In 1847, Thomas Hickman, his wife Harriet and their six children, aged from 16 months to 12 years old, were living in Penton Villas, a two-room cottage in Middle Row Kensal New Town.
The open countryside around Kensal Green began to change at the turn of the nineteenth century, with the building of the Grand Junction Canal to Paddington (1801) and two years later, the first burials at Kensal Green Cemetery. A large gas works opened south of the canal in 1845 while the Great Western Railway line started running trains from Paddington in 1848. Subsequent street and house building had to adapt itself to these early developments.
An area of land sandwiched between the railway and canal was developed from the late 1830s onwards, with narrow streets lined with small houses. Named Kensal New Town, the properties soon became overcrowded and insanitary. The area was called ‘Chelsea in the Wilderness’ because it was distant from, but nonetheless under the local government of the vestry of St Luke Chelsea. Manual work was plentiful for the generally unskilled residents, and this area, together with neighbouring streets in South Acton, gained the nickname ‘Soap Sud Island’ because of the numerous laundries that provided employment for female residents. In 1899, Booth’s Survey of London noted Kensal New Town was poor, and likely to become poorer.
On Sunday 30 May 1847 about two o’clock in the afternoon, the Hickmans had a meal of baked mutton and rhubarb pudding. They ate the pudding first to fill themselves up with stodgy food before starting on the more expensive mutton which had to feed the six children and three adults. In addition to the parents, Harriet’s sister Caroline Bonmee, a domestic servant who had left her live-in situation the previous week, was staying with the Hickman family in the crowded cottage. At the time Harriet was several months pregnant with their seventh child. After eating the pudding and before they started on the mutton, the whole family became violently sick. The oldest boy said he felt very faint, had a pain in his chest, and was very thirsty, with a burning in his throat before vomiting.
Thomas asked his neighbour Ann Sullivan to get Dr Abercrombie who lived close by. He arrived with a colleague to find the dreadful sight of nine very ill people. He soon suspected arsenic poisoning and sent for Dr George Brown of Kensal Green and Dr Robert Barnes of Notting Hill.
After ruling out the practical use of stomach pumps, emetics were administered, and tea was given to keep the victims hydrated. Despite the efforts of all the doctors, five of the children died that evening. The next day Thomas Hickman also died, leaving just Harriet, her sister Caroline and the oldest boy alive.
The doctors tried to find out what had happened. Caroline said that morning, knowing her sister was feeling unwell, she set about lighting the fire. In a cupboard she found two paper flour bags, one full having been bought the day before, the other almost empty. Transferring the little it contained into the new bag, she used the old paper bag to start the fire.
Before he died, Thomas who was horrified by what had happened, said that he liked to experiment with various chemicals at home to make glass. For many years he kept white arsenic (which was used in glass manufacture) in his old house stored in a bottle, and when the bottle was accidently broken, he put the remains into a flour bag. After they moved house, the bag containing the arsenic was transferred into the food cupboard. This was the bag that Caroline had emptied into the flour.
Thomas was born in 1814 in Clerkenwell where his father was a lace maker. At age eight he started work in the large glass making factory of Apsley Pellatt at the Falcon Glass House in Holland Street Blackfriars. He was a bright boy who could read and write, and 16 years later he was working as a bookkeeper for Falcon Glass. However, in February 1838 he appeared in the Old Bailey charged with stealing and selling 70 dozen bottles valued at £4 (worth about £400 today), from the factory. Thomas was found guilty, but in court evidence was given of his good character and the prosecutor recommended mercy. The judge sentenced Hickman to one year’s imprisonment in Newgate Goal.
In June 1833 Thomas had married Harriet Bonmee, Bonamy or Bonomay (spelled in various ways). He joined the Metropolitan Police in Marylebone’s D Division in 1840 with warrant number D 204. At the time the family were living in Westbourne Road Paddington. The 1841 census showed they had moved to Prospect Cottage in Kensal New Town. The following year they were in Bolton Cottage. At the time of the incident, they had recently moved again to Penton Villas.
Thomas got into debt and had recently resigned from the Met for unknown reasons. To avoid his debtors, he started spending time away from the home, returning late at night or at weekends only. To earn a little money, he delivered washing for Harriet and other ‘Soap Sud’ laundresses.
As news of the horror spread, large crowds assembled outside the cottage. There was talk about Thomas Hickman’s absences from home and his resignation from the police force. Perhaps he killed his family and tried to commit suicide? There were previous reports that arsenic was used by women to get rid of people, so both Caroline and Harriet came under suspicion. There were lots of rumours attempting to explain the extraordinary event.
Unbelievably, the post mortem examinations took place in the front room of the cottage where Harriet Hickman was convalescing in the back room. They produced conclusive evidence of arsenic poisoning.
Thomas Wakley was the coroner for West Middlesex and founding editor of The Lancet, who had once lived in West End - today’s West Hampstead. He was aware of the many rumours circulating and needed to establish the cause of the deaths.
He conducted the inquest at the local Portobello Arms in Kensal Green with a jury of 16 people who visited the cottage to see the six bodies. They were visibly shocked by the sight of the dead father and his five children. After hearing all the evidence, the jury agreed that the Hickmans had died from the effects of the arsenic mixed into the rhubarb pudding. Caroline was unaware anything was wrong with the flour, and while Thomas Hickman had been careless in having poisons in the house, it was acknowledged that no one had meant any harm. It was found to be a tragic accident.
On Friday 4 June crowds gathered to watch a one-horse hearse set out from Middle Row for St Luke’s in Chelsea, bearing the five coffins. Neighbours kindly lent a horse and cart to transport family members to the funeral. Harriet was too sick to join the other mourners who watched as Thomas and the five children were buried in the same grave.
To the doctors’ surprise, Harriet did not lose the baby she was carrying and gave birth to Edward on 2 November 1847. She moved away from Kensal New Town, and at the time of the 1851 census she was at 5 Lower Cambridge Street (now Camley Street) in St Pancras. Living with her were little Edward, and her son Thomas, who at fifteen was a traveling salesman in the glove trade. Ten years later Harriet married a carpenter called Thomas Hull.
This tragic story was unusual, involving as it did the death of so many people from one family.
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