James Maybrick

[Ged]

Two pics of the Trinity Vaults, one from 1912, the other my own from 1990.

Listed as 211 Athol street and 101 Latimer street. In the 1860s,the premises had the unusual name of the Chanticleer. Some of the locals are congregated on the corner whilst on the left in Athol street, there appears to be a party of school children with their teacher. Three brass balls, indicating a pawn shop faces the pub. This pub has now been converted into flats,the shops and houses either side have gone with neat new houses now surrounding the pub, belying a rather gruesome history.

In 1883,just two doors away from the pub at 105 Latimer Street, seen on the old photograph,lived Catherine Flanagan,a lodging-house keeper. She and her sister, Margaret Higgins, became known as 'the Borgias of the slums', after Lucretia Borgia,a member of an old Italian noble family of Spanish origin, who became notorious as a poisoner.

Whilst living in Skirving Street, they conspired to poison four people, three of them relatives, by using arsenic from flypaper which were sticky strips that were suspended from the ceiling to attract and kill flies, used in most houses up to the 1950s.After collecting the insurance on the deceased,they moved to Latimer street, with their crimes apparently undetected.



However, they were soon on the move again,to the nearby Ascot street. Here, their murderous ways were to continue. Their victim this time, Thomas Higgins, suddenly took ill and, after writhing in excrutiating agony all night, died the next day. His death was certified as being from excessive drinking, but his brother's suspicions were aroused when he discovered that the deceased had life insurance with no less than six companies.

The police were informed and subsequently a post-mortem ordered. This led to the other three bodies being exhumed, to find traces of arsenic in each of them. The two sisters were tried for murder.

It was not until 1889 that another murder trial became internationally famous, that of American born Florence Maybrick, known as the flypaper poisoner. Although contraversial and well documented,the method she allegedly employed had already been used some years earlier by the sisters in question. Although never gaining the publicity of the Maybrick case, the murder trial of the two sisters was avidly followed locally. Eventually they were jointly charged with one murder and were hanged at Kirkdale Gaol during a snow storm in March 1884.

Source: Freddy O'Connor's - A pub on every corner.