The Worst Nightmare - part 1

Friday 10th November, 1878

I have been asked to write down what happened in exact detail. I wish I didn't have to even think about it again. If only we could go back and relive yesterday. I could have stopped my brothers
fighting. Then this wouldn't have happened. But it has. Now I will try to comply with the request of the solicitor, Mr. Francis Smith, the man who they found to represent my mother.

Thursday, the 9th of November, was a busy day, and our mother, Elizabeth Sophia Day, was tired. We children were all at home, (except my youngest brother Sam who was staying with our Uncle
and Aunt and Father) which is 59 Upper Wood Street, Old Brompton, Gillingham, Kent. We have a green grocers' shop and Father, who is called Charles James Day, was out with his extra job, as a cab proprietor, so he wasn't there to help. Mother took a short break from the shop to try to get the tea organised. It was late - a little before seven - so the tea had to be a simple affair - just bread and
butter and cheese. She had no time to prepare a proper meal. We were all sitting around the table, with Frank and Fred just across from Mother. Our youngest brother, Sam, who is 5, was staying at our Uncle Joseph Leech's house on Luton Street in Chatham. He and his wife Eliza have six children, including a son Joseph who is Sam's great friend.

I am called Charlie, but my real name is Charles Frank, and I am 14. Fred, is, I mean was, 11, Frank, 8 and a neighbour boy, William Tanner, who is 10, were in our front room, horsing around.
Frank, probably on a dare, decided to try to pinch some sugar cubes from a bowl on the table. Fred objected and clouted him, and there was a tussle between them. Frank then began to quarrel with him. Mother shouted at them, "Are you going to stop it?" but they made no answer and kept on with their quarrelling. She was very angry and shouted at them again, "Stop it will you?" but
they took no notice. They continued with their noise and bother. She must have been at her wits end when the bell went in the shop and she had to go through to wait on a customer.

"Stop this instant," she shouted again, and when they didn't pay any attention, she picked up the knife she was using to butter the bread and threw it in their general direction, not waiting to see the result. Then she rushed off to the shop.

The knife hit Fred in the forehead area, and he screamed, and the blood spurted out. I went into the shop to get Mother and shouted, "Mother come quickly."

The lady customer only wanted some bread, so it only took a minute or two to wait on her and then Mother  rushed back into the front room. Fred was crying with pain, his hand held to his head,
and William seemed to be in shock. There was some blood running down the side of Fred's face. I said, "Oh, look, Mother what you have done." She replied, "I did not mean to do that, but that is
what you get for quarrelling."

"Go quickly in to the shop and get a penny-worth of sticking plasters," she said to me, which I did. She got a clean cloth and wet it from the water pail, and cleaned the blood of Fred's face. She pressed the cloth down hard to try to stop the bleeding. What had happened is that the knife had pieced his left temple. By now the bleeding had almost stopped and the wound closed up, so she
put the plaster over it, and told us to settle back down. She then sent Frank and Fred to Mr Sutton's chemist shop on High Street, to get a penny worth of Dutch Drops to stop the bleeding.

Another name for Dutch Drops is Haarlem Oil and it is mostly sulphur, and the label on the
bottle says it is the perfect weapon to fight liver and kidneys illness, rheumatism, bronchitis. Mother uses it to treat everything.

They came back after about ten minutes. She gave Fred a spoonful of it immediately. Then she gave us our bread and butter and cheese to eat. Fred said he didn't feel like eating, just sat in his
chair and said that his head ached, so Mother took him to go up to his bed and helped him lie down.

Maybe half an hour later, Frank went up too, and, as he and Fred share a bed, lay down beside him. Another half an hour and I went up to check on them, and I thought that Fred was asleep. However, about fifteen minutes later, Frank shouted for me to come because he thought something was very wrong with Fred. So I went back into their room, and found our brother very still and not breathing.
I shouted for Mother and Father to come upstairs.

Mother rushed in, sobbing, and gathered Fred in her arms and held him - but he didn't respond. She started screaming and crying. Father told me to go for the surgeon, Dr. Francis Theobald
Butler, who lives at 4 Garden Street, and the doctor came back with me, about 20 minutes to 9.

Mother and I told him exactly what had happened. He asked Mother why she hadn't sent for him earlier but she told him that she hadn't considered the wound to be dangerous. She said, "He
seemed right enough when he went to the chemist with his brother."

Dr. Butler told us that he was dead, but that because of the circumstances, he had no choice but to do an autopsy, before he signed a death certificate as to the cause of death. And he said that
the police would need to be informed immediately.

Father said he would go to the police which mean driving into Chatham, about a mile away. He was gone about half an hour, and when he came back, a police inspector came too, who was called
Inspector Edward Langley Fisher. Also with him was Superintendent Edward Coppinger. They took statements from Mother, and from me. William had gone home long ago, but they said they would get a statement from him on the next day, and also they asked Frank a few questions, but he hardly knew what to say, he was so upset.

The doctor, who is also the coroner, said he had to take Fred's poor little body away with him, and he told us he would do a post mortem examination tomorrow morning and inform the police of the results. The police said they had to take Mother into the police station to charge her, but told Father
that he would be held responsible for her attendance at the inquest, which they would organise as soon as they could after the results of the autopsy were known. He of course, agreed to do that. And he had to pay some bail money.

We all tried to sleep after that, but I don't think any of us managed it. I could hear Mother sobbing all night long.

When the morning came, Father decided he wouldn't go into work, and we also closed the shop. Most of the neighbours would know by now what had happened. Our next door neighbour lady, Mrs.
Bessie Mattin called in with a stew, so we wouldn't have to worry about getting a meal. She said everyone knew it was an accident and that Mother would never do anything to hurt any of her children.

About midday on Friday, the police inspector came again, and Dr. Butler with him.

He said that he found that the knife wound, which was about an inch in length, had penetrated Fred's left temple and gone through to the skull and the membranes of the brain. On the inner side of the skull was a piece of bone that had broken off and detached itself from the skull. A large clot of blood was found pressing on the skull.

The Doctor brought Fred's body back in, and we put it in the casket that Father had got that morning from Mr. Tanner, William's father, who is a carpenter, on the table in the living room. The Doctor told Mother that his wife had helped him lay Fred out properly. We would have to make plans for the funeral, but not just yet. He looked so small, and sort of waxy - and not at all like he usually looked. His fingernails had gone black.

Inspector Langley Fisher told us that they had arranged for the inquest to be held tomorrow, on Saturday afternoon, and would be held at the Lord Nelson Inn, just down the road from us, so that
Mother could be formally brought to account for her actions. He said that the Coroner for Sittingbourne district of Kent, Mr. William J Harris, would be in charge and there would be a jury to decide what should happen next.

"What will the charges be?" asked Father in a strangled voice.

"It could be anything from murder to misadventure," said the policeman, "but I would think you are most likely to be looking at manslaughter."

Mother turned even paler than she already was. "Will I have to go to prison?"

I should have said before. Mother is in a delicate condition because she is expecting another baby in a few months' time.

"That is not for me to say, Madam," said the Inspector. "There will have to be a trial, and a jury and judge will decide what your future will hold."

Then they excused themselves, and Inspector Langley Fisher went down the road to William Tanner's house to talk with him. William lives at 73 Wood Street. His father who is called George and his mother is called Fannie. He has an older brother, Albert, who is my friend, and three younger sisters.

So Saturday afternoon came, and we all are going down the road to the pub, the Lord Nelson Inn, 47 Wood Street, where the proceedings are to take place in a large room in the back. The witnesses are to be me and Fred's friend William as well as the Doctor. That is why I had to write everything down.

 

Sunday, November 11, 1878

 

The inquest is now over. I suppose I don't have to write anything down now, as my job is over. But I think it is important that I record what happened.

I was very nervous when the coroner for Kent, Mr. Harris,  asked me the questions about what happened, but I answered them honestly. I won't repeat it all again.

When they called William to the stand, he was almost trembling with fear. They asked him to describe where Fredrick was when Mother threw the knife. "There was a table between them,"
he answered.

"And what sort of mood would you say Mrs. Day was in," asked the coroner.

"She was in a temper," he replied.

"And then what happened?" he was asked.

"She left the room to go to the shop, but she didn't know that she had cut Fred," he replied. "Charlie
went after her and she came right back."

The only other witness called was the doctor, and I have already written down what he said to us, and that is what he repeated there - asking why we hadn't called him in earlier - and then giving
his results of the autopsy he did.

Then the coroner did his summing up of the case and said to the jury, "Upon the evidence that you have been given, you would be perfectly justified in returning a verdict of wilful murder against Mrs. Day, the mother; but you could also give a verdict for the minor offence - manslaughter."

The jury were not out very long, and when they returned, they unanimously returned a verdict of "Manslaughter."

Mother, with Father accompanying her, was taken before Mr. Athawes, the stipendary magistrate for Chatham, who admitted her to bail. Mother was overcome with grief. Father filled out various
forms and Mother was granted bail, upon Father's recognisance. I'm not sure what that means but think it means that if Mother ran away, Father would take her place, would be responsible as if he were her.  The trial will be at the Epiphany Assizes in Maidstone, on January 14th.

Mother broke down completely even though she was back home with us. Father said that I should stay off school and manage the shop. We couldn't just abandon it, and Mother was in no state to
deal with anything. Our school is Trinity National School, next to the church. He wrote to the Headmaster, Mr. William Wainwright. I am nearly finished at school anyway, so if I have to quit school in order to help with the shop, I am prepared to do that.

Mother wasn't in a state to make any decisions about the funeral, so Father said he and I would have to do the arrangements between us.

We decided that my youngest brother Sam, should stay where he was for the moment, with Uncle Joseph Leech, Aunt Eliza, and their family, as he was too young to take in all that happened.
Father had gone to visit Joseph on Saturday morning, appraising him of the situation with his sister.

We sent off a telegram to Father's sister, who is two years older than he is, Aunt Emily, Mrs. John Stanley, to give her her proper married name. She is the Matron of the Workhouse in Calne,
Wiltshire. Father very much hopes she will be able to come and help, as she is very practical.

We also sent a telegram to his younger brother David, who lives with his wife and baby in Oxfordshire. He is an organist and music teacher at a school, and Father said he doubted whether he would be able to come.

Our grandfather, Samuel Day, is still alive, but we will not contact him just now.  He probably will not be well enough to attend. Our grandmother was his first wife, and she died a long time ago, and he remarried Charlotte Roberts and she died earlier this year. Now he lives at the Watts Charity Alms Houses on Maidstone Road in Rochester.

There are other brothers from Grandfather's second marriage, William, Mary Ann and John, who is now living in Worcester, and wouldn't be able to come, so there is no immediate reason for us
to contact him immediately. Father can write to him later. I'm not sure where Mary Ann lives. William works at the Gas works in Rochester, and lives with his wife Julia and little girl, May, at 9
Orange Terrace, in Rochester, so they might well be able to come.

Father went to see the Vicar, Rev. Daniel Cooke. Mother and Father want the funeral to be as soon as possible, and he agreed to have it next Saturday, November 18th. We will let our friends and
neighbours know, but for Mother's sake, there will not be the usual wake one normally associates with a funeral. I'm sure Mother will not be well enough to attend, and it is not customary for women to attend anyway.

The funeral went as planned, with perhaps 50 of our friends and neighbours. None of Father's or Mother's extended family were able to come for it, except Uncle Joseph. We buried poor Fred in the
churchyard. I was glad that Mother wasn't there, as the Vicar talked about how Jesus loved little children, and said that if any should cause harm to any of his little ones, they would wish they had never been born.