his will. These were thought to amount to between £100 and £200, quite a large sum of money for the day.

Somewhere around the beginning of 1831 Mary met 21 year old Edward Clarke, a watch makers apprentice at Messrs. Vale and Co. in Coventry and began a relationship with him which seemed to have quickly flourished. Mary was aware of her uncle’s money and would steal from it for Edward who was noted to suddenly have a lot more money than previously.

On the 22nd of March Mary tried to buy two penny worth (1p) of arsenic from Wyly’s the chemists on the pretext of killing rats. She was refused and told that she would need to return with a witness. In Spon Street she met a girl she knew, Elizabeth Russell, who returned to the chemists with her, where she was now served. The arsenic was wrapped in a paper and clearly labelled as “arsenic – poison”. Edward came round in the evening and was in the house when William had some pea soup for dinner. Soon after eating it he began vomiting and around midnight Mary went to fetch a neighbour, an old lady named Mrs. Green who went back to the house and found William dead on Mary’s bed. The following morning Edward came round on his way to work to see how William was doing and was informed that he had died. Another neighbour, Mrs. Moore came round to help Mary clear up. She found a bowl containing the uneaten portion of the pea soup in the pantry and gave it a stir, noting there was a white substance in the bottom of the bowl. She gave the bowl for safe keeping to the carpenter who had come to measure up for William’s coffin and sent for a surgeon who opened William’s stomach, which he noted was very inflamed. He took a sample of the stomach contents and sent it and the remaining pea soup for analysis. The police were informed and took Mary into custody where she initially denied everything, but later admitted that she had put two spoonfuls of arsenic into the basin before adding the soup.

At the inquest Mary tried to shift the blame onto her boyfriend saying "that Clarke had instigated her to take her uncle's life; and that he (Clarke) had frequently beaten and ill used her when he did not have as much money from her as he wanted." A verdict of wilful murder was returned by the coroner’s jury and the pair were committed for trial at the next Coventry Assizes.

The pair were tried together at Warwick Assizes on Tuesday the 9th of August. Both were charged with the murder and also Edward was charged with being an accessory to it. Mary simply pleaded innocence and left what little defense she had to her council. Edward Clarke submitted a lengthy written statement denying the charges and citing the vagueness of the evidence against him. Several witness testified to his good character although there were no character witnesses for Mary. The jury took just six minutes to acquit Edward and convict Mary. She was therefore sentenced to be hanged within 48 hours and her body to be dissected in accordance with the Murder Act of 1752 which was still in force up to 1836. She wept piteously according to newspaper reports while she was being sentenced. She was returned to the County Gaol in Pepper Lane to await execution.

Execution.

Just before noon on Thursday the 11th of August 1831, Mary was put into a cart containing her own coffin on which she sat for the journey of some two miles from Coventry gaol to the New Drop gallows erected on Whitley Common, (just off London Road) accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Paris. Mary arrived at the gallows around 12.30 pm. Mr. Paris assisted her down from the cart and up the steps of the gallows where she stood firmly on the trap door listening to his ministrations. He shook hands with her before descending the scaffold and Mary told him “The Lord Bless You.” The hangman, William Calcraft, removed her bonnet and replaced it with a white hood. He pinioned her arms and legs with cords and upon her signal of dropping a handkerchief he withdrew the bolt. She died after a brief struggle and after hanging for one hour her body was taken down and given to surgeons for dissection. Her skull is preserved in the Herbert Museum in Coventry. Mary would be the last person executed on Whitley Common and the last to be taken by cart to the gallows in England and Wales. All other counties had transferred executions to County Gaols by this time.

Executions were rare events at Coventry with only six in total taking place there in the nineteenth century. There were two men hanged in 1800, both for forgery, two men were executed in 1821 for burglaries, Mary in 1831 and finally Mary Ball who became the last to be executed here on the 9th of August 1849.

Comment.

It is difficult to know from reading the newspapers of the day, what role Edward had in the crime and whether he instigated it or whether Mary committed it on her own, without his knowledge to obtain control of the money so that they could get married. There seems little reason to doubt that Mary and Mary alone administered the arsenic. The execution of a nineteen year old girl was certainly not headline news in 1831 and there was no effort made to get a reprieve for her.

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