James Gilpin

James Gilpin died from arsenic poisoning on 20 March 1904.

A domestic servant and a soldier were tried for his murder but acquitted.

James Gilpin had taken in a domestic servant 20 years earlier but they had ended up having five children between them. However, three months before his death the domestic servant had met a discharged soldier who was described as being a bluff, burley, well set up man, florid, bettlebrowed and excessively masculine. They developed their relationship near to intimacy and he soon moved into the farm.

However, at the time James Gilpin was bed ridden and the soldier seemed then to rule the establishment and money was spent freely.

Then on 20 March 1904 James Gilpin died. The doctor initially gave him a death certificate stating senile decay as the cause of death but an anonymous letter was later received by the Mayor of Kendal and the soldier and domestic servant were arrested for the murder of James Gilpin.

It was soon found that the domestic servant had recently bought some arsenic from a chemist three days before James Gilpin died.

Before her arrest, the domestic servant said that she had been accused of James Gilpin's murder and left town but was arrested two days later.

After James Gilpin's death an inquest was carried out and his stomach and intestines were sent to Guys Hospital for quantitative examination and he was buried. However, it was later found necessary to further examine his body and he was exhumed. He was found to have had enough arsenic in his body to have killed himself many times over. A doctor said that the arsenic taken could not have been less than 3-4 grains.

When a rat hole was examined, it was found to contain only slight traces of the poison.

A woman who was a frequent visitor to the farm said that she had been asked to pawn items for the soldier and that on the day before James Gilpin’s death she had been asked by him to buy some rum and sugar for him. When she and another person returned with the rum and sugar she said that the soldier put it in some gruel which he said was for James Gilpin.

The court heard that arsenic was used around the farm to kill rats. The domestic servant admitted that she had brought some arsenic but said that it was for killing rats. She had bought threepennyworth of it from a chemist between 10am and 12pm on 17 March 1904, and had signed the poison register, telling the chemist that it was for rats.

When the domestic servant was charged, she said that she had bought the rat poison at James Gilpin's request, and that whilst preparing it in the bedroom that someone had come in and that she had put it on a chair beside the bed. She said that James Gilpin later told her that he had dropped a piece of cheese on the chair and that he had then picked it up and eaten it. She said that she then said to him, 'I hope you have not got the wrong piece', and that James Gilpin replied, 'If I have there was not that much to do any harm'.

The soldier said that he had been living at the farm, and that all he knew of the affair was when the domestic servant told him that James Gilpin was dead.

At the trial, the chief constable produced 41 pawn tickets, 11 for goods pawned by the domestic servant  between March and November 1903 and 29 between January and March 1904, during which time the soldier had been living at the house.

A woman that had been a friend of James Gilpin and the domestic servant for some years and who had been a frequent visitor to their house said that she had pawned articles for the domestic servant since Christmas.

The pawnbroker later gave evidence on the large number of pledges made by the domestic servant, and produced some of James Gilpin's clothing which had still been in pledge.

The executor of James Gilpin's will said that he had known James Gilpin for over forty years and that since he had come to Kendal, over three years earlier, that he had managed James Gilpin's affairs. At the trial he produced two cheques that had been drawn in favour of the domestic servant, noting that they were both signed 'James Gilpin', but that the signatures were not James Gilpin's, but the domestic servant’s and that she had admitted it.

He said that after James Gilpin's death that the domestic servant had come to him and asked him whether the £100 was for her, but said that he told her that it was for his children, but that James Gilpin had left her the furniture.

He said that after he called at the house later on the Monday, that the domestic servant said that James Gilpin was 'a nice corpse'. He said that she then told him that she had been accused of having poisoned him and asked him whether he thought that James Gilpin looked like he had been poisoned, and said that he told her that he had no knowledge of how people looked who had been poisoned.

However, he said that the following morning he received an anonymous communication which led him to go to the chemist who then told him that the domestic servant had recently bought arsenic from him.

He noted that according to James Gilpin's instructions, that the amount to be drawn from the bank for housekeeping was not to exceed 30s per week, but said that he found that the amount drawn over the previous three months amounted to £30, or a rate of £2 10s a week. He added that under those circumstances that there should have been no necessity to pawn a thing.

He noted that on 20 February 1904, that he had seen James Gilpin in the presence of the domestic servant and had asked him whether he knew that there was a man in the house, and that he was keeping a great lazy fellow on the fat of the land whilst he was being kept worse than most pigs were, but said that James Gilpin hardly seemed to realise it. He added that when he said that that the domestic servant interposed by saying, 'Oh master, it is that man, him that comes to read to you'.

He said that he remonstrated with the domestic servant for her neglect of James Gilpin and the filthy condition of the house, and said that she promised to do better.

When James Gilpin's 18-year-old son gave evidence, he said that he left home after the soldier arrived and that about a week later the soldier came to the shop where he worked and that during the course of the conversation that he said that he wished the old ---- was dead and of what a good job it was that he had left as it gave him a chance with his mother as they were going to get married.

He further stated that when he had gone to see James Gilpin whilst he was sick that he had vomited whilst he was there and that he saw that the vomit was a black looking fluid. He said that James Gilpin told him that he had a burning pain in his stomach and that his mother came in and gave him some canary port wine.

He said that after James Gilpin died that his mother asked him whether he looked like he had been poisoned. He said that he told her that he didn't and that she then told him that a woman had been setting it about that she had poisoned him. He said that she then told him that she had bought some blue arsenic for the rats from the chemist, but added that James Gilpin had got none of it. He added that he didn't know what made her tell him that, stating that he didn't ask her.

The daughter said that she had also heard the soldier say that he wished that the old ---- was dead. She said that he had lived at the house for about nine weeks, sleeping there most of the time. She said that she knew nothing about her mother getting arsenic until after James Gilpin died, and that she had never known James Gilpin to vomit until the Thursday before he died.

She noted that the soldier had said that he was going to marry her mother at Easter.

She said that her mother left home on the Tuesday after James Gilpin died and that she didn't see her again until after she was arrested.

The domestic servant was 41 and the soldier was 28.

They were tried at the Westmoreland Assizes on Thursday 30 June 1904 but acquitted.

When they were first indicted on Wednesday 29 June 1904, the grand jury threw the bill out against the soldier and he was discharged.

The defence for the domestic servant later stated that a great amount of evidence had been heard and said that if arsenic had been administered internally by any individual, that it was not the domestic servant, noting that others had access to the old man as well as she, after which she was acquitted.