Do you remember playing conkers at school? You drilled through a horse chestnut, put a knotted string through the middle and tried to hit your opponent’s conker with your own. The winner was the one who broke their opponent’s conker. It was a popular game, the chestnuts were free, and there was always a spare bit of string lying about, so what could possibly go wrong?
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On 14 October 1901, two school friends were playing the game after school in the street near their homes. 12-year-old Edward Churchill lived at No.14 Ariel Road and his friend Joseph Statham, also 12, lived at No.2 Loveridge Road, close to the corner where the boys were standing. Joseph aimed at Edward’s conker which he hit but it did not break. Unfortunately, the blow shattered Joseph’s own conker. Angry at the outcome, Joseph picked up a broken piece and without thinking, threw it across the road, as a horse-drawn van was passing by. The driver was Charles John Jones, aged 26, who worked for the Stonebridge Park Laundry.
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A horse-drawn laundry van
The broken piece of conker hit the horse and it bolted. Jones quickly regained control of the horse and looked for the culprit. Seeing Joseph, he got down and hit the boy on the head, near his right ear, in Jones’ own words, ‘I gave him a clout in the head.’ And according to Edward he also kicked Joseph on the left side.
Joseph stumbled and ran off down Ariel Road closely followed by Edward. On reaching the corner with Loveridge Road, Joseph asked for help but he was too heavy for Edward to hold up and both boys fell to the pavement. Edward managed to drag Joseph into his home. Joseph lay on the kitchen floor while Edward’s mum sent her son for Dr Kingsford who lived nearby on Shoot-up-Hill. By the time the doctor arrived Joseph was dead. According to Mrs Churchill, he died about 10 minutes after being brought into the house, without saying a word.
The arrest
The police arrived at Jones’ home early next morning. Jones admitted hitting Joseph but strongly denied kicking him. When he was told what had happened, he was very shocked and said, ‘Dead? Good God! I will speak the truth!’ and he began to cry. He was arrested and appeared in Marylebone Magistrates Court on 15 October charged with Joseph’s manslaughter. Despite being told Jones was regarded as, ‘a most inoffensive man,’ the magistrate denied bail and he was taken to Holloway Prison.
The inquest
The local paper described the pathetic scene of Mrs Statham in tears at the inquest on the 18th. Edward repeated his account of what had happened but now said he was uncertain if Jones had kicked his friend. Dr Kingsford had carried out the post-mortem and told the court there were no marks on Joseph’s body, and that that his internal organs were all normal. The coroner asked Dr Kingsford if it was the case Joseph had fainted and never regained consciousness? Yes, replied the doctor, there was no sign of brain or any other injury, death was due to syncope – fainting and sudden loss of blood to the brain. But he couldn’t say how much was due to fright or how much to the blow. His parents described Joseph as fairly healthy if very excitable, while Edward said he was prone to fainting fits. Dr Kingsford further testified that if Joseph had been a strong boy, the blow would not have killed him.
The jury’s verdict was ‘Death from misadventure caused by fright.’
The trial
At Jones’ next appearance in Court on the 22 October his solicitor argued;
‘There was no doubt the accused lost his temper and did an unlawful act, but he submitted that no jury would convict him and he therefore asked the magistrate to deal with the case.’
The magistrate disagreed, saying Charles had to go to trial, but this time he did allow bail, set at £20.
Charles duly appeared at the Old Bailey in November charged with manslaughter. When it was pointed out that the medical evidence had failed to show Joseph’s death was due to the blow to his head, the charge against Jones was dismissed and he was released.
Joseph Statham’s burial service was held at St James’s Church, West End Lane and he was buried in Hampstead Cemetery on 19 October, in a public grave near its western boundary. There were many wreaths, including one from Netherwood Street Board School, which he had attended.
The aftermath
When the 1911 census was taken, John Statham and his wife Mary were living in Ruislip. He gave his occupation as builder’s labourer, while she described her work as ‘caretaker of a private house’, possibly the house they were living in. They had been married for 22 years. A poignant touch is their inclusion and subsequent deletion of Joseph’s name on the census form. It showed he had been their only child.
We found some interesting information about the laundry in Stonebridge Park.
White Heather Laundry, and Garrard Engineering
The White Heather Laundry was established in Alric Avenue and Bruce Road Stonebridge Park in 1898, apparently by three young men from Oxford or Cambridge University (newspaper reports differ). In January 1911 they sank a well to supply water for the laundry on their two and a half acre site. At 2,225 feet this is one of the deepest artesian wells ever drilled in this country and is reflected today by the name of a road on the old site, Artesian Close.
A few years ago we wrote a story about a modern attempt to drill for oil on the site:
http://kilburnwesthampstead.blogspot.com/2018/10/drilling-for-oil-and-gas-in-willesden.html
The White Heather Laundry provided a high-class laundry service. But when the ladies of London sent their undergarments to be ‘got up’ or cleaned in Paris, business at the Laundry suffered. In 1905 as a clever publicity stunt, they held an exhibition of washing of ‘Fine Lingerie’ in the Grafton Art Galleries to show they could compete with Paris. The company was successful and by 1908, 400 women were employed at the laundry.
They subsequently won contracts to deal with the laundry of the Royal Family, and in 1926 the Duke of York visited the works at Stonebridge Park where he saw the King’s shirts being ironed in the ‘royal wing’. Over time they held several Royal warrants, including those for The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The London Gazette records that the White Heather Laundry (London) Ltd was wound up in 1973.
Garrard Engineering
In 1915 the Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company, a division of Garrard Jewellers, secretly opened a factory at the laundry site to manufacture precision range finders for the British Artillery. After the war ended, and with the increasing popularity of gramophones, Garrard recognized the need for spring-wound motors for 78rpm record players. In 1919, when the White Heather Company requested their premises back, Garrard moved to Swindon, making gramophone motors for Columbia, Decca, and HMV. The company decided to produce a prestige turntable model which quickly found success, being adopted by the BBC, other broadcasters, and cinemas. The now famous Garrard deck became a key component of domestic Hi Fi systems to be installed in various platforms, with matching plinth, tone-arm and pickup cartridge.
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