William Palmer (6 August 1824 – 14 June 1856), also known as the Rugeley Poisoner or the Prince of Poisoners, was an English doctor and murderer. A court convicted him for the 1855 murder of his friend John Cook, whom he had poisoned with strychnine. He was also suspected of poisoning several other people including his brother and his mother-in-law, as well as four of his children. Palmer made large sums of money from the deaths of his wife and brother after collecting on life insurance, and by defrauding his wealthy mother.
Palmer was convicted and hanged in public in 1856. Charles Dickens called Palmer "the greatest villain that ever stood in the Old Bailey".
Early life and suspected poisonings William Palmer was born in Rugeley, Staffordshire, the sixth of eight children of Joseph and Sarah Palmer. His father worked as a sawyer and died when William was aged 12, leaving Sarah with a legacy of £70,000.
At age 17, Palmer worked as an apprentice at a Liverpool chemist, but was dismissed after three months following allegations of theft. He studied medicine in London and qualified as a physician in August 1846. After returning to Staffordshire later that year, Palmer met plumber and glazier George Abley at the Lamb and Flag public house in Little Haywood, and challenged him to a drinking contest. Abley accepted, and an hour later was carried home, where he died in bed later that evening; nothing was ever proved, but locals noted that Palmer had an interest in Abley's attractive wife.
Palmer returned to Rugeley to practise as a doctor and, in St. Nicholas Church, Abbots Bromley, married Ann Thornton (born 1827; also known as Brookes as her mother was the mistress of a Colonel Brookes) on 7 October 1847.Knott (1912) p. 14Robert Graves, "They hanged my saintly Billy: the life and death of Dr William Palmer", Doubleday, 1957, p.86Ian A. Burney, "Poison, detection, and the Victorian imagination", Encounters, Manchester University Press, 2006, , p. 116 His mother-in-law, also called Ann Thornton, had inherited a fortune of £8,000 after Colonel Brookes committed suicide in 1834. The elder Thornton died on 18 January 1849, two weeks after coming to stay with Palmer; she was known to have lent him money. An elderly Dr. Bamford recorded a verdict of apoplexy. Palmer was disappointed with the inheritance he and his wife gained from the death, having expected it to be much greater.
Palmer became interested in horse racing and borrowed money from Leonard Bladen, a man he met at the races. Bladen lent him £600, but died at Palmer's house on 10 May 1850. Palmer's wife was surprised to find that Bladen died with little money on him despite having recently won a large sum at the races; his betting books were also missing, so there was no evidence of his having lent Palmer any money. Bladen's death certificate listed Palmer as "present at the death" and stated the cause of death as "injury of the hip joint, 5 or 6 months; abscess in the pelvis".
Palmer's first son, William Brookes Palmer, was born towards the end of 1848"Palmer, William Brookes/ Lichfield vol. 17, 74" in General Index to Births in England and Wales (December quarter, 1848) and christened in January 1849.William Brookes Palmer in the England & Wales Christening Index, 1530-1980, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 17 November 2020 He outlived his father, dying on 29 April 1926. The Palmers had four more children, all of whom died in infancy. The cause of death for each child was listed as "convulsions":
Elizabeth Palmer. Died on 6 January 1851. She was about two and a half months old at the time of death. Henry Palmer. Died on 6 January 1852. He was about a month old. Frank Palmer. Died on 19 December 1852, only seven hours following his birth. John Palmer. Died on 27 January 1854. He was three or four days old.
As infant mortality was not uncommon at the time, these deaths were not initially seen as suspicious, though after Palmer's conviction in 1856 there was speculation that he had administered poison to the children to avoid the expense of more mouths to feed. By 1854 he was heavily in debt and resorting to forging his mother's signature to pay off creditors. Palmer took out life insurance on his wife with the Prince of Wales Insurance Company, and paid out a premium of £750 for a policy of £13,000. Her death followed on 29 September 1854, at twenty-seven years old. She was believed to have died of cholera, as a cholera pandemic was affecting the United Kingdom (causing 23,000 deaths across the country) at the time.
Still heavily in debt, with two creditors (to whom he owed £12,500 and £10,400'Trial' (1856) pp. 180–181) threatening to speak to his mother and thereby expose his fraud, Palmer attempted to take out life insurance on his brother Walter for the sum of £84,000. Unable to find a company willing to insure him for such a sum, he instead returned to the Prince of Wales Insurance Company, paying out a premium of £780 for a policy of £14,000. Walter, an alcoholic, soon became reliant on his brother, who readily plied him with several bottles of gin and brandy a day; he died on 16 August 1855. However, the insurance company refused to pay out Walter's policy and instead dispatched inspectors Simpson and Field to investigate. The pair found that Palmer had also been attempting to take out £10,000 worth of insurance on the life of George Bate, a farmer who was briefly under his employment. They discovered that Bate was either misinformed or lying about the details of his insurance policy, and informed Palmer that the company would recommended a further inquiry into Walter's death.
At about this time, Palmer was involved in an affair with his housemaid, Eliza Tharme.Irrefutable Evidence: A History of Forensic Science pp. 190–191 On 26 or 27 June 1855, Tharme gave birth to Palmer's illegitimate son Alfred, thus increasing the doctor's financial burdens. With his life and debts spiralling out of control, Palmer planned the murder of his erstwhile friend John Cook.
Murder of John Cook
John Parsons Cook, a sickly young man with an inherited fortune of £12,000, was a friend of Palmer. In November 1855, the pair attended the Shrewsbury Handicap Stakes and bet on various horses between 13 and 15 November. Cook won £3,000 by betting on "Polestar"; Palmer lost heavily by betting instead on "the Chicken". Cook and Palmer had a celebration party at the Raven, a local drinking establishment. Already on 14 November, Cook was complaining that his gin had burnt his throat; Palmer responded by making a scene in which he attempted to convince bemused onlookers that there was nothing untoward in Cook's glass. Afterwards Cook fell violently ill and told two friends, George Herring and Ishmael Fisher, that, "I believe that damn Palmer has been dosing me." On 15 November, Palmer and Cook returned to Rugeley, at which point Cook booked a room at the Talbot Arms.
Earlier on 14 November, Palmer had received a letter from a creditor named Pratt, who threatened to visit his mother and ask for his money if Palmer himself would not pay his debt soon. The following day he bet heavily on a horse and lost. Having seemingly recovered from his illness, Cook met with Palmer for a drink on 17 November and soon found himself sick once again. At this point Palmer assumed responsibility for Cook; Cook's solicitor, Jeremiah Smith, sent over a bottle of gin, which Palmer had in his possession before he sent it. Chambermaid Elizabeth Mills took a sip of the gin and subsequently fell ill; Cook was given the rest of the gin, and his vomiting became worse than ever. The next day, Palmer began collecting bets on behalf of Cook, bringing home £1,200. He then purchased three grains of strychnine from the surgery of Dr. Salt and put the grains into two pills, which he then administered to Cook. On 21 November, not long after Palmer administered two ammonia pills, Cook died in agony at about 1:00 am, screaming that he was suffocating.
On 23 November, William Stevens, Cook's stepfather, arrived to represent the family. Palmer informed him the deceased had lost his betting books, which he further claimed were of no use as all bets were cancelled once the gambler had died; he also told Stevens that Cook had £4,000 in outstanding bills. Stevens requested an inquest, which was granted. Meanwhile, Palmer obtained a death certificate from 80-year-old Dr. Bamford, which listed the cause of death as "apoplexy".
A post-mortem examination of Cook's body took place at the Talbot Arms on 26 November, carried out by medical student Charles Devonshire and assistant Charles Newton, and overseen by Dr. Harland and numerous other onlookers. Newton was drunk, and Palmer himself interfered with the examination, bumping into Newton and taking the stomach contents off in a jar for "safekeeping". The jars were sent off to Alfred Swaine Taylor, who complained that such poor quality samples were of no use to him, and a second post-mortem took place on 29 November. Postmaster Samuel Cheshire intercepted letters addressed to the coroner on behalf of Palmer; Cheshire was later prosecuted for interfering with the mail and imprisoned for two years. Palmer also wrote to the coroner himself, requesting that the verdict of death be given as natural causes, enclosing in his letter a £10 note.
Taylor found no evidence of poison, but still stated that it was his belief that Cook had been poisoned. The jury at the inquest delivered their verdict on 15 December, stating that the "Deceased died of poison wilfully administered to him by William Palmer"; at the time, this verdict could be legally handed down at an inquest.
Arrest and trial Judges Lord Chief Justice John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell Mr Justice Cresswell Mr Baron Alderson Prosecution counsel Attorney-General Alexander Cockburn Edwin James QC Mr Bodkin Mr Welsby John Walter Huddleston Defence counsel Mr Serjeant Shee William Robert Grove QC Mr Gray Edward Kenealy
Palmer was arrested on the charge of murder and forgery, and was detained at Stafford Gaol; he threatened to go on hunger strike, but backed down when the governor informed him that this would lead to his being force fed.
An Act of Parliament (the Central Criminal Court Act 1856) was passed to allow Palmer's trial to be held at the Old Bailey in London, as it was felt that a fair jury could not be found in Staffordshire, where detailed accounts of the case had been printed by local newspapers. However, an alternative hypothesis is that Palmer was a popular figure in Rugeley and would not have been found guilty by a Staffordshire jury: the implication being that the trial location was moved for political reasons so as to secure a guilty verdict. Lord Chief Justice Campbell, the senior judge at Palmer's trial, suggested in his autobiography that, had Palmer been tried at Stafford Assizes, he would have been found not guilty. The Home Secretary also ordered that the bodies of Ann and Walter Palmer be exhumed and re-examined; Walter was too badly decomposed, though Dr. Taylor found antimony in all the organs in Ann's body.
Palmer's defence was led by Mr Serjeant William Shee.Barker (2004) Their case suffered adverse comment from the judge because Shee had, against all rules and conventions of professional conduct, told the jury that he personally believed Palmer to be innocent.Knott (1912) p. 267 The prosecution team of Alexander Cockburn and John Walter Huddleston possessed fine forensic minds and proved forceful advocates, especially in demolishing the testimony of defence witness Jeremiah Smith, who had insisted that he had no knowledge of Palmer's taking out life insurance on his brother, despite Smith's signature being on the form. Palmer expressed his admiration for Cockburn's cross-examination after the verdict through the racing metaphor, "It was the riding that did it."Knott (1912) p. 3
Circumstantial evidence came to light: