WRITING STORIES - The Lawless Early Days of Print

 

I doubt you could have missed the pair, seated in the Swan tavern on Fleet Street in London, that 28 March,  1716.  Last to arrive was the infamous publisher, pornographer and plagiarist Edmund Curll, a scarecrow of a man, tall and thin, splayfooted, and with gray goggle eyes that threatened to burst from his pale face like a cartoon character. He was so ugly no image of him survives.

Waiting for him like a spider on his web was one the greatest poets in history, the oft quoted and revered deformed genius Alexander Pope (above), with a Roman nose and a spine so twisted he stood barely four feet six inches tall from his stylish shoes to the top of the hump on his back. 

Curll (above, right) thought he had been invited to settle their disagreements. Pope (above, left) intended upon doing just that, by poisoning his guest's beer. 

Later Pope joyfully wrote a mocking obituary of his victim (above), under the name of an Eye Witness. It was titled   “A Full and True Account of a Horrid and Barbarous Revenge by Poison on the Body of Mr. Edmund Curll, bookseller...To be published weekly”. Curll was not killed, but he did projectile vomit until he wished his was dead. It was like a scene from Animal House. Ah, good times among the 18^th century London literati. 

Publishing was in its youth, as young as the internet is today, and just as chaotic, dishonest, unregulated, and unencumbered by a functional business model. 

In 1688 there were only 68 printing presses in London, all controlled by members of the Stationer's  Guild.  But in 1695 Parliament refused to renew that company's monopoly, setting off a decade of pure anarchy. 

Daniel Defoe (above) of "Robinson Crusoe" and "Moll Flanders" fame, noted, “One man studies seven year(s), to bring a finished piece into the world, and a pirate printer....sells it for a quarter of the price ... these things call for an Act of Parliament".  

In 1702 Defoe himself was fined and sentenced to be pilloried (above), but his fans threw flowers instead of rotten fruit. Then, finally, in 1710 Parliament obliged with The Statue of Anne - she was queen at the time - which created a 14 year copyright for authors. 

Still, six years later one author felt required to poison a pirate printer – by making him vomit for 24 straight hours, and then attacking him again in print with his obituary set to rhyme .

“Next o'er his books his eyes begin to roll,

In pleasing memory of all he stole;
How here he sipp'd, how there he plunder'd snug,
And suck'd all o'er like an industrious bug.”

Alexander Pope (above)  The Dunciad (1728)

Pope's public justification for the poisoning of  Edmund Curl was as revenge for embarrassing him in eyes of the smart and lovely Lady Mary Montagu (above). 

The morally pompous and socially inept poet Pope (above, right), so famous for his version of Shakespeare and translations of Homer that he was nicknamed “the Bard”, was smitten with the lady. They even maintained a correspondence.  And then Pope privately published one of her poems, under a pseudonym of course, since  nobility were not supposed to engage in actual writing or publication – it smacked of stooping to actually earning a living.  But copies of the ladies' poem were discretely passed about the English court. 

But soon, Curll was selling bootleg copies on the streets for 3pence, humilating the lady and by extension, Pope who had set her up for this dishonor. So Pope could claim he was defending the lady's honor, and not his own when he poisoned Curll.

Pope then attacked Curll  again (among others) in an epic insulting poem, published under the title of “Dunciad”.  

Curll responded by pirating the poem about his own attempted murder, even publishing an annotated version, also called a “key”. Mocked Curll, “How easily two wits agree, one writes the poem, one writes the key”.

Of course, Edmund Curll was not quite the “shameless Curll” Pope portrayed – not quite. He was infamous for keeping a revolving stable of struggling quill drivers “three in a bed” in the “low-rent flophouses, brothels, and coffeehouses” jammed into Grub Street (above), just off the Fleet Street when his own offices were. 

Originally “grub” referred to the roots and insect larval uncovered when the street was originally scrapped out. Eventually the address was adopted as a badge of honor by the poverty stricken occupants (above), like the eventual great biographer Samuel Johnson, or Ned Ward, who considered his own profession as “scandalous...as whoring....”.

These grubs were hack writers, named after the ubiquitous horse drawn Hackney cabs that plied London's streets, going where ever their paying passengers demanded. 

Which usually meant, obscenity, which as today, always sold well, as did insults and visual attacks on the pompous and well to do - like Pope (above). The occasional advance, paid to a hungry writer was called a “grub stake”, and the pitiful meals they could afford were “grub”.  

The Irishman Jonathan Swift (above), eventual creator of “Gulliver's Travels”, grandiosely referred to this literary sub-culture as "the Republica Grubstreet-aria." But like Johnson, Swift was clever enough and lucky enough to eventually escape the life as a mere grub.

In fact, Curll employed no more Grub Street warriors than any other Fleet Street baron. But he was particularly adept at supplying what the public wanted - licentious sex, and manufactured controversy. Curll paid grubs to engage in a “pamphlet war” - much like the Fox News' war on Christmas and on American democracy.

...as in the 1712 trial of Jane Wehham (above) for witchcraft - she was convicted and executed several times over on grub street and with much profit on Fleet street.

Curll also printed cheap pirated books that sold for a mere shilling, thus undercutting the actual author's authorized editions. Acknowledged one critic, Edmund Curll, “...had no scruples either in business or private life, but he published and sold many good books.”  The dirty and stolen books he published illegally paid for the good books he published legally. 

With Pope's urging, Curll was convicted of obscenity in 1716, and twice more in 1725. In 1726, Curll struck back by befriending the mistress of a Pope confident. 

She passed to Curll several letters in which the arrogantly moral Pope admitting to lusting after the Blount Sisters, Terresa and Martha. In one purloined missive Pope wrote,  “How gladly would I give all that I am worth, for one of their maidenheads.” Embarrassed and angered, Pope helped engineer yet another Curll conviction in February of 1727. 

This time the outrage could not be hushed up and the frustrated and exasperated royal court fined Curll and ordered him pilloried for an hour. At the mercy of the mob, Curll was spared the usual bombardment of rotted food and manure when, before he made his appearance, a pamphlet was read to the well armed crowd, claiming Curll was being punished for defending the recently departed Queen Anne. Thus misinformed, the mob threw nothing and after his hour in the block, carried Curll home on their shoulders. Pope was infuriated and determined to even the score.  Which was probably the real reason he poisoned Curll. 

One of Edmund Curll's most profitable ventures was what came to be called “Curlicisms”. When a well known figure died, Curll would advertise a forthcoming biography, and ask the public for any anecdotes about or letters from the deceased. Then, without validating the submissions Curll would hire a Grub street hack to string them together into an instant and usually inaccurate biography, creating what one potential subject described as “one of the new terrors of death.”

Curll had done this when the Duke of Buckingham died in 1721. But Buckingham had been a peer, a member of the House of Lords, and that body summoned Curll for interrogation. 

Curll was unrepentant, since it was not a crime to publish writings of a peer without their permission. So the Lords made it illegal, and in this Pope saw a new opportunity to again injure Curll.

In 1731 Curll announced a upcoming “Curlicism” of Alexander Pope, himself; “Nothing shall be wanting,” Curll assured his potential readers, “but his (universally desired) death.” Again Curll called for submissions and a mysterious figured identified only as “P.T.” offered letters written by Pope to the Lord of Oxford.  

In 1734 Curll published his vicious biography of Pope which quoted from the Lord of Oxford letters. The next year Pope published his own “Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years”, including the same letters to Oxford.  But the details in Pope's version did not match those published by Curll, as Pope pointed out when he alleged Curll had violated the privilege of a member of the House of Lords and worse, slandered the Lord of Oxford while doing it. The trap was sprung.

The only problem was, Curll again refused to repent. Called again before the Lords, Curll quipped, "Pope has a knack of versifying, but in prose I think myself a match for him.” And in fact as well. 

The Duke of Oxford (above) still had the original letters in his files and Curll was able to call them to be examined by the Lords.  Surprise! The texts of the originals did not match those supplied by the mysterious P.T.  So, asked Curll, where had P.T.'s inaccurate versions come from? Curll produced P.T.'s letters so the Lords could judge for themselves who was implicated by the handwriting. 

For a few days, the city of London, or that section that cared about such things, held its breath. And then an ad appeared in a small newspaper offering 20 guineas if P.T. would come forward to admit he had “acted by the direction of any other person.”  

P.T., of course did not collect the reward. And the ploy fooled no one – Pope had written the originals and the fakes and even the ad, and everybody knew it. The House found a political solution; since the published letters were fakes, the law had not been broken. Case closed, except Pope now had even more egg on his face.

Wrote Curll, “Crying came our bard into the world, but lying, it is to be feared, he will go out of it.”.

And so he did.  Pope died on 30 May, 1744, and Edmund Curll followed him in December of 1747.

Thus, Curll earned the last word. He described his relationship with Pope this way, “A fitter couple was never hatched, Some married are, indeed, but we are matched”.

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FANNY ADAMS

 

I am not surprised that on Christmas Eve morning, when the noose was slipped around his neck, twenty-nine year old Frederick Baker issued an apology to the parents of "Sweet" Fanny Adams.  However, his atonement, like so much else in his life,  was a lie.  

This lie was told among the deceptively peaceful rolling green fields and gentle streams of Hampshire, England, specifically, in the ancient, "...pleasant little market town..." of Alton.  It's name was proof of it's longevity,  "Aewieltun" being Anglo-Saxon for "the farm at the spring".  

The surrounding woodlands had been labeled "The New Forest" as far back as the Doomsday Book in the year 1086. The town itself was for centuries a top producer of wool and mutton,  and it was surrounded by acres of barely and hops which produced the popular Alton Ales in the town's two breweries. 

But in 1867 the industrial revolution was also brewing among it 4,000 citizens. 

London was 43 miles to the northeast, a two and 1/2 day horse drawn coach ride via the High Road. 

But the decade old London and South Western Railway now carried people and produce there in 2 hours. In this year of 1867, for the first time, more people in Hampshire were employed in industry than in farming.

Skilled workers in Alton were riding this wave, such as bricklayer George Adams, his wife Harriet and their seven children. They were participants in a creation of the world's first middle class.  Strikes, beginning in 1851, had earned bricklayers a 9 hour workday, half day off on Saturdays, and wage increases.  And George was an employee of the largest builder in England - the Dyers. 

Working for the Dyers meant that George could depend on a regular wage, and worked with solicitors in drawing up contracts and budgeting jobs. 

Bricklayers learned these skills during a seven year apprenticeship. And once accepted into the trade men such as George Adams then oversaw as many apprentices and laborers as each job required. They were what we today would today referrer to as sub-contractors. 

As proof of their social status, George and Harriet Adams had their own town home, on 400 yard long TanHouse Lane (Above, below the "plus" to the left of the church center screen, and below).  His parents lived next door, likely in a house he helped pay for.

On the particularly hot and clear Saturday afternoon of  24 August, 1867,  George Adams was not at work, nor on TanHouse Lane (above). He was engaging in that most Victorian of public exercises, playing cricket on The Butts.

The field (above) had originally been set aside so long bowmen could perfect their skills. The  cone shaped earthen backstops to catch errant arrows were called butts. But Long Bows had been out of style since Saint Crispen's day in 1415. Instead, since 1750, Alton had fielded a cricket team, which practiced and held matches where bowmen once practiced, on the southern side of town. 

Harriet Adams was home this Saturday, as she was most days, caring for the youngest of her seven children. The elder of her brood were at work in the house or doing what they could to add to the families income.

Meanwhile, eight year old neighbor Minnie Warner (above, left) and seven year old Lizzie Adams (above, right) were playing in the flood meadow at the end of TanHouse Lane. With them was Lizzie's elder sister, eight year old Fanny.

"Sweet" Fanny Adams" was tall for her 8 years, a "... comely and intelligent girl", with a "lively and cheerful disposition". The only photo we have of her  (above) shows her at no more than four or five years of age, with her long blond hair done in curls. That the daguerreotype was taken at all, indicates her parent's middle class pride in their Sweet Fanny and a disposable income which could pay for such a memento.

The flood meadow where the girls were playing was owned by a man named Hobbs, who grew leeks around the edges of the often flooded land.  The meadow was, in fact, the unlikely source of the River Wey, which gathered strength while flowing north to eventually join The Thames. 

Beyond the meadow, crisscrossing foot paths bisected hop and barley fields. 

One of those footpaths, known as the Hollow, led across fields and farms to the even smaller village of Shalden, some two miles to the northwest.

Some time after 1:30 that afternoon of 24 August, 1867, a man with a sallow complexion, and dressed in a black frock coat, a light colored waistcoat, trousers and a top hat, approached the three girls. The girls  knew him from their church, and he seemed pleasant enough, although the girls recognized at once he had been drinking.  The man offered the two smaller girls, Minnie and Lizzie, a half penny each if they would race each other up the Hallow to the next field. The girls eagerly agreed and quickly set off, with Fanny and the man following.

When they rejoined at the new field, the man congratulated the two girls and paid them. He then offered all three another half penny each if they would go with him into a nearby field (above) and eat some berries. Again, the offer of coin was a strong inducement and the three girls opened the gate and went into the field with the man. They spent some time eating berries, before the man offered Fanny a ha'penny (a half penny) if she would walk with him to Shalden. 

Fanny took the coin, but something made her refuse to take the man’s hand. He paid Minnie and Lizzie a final ha'penny and told them to go home. Then he swept little Fanny up in his arms and carried her away (above), up the Hollow.  It was about 2:00pm, Saturday, 24 August, 1867.

According to a study released by the American state of Washington, 136 years after Fanny's ordeal,  

44 % of child murder victims were killed by strangers and 42% by family or acquaintances. Two thirds of the perpetrators had prior arrests for violent crimes, but just half had prior arrests for crimes against children. In 76% of homicide cases involving child abduction, the child was dead within three hours of being kidnapped. And in 74% of the cases, the victim was a female under the age of 11. 

Of course none of this explains why Frederick Baker, the drunken man in the frock coat, sexually assaulted 8 year old Fanny Adams, then killed her and later returned to butcher her corpse. The crime itself may be beyond explanation or understanding. And that may be the saddest thing of all about Fanny's brutal death; the idea that there is little we can do or have done to prevent it from happening again and again and again.

A few minutes after 2:00pm a young boy saw a man in black frock coat come out of the hop garden (above)  north of the flood meadow. He noticed the man because his hands and clothes were spotted  with blood. The boy thought the man might have killed an animal, but his was not dressed as a hunter. 

The man bent down at the edge of the River Wey (above) to wash his hands and dabbed at the stains on his clothing with a hankercheif, before rising and walking back toward town.  The boy was bothered enough by what he saw that he ran to his own home on TanHouse Lane and told his mother.  She agreed what he saw was unusual, but she told no one else.

Meanwhile, Minnie and Lizzie had returned to the Adams home (above), and in a jumbled account, attempted to explain to Harriet Adams about the man and the blue berries and the race and the pennies. Clearly, Harriet did not understand. Why should she? There had not been a murder in Alton within living memory. Nor had there ever been a child abduction.  She sent the children back outside to play while she returned to her chores.

Sometime before 3:00pm, 29 year old Frederick Baker returned to the offices of solicitor William B. Clements, on the Alton's High Street, opposite the Swan Hotel and Pub. Baker had worked for the past year for Clements as a clerk,  and the other employees noted he was late returning from lunch, which was unusual for him.  Baker remained hunched over his desk, scribbling,  for over an hour. Then he left again without explanation. 

As the hour of 5:00pm arrived yet another neighbor on TanHouse Lane, a Mrs. Gardner, went outside to usher her own children home for dinner. When she noticed Lizzie Adams was alone, she asked where her older sister was.  Both Lizzie and Maude Warner now explained again about the man in the frock coat carrying Fanny off.  And this time an adult heard the girls.  Mrs. Gardner immediately told Harriet Adams, and the two women set off to the Flood Meadow (above) in search of Fanny.

Not finding the girl in the meadow, the women started up the Shadow (above, left), and almost immediately ran into Fredrick Baker, heading back toward town. The assertive Mrs. Gardner recognized the man from the girl's description and challenged him, demanding to know what he had done with the child.  Baker assured the women he had left Fanny playing in the hop fields. He often gave pennies to the neighborhood children, he added, so they could buy sweets. Mrs. Gardner was suspicious and said, "I have a great mind to give you in charge of the police".   Baker casually replied she could do what she liked, and walked off. After a moment of indecision the women returned to TanHouse Lane and their hungry families.

Fredrick Baker returned directly to the High Street offices of solicitor Clements (above, now a private home).  There, another clerk, Maurice Biddle, was disturbed enough by Bakers' manner that he asked what had happened. Fredrick recounted his run in with Mrs Gardner and Mrs Adams. "It will be very awkward for me if the child is murdered" he said. Biddle took this as an attempt at humor and returned to his own work.

About 6:00pm, Biddle invited Baker to join him across the high street at the Swan Hotel and Public House (above, right, under lantern). He later testified that while morosely drinking a pint of ale, Fredrick suggested he might leave town, perhaps as early as Monday.  Biddle pointed out that Fredrick might have trouble finding another job which paid as well as the one he had. Baker replied, "I could go as a butcher."  A few moments later, although it was now after regular office hours, Fredrick Baker returned to the north side of High Street, saying he was going to finish the work he had failed to complete that afternoon. 

By 7:00pm, with still no sign of Fanny, and with about an hour until sunset, Harriet Adams began to panic. Since many of the men had returned home from work, a search party quickly descended on the Hop garden. They found what they did not want to find almost immediately. 

Fanny's head was discovered by laborer Thomas Gates, who was a veteran of the Charge of the Light Brigade. The girl's head was stuck atop two hop poles. jammed into her neck, her blood stained hair drawing attention.  Her naked torso was nearby.  Her arms and legs had been roughly cut and ripped away and scattered haphazardly.  One foot was found, still in a shoe. And clutched firmly in one palm were the two penny which Baker had given to Fanny.  The contents of her pelvis and chest, including her heart, liver and intestines,  had been removed and tossed about the hop garden.  

Her eyes were found in the shallow River Wey (above).   Did Frederick think throwing her eyes in the river was going to keep anyone from seeing what he had done?  House painter, William Walker, recovered a large stone from the hop garden, smeared with blood and strands of blond hair and flesh. 

When what had happened to Fanny was undeniable, Harriet collapsed with grief.  George, when he  returned home, retrieved his shotgun - another sign of his middle class status. Friends were able to get the weapon out of his hands, and offer some comfort and beer. 

Alton Police Superintendent William Cheyney was already familiar with Fredrick Baker (above).  In his short time in Alton, Baker had already been arrested for drunkenness and for fighting. About 9:00pm that Saturday night,  Cheyney found his suspect still in Clement's law offices and arrested him.  Baker insisted he knew nothing about Fanny's murder. 

And then, to protect him from the angry crowd already gathering on the High Street, Cheyney slipped the suspect out the back door and escorted him down the street to the safety of the police station (above). There Baker was searched. In his pant pockets they found two small knives. Spots of blood were observed on his shirt cuffs. And his trousers were soaking wet, indicating they had been washed recently. When asked about the blood, Baker remained "cool and collected" and claimed the blood was his own, but could not point to any cuts.

The following day was a Sunday. After church services, search parties returned to the hop garden where they recovered a few more random parts of Fanny's body and most of her clothing, ripped and cut into shreds. However they never found her hat.

On Monday morning, 26 August, while Alton's meager police force (above, in front of their station) guarded the prisoner, Superintendent Cheyney returned to the law offices and searched Baker's desk. In it he found a daily diary, written in Fredrick's hand. The entry for Saturday, 24 August, 1867 read, "Killed a young girl. It was fine and hot."

Tuesday evening, 27 August, saw the inquest before Deputy County Coroner Robert Harfield at the Duke's Head Inn (above). Fanny's poor body, now sewn back together as best it could be, was presented as evidence.  Superintendent Cheyney filled in the details of Baker's arrest, and the contents of his diary. When asked if he had anything to say, Fredrick Baker replied, "No, sir. Only that I am innocent." The jury quickly returned a verdict of "willful murder against Fredrick Baker for killing and slaying Fanny Adams".

On Wednesday, 28 August they laid Sweet Fanny Adams to rest in the Alton Cemetery, some 1,500 feet from what had been her home.  The Reverend W. Wilkins delivered the graveside address to a crowd of hundreds. Initially her grave marker was wooden, but in 1872 it was replaced with a head stone. Shortly after the funeral the Adams family left Alton. Harriet never returned. In his old age George came back once, to spend time at Fanny's grave.

On Thursday morning, 29 August, the London newspapers were filled with the gory details. The Standard claimed, "No tiger of the jungle, no jackal...could so fearfully have mutilated it's victim." And the Daily Telegraph described the murderer as "...a ferocious human being...(who could) take a girl child...and after unspeakably brutish treatment, chop her body into pieces and scatter them about.."

That same day the Alton magistrates held their trial in the town hall and formalized the coroner's jury verdict.  Fredrick Baker was then transported twenty miles to the southwest to Winchester Prison (above) where he was to be tried at the next assizes by a crown court.  Anger in the crowds had reached a pitch, and it was only by forceful police action that Baker was safely escaped justice in Alton.

The assizes were English and Welsh crown courts presided over by visiting judges. They usually considered only the most serious criminal charges, and Baker's murder trial was set for Thursday, 5 December, 1867, in the Great Hall of Winchester Castle (above) under what purported to have been King Arthur's round table, now on the wall. It's still there. 

The trial was presided over by 58 year old Judge John Mellon (above).  Minnie Warner was carried into the court room to testify under oath that Fredrick Baker was the man who had walked off with Fanny Adams. The defense grilled her intensely, but she never wavered. Then Mrs. Gardner testified about her encounter with Baker, just after 5:00pm. 

Perhaps the most damning new testimony came from Professor A.S. Taylor (above) from Guy's Hospital in London. He had done a full autopsy of the battered corpse and had discovered the body had been mutilated after death, but while still warm. He also explained that one of the knives found in Baker's pockets had a small amount of coagulated human blood on the blade.  

The defense pleaded insanity. The Barrister , Mr. Carter, described Baker as  "a weak, puny, excitable character", who had moved to Alton after a suicide attempt, brought on by a broken engagement. His father, a Guildford tailor, had ...shown an inclination to assault, even to kill, his own children", and attacked Fredrick and his sister with a fireplace poker. The sister had later died of a "brain fever", and a cousin had been hospitalized in mental institutions four separate times. None of this mitigating evidence had any effect on the jury. 

They took 15 minutes to find Baker guilty of the murder of Fanny Adams. Judge Mellon immediately sentenced Fredrick to be hanged. 

Sitting in his cell in Winchester prison (above), Frederick Baker composed a message to George and Harriet Adams. He wrote that he was sorry for having murdered their Fanny, and had done it in “an unguarded hour” and only then because she would not stop crying. It was done, he insisted without “malice aforethought” and without “…pain or struggle”. Frederick assured the grieving parents he had not molested Fanny, but he offered no other explanation as to why she had been crying when he had smashed her head with the rock. He signed his apology,  "From a guilty but repentant culprit, Frederick Baker." Christmas Eve morning, at 8:00am sharp, Fredrick Baker had a noose slipped around his neck and pulled tight. Then the trap door he stood on was opened.

During his fifty year career as a hangman, William Calcraft (above), ushered some 450 souls to their final reward,  and Fredrick Baker's execution would be far from his last job, although it would be one of the last public hangings.  The problem was, "Short Drop" Calcraft  was "particularly incompetent" at his job.

It was Calcraft’s technique of dropping his subjects no more than 18 inches which insured all 450 would take from three to four minutes to slowly strangle to death, kicking and writhing as Fredrick Baker did, in full view of the 5,000 people (mostly women) gathered to witness his well earned demise. And the confession Baker had made and the denial it included were simply final proof that Fredrick Baker was a liar to the very last moment of his life. 

Later that morning technicians from Madame Trussauds' took a death mask of Fredrick Baker, and within 10 days he took his place in the museum's Chamber of Horrors on London's Baker Street - item number 223 in their 1868 catalogue. His head mold was destroyed on 9 September, 1940 during the Nazi bombing blitz. 

The execution of Frederick Baker, was as gruesome as any parent of a murdered child might wish. But his slow agony did nothing to save the lives of the uncounted children who have followed Fanny. 

But every child saved during the vital first three hours of an abduction by an Amber Alert, must thank Donna and Jimmy Hagerman, who in 1996 pushed to change the way U.S. police respond to child abductions, after their daughter, Amber Hagerman (above) was kidnaped and murdered. And those children saved by Amber's sacrifice can also thank those who ask questions of these monsters in our midst, rather than simply calling for their blood. Spilling blood may be a just punishment, but it has never saved a life.

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