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Rose Ann Harsent

Age: 23

Sex: female

Date: 1 Jun 1902

Place: Providence House, Peasenhall, Suffolk

Rose Harsent was found dead at the bottom of the stairs at Providence House, Peasenhall in her nightdress with her throat slit. Her clothes were partly burnt and there was a lot of blood about her left side.

A 45-year-old foreman wheelwright and ex-Sunday school superintendent was tried twice at the Ipswich Assizes for her murder but acquitted after the jury's at both trials disagreed.

Rose Harsent had been a domestic servant employed by a man that had lived in Providence House in Peasenhall. She had also been a member of the Primitive Methodist Church at the adjacent village of Sibton where the wheelwright was the Sunday School superintendent, choirmaster, assistant society steward and trustee of the funds.

It was submitted by the prosecution that the wheelwright had had immoral connection with Rose Harsent resulting in her becoming pregnant and that he had arranged to meet her and kill her and then destroy the evidence by way of fire in order to prevent the scandal from coming to light.

Rose Harsent was killed between 1am and 2am on 1 June 1902. Her body was found by her father in the morning when he called to give her some clean linen. He had entered via the back through the vinery to find her dead on the kitchen floor. She had been partially burnt. Her night dress was partially burnt and there was a newspaper under her head which was burnt all-round the edges.

Pieces of a broken medicine bottle were also found in the kitchen. However, the label from the bottle referred to the children of the wheelwright and it was surmised that he had taken the paraffin over to burn her body but that the cork had become stuck and that he had had to break it to get the paraffin out but had forgotten that he had left the label behind with the remains of the bottle.

It was also noted that Rose Harsent's bed had not been slept in.

At about 10.45pm on the eve of the murder Rose Harsent's mistress went to bed leaving Rose Harsent in the kitchen with the candle which she usually took to her room. She said that during the night a violent storm arose and she awoke and went down into the kitchen at about midnight but said that no one was down there and so she went back to bed and went to sleep. However, she said that she was later awakened by a thud and a suppressed scream but didn't go downstairs to see.

It was additionally noted that at about 10pm on the eve of the murder that the wheelwright was seen outside his cottage from where he could see the upper window of the gable of Providence House whilst at the same time a light was seen burning in it.

At about 5am on 1 June 1902 a gamekeeper that was familiar with the scandal between Rose Harsent and the wheelwright said that he saw footprints leading from the wheelwright's cottage to Providence House and back again and it was later shown that the wheelwright owned a pair of India rubber shoes that exactly matched the imprints that the tracks had left.

The wheelwright was seen at his cottage at 7.30am on the morning of 1 June 1902 going into his back yard where a fire was seen to be alight in the wash-house.

Rose Harsent's body was then found by her father at 8am in Providence House.

Her throat had been cut in two places and there was a great quantity of blood on her left side only.

She was in the kitchen lying with her head near the staircase door which was noted had been opened so violently that a bracket behind it had been broken.

A wrapper belonging to the master of the house was said to have been pinned up over the window, apparently to prevent anyone from being able to see in.

It was noted that the murderer had left no footprints in the house even though there was a lot of blood and paraffin on the floor.

Near to her body was the candle stick that Rose Harsent had been left with which was burnt out and it was said that it was clear that an attempt had been made to burn her body with paraffin. The top of the oil well of a paraffin lamp had been broken off and the paraffin poured about along with the oil from the medicine bottle that was found smashed.

The newspaper that was beneath her head was a copy of the East Anglia Times dated 30 May 1902, it being noted that it was a paper that the master of the house didn’t take in.

However, it was noted that it was first thought that Rose Harsent had committed suicide and the wheelwright was not arrested for another two days.            

The surgeon's examination of her body noted cuts on her hands caused by warding off of blows and that fact that her body was much charred.

At the time of her death she had been six months pregnant.

A letter was later found among her possessions asking her to leave a light on in her window for 10 minutes at 10pm after which the writer and Rose Harsent would meet at 12 midnight. The letter read:

'DR, I will try to see you tonight at twelve o'clock at your place. If you put a light in your window at ten o'clock for about ten minutes then you can take it out again. Don't have a light in your room at twelve o'clock as I will come round to the back in the light'.

It was said that the wheelwright had written the letter and noted that he also lived in Peasenhall about a quarter of a mile from Providence House. The prosecution also said that they traced his rubber soled footprints from his house to Peasenhall in the ground that had been softened by the recent rain. The prosecution also said that he had used the paraffin from the medicine bottle to burn her body but had not been able to open it and so had smashed it but had left the label behind without thinking. It was also heard that he had been seen lighting a copper in a wash house adjoining his own dwelling at an early hour of the Sunday morning.

However, the defence said that the bottle was given to Rose Harsent by the wife of the wheelwright and had contained camphorated oil, something that a witness confirmed.

It was heard that the scandal of the wheelwright's relationship with Rose Harsent had begun the year before in May 1901 after two young men overheard a conversation that Rose Harsent and the wheelwright had had at a place of worship known as 'The Doctors Chapel' which Rose Harsent had been in the habit of cleaning. It was heard that the wheelwright had threatened the two young men with an action for defamation but didn't proceed with it and after an inquiry, the wheelwright's minister got assurance from him that he would have no more to do with Rose Harsent.

However, it was heard that Rose Harsent's brother had been in the habit of taking letters from the wheelwright from his place of work, the Drill Works, and giving them to Rose Harsent, it being noted that the envelopes for the letters were blue and buff in colour and envelopes that the wheelwright had ready access to and that the last letter regarding the meeting at 12 o'clock, around the time that Rose Harsent was murdered had also been in a blue and buff envelope.

It was heard that when Rose Harsent's room was searched letters written to her by the wheelwright from the time of the scandal were found as well as letters of a grossly indecent character that were not written by him, although it was noted that there was no suggestion that the writer of the other grossly indecent letters was responsible for murdering Rose Harsent. However, it was reported that the writer of the filthy letters ought to have been heartily ashamed of himself.

As well as the India rubber boots found at the wheelwright's house that matched the footprints found in the wet soil around Providence House following the recent rain the police found a pocket knife that belonged to the wheelwright that had recently been scraped and cleaned but on which traces of recent mammalian blood were found in the hinge.

After the second trial collapsed the wheelwright was discharged on 29 January 1903 after having spent 239 days on remand. It was reported that the public had been kept in entire ignorance of the news and that there were no demonstrations. He left in a cab with his solicitor for a private residence in Ipswich after which he was said to have planned to go to London the following day.

Providence House has since been renamed Stuart House and stands at the corner of Hackney Road and Church Street in Peasenhall.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see en.wikipedia.org

see National Archives - HD1664/1, HD1664/2/1

see Internet Archive for full trial transcrpt

see Peasenhall History Project

see Western Times - Monday 10 November 1902

see Yorkshire Evening Post - Friday 30 January 1903

see Evening Telegraph - Thursday 22 January 1903

see Tenbury Wells Advertiser - Tuesday 20 January 1903

see Dover Express - Friday 30 January 1903

see Framlingham Weekly News - Saturday 04 April 1903

see Northampton Mercury - Friday 23 January 1903

see Penny Illustrated Paper - Saturday 24 January 1903