Powerstock

A writer commenting on Powerstock in the early 19^th century leaves us with a picture of a poor village at a junction where four lanes meet. He describes the place as consisting of three or four farmhouses, the parsonage, an alehouse and some dilapidated cottages. The church and churchyard are said to be “out of repair” but contrast favourably with the miserable cottages and the filthy heaps before the doors, and the pigsties and ill-kept farmyards. Our distant writer comments that very few people besides the union doctor or a chance friend of the vicar ever came here.

Elizabeth Gale buried her 40 year-old husband at Powerstock on the 14^th of January 1839. It had been a childless marriage and there was nothing, except perhaps public opinion, to stop her accepting an invitation from John Hounsell to go away with him for a few days. They went to Radipole where a proposal of marriage was made and accepted and the couple were intimate. As we saw in part one of our story it was their eagerness to marry that attracted suspicion.

Events now take us to Dorchester where John Hounsell was charged with the wilful murder of his wife and was tried on July 23rd at the Summer Assizes of 1839, before Mr Justice Erskine.

Doctors who conducted the post-mortem on the bodies of Mary Hounsell and James Gale told the Coroner that Mary Hounsell had died from a large dose of arsenic. We know that John Hounsell used arsenic in his work and we might reasonably assume he had some knowledge of its properties, so, if guilty, why would he have used so much?  During the trial it came out that the arsenic was kept in a jar on a shelf over the couple’s bed. Mr Stock, defending, argued successfully that there was no evidence that John Hounsell had administered the arsenic. He did not dispute the opinion of the “medical gentlemen” as to the cause of death but argued that “the evidence was not such as to connect the defendant with administering the arsenic.” After Mr Justice Erskine had “most ably and impressively summed up” it took the jury just a few moments of deliberation to return a verdict of not guilty and a relieved John Hounsell found himself on the pavement of High West Street, Dorchester, as a free man.

If John Hounsell did not administer the poison and Mary did not take her own life was there anyone else with motive and opportunity? Is it conceivable Elizabeth Gale acted alone? Did John Hounsell and Elizabeth Gale conspire together to do away with their spouses? Later events clearly show their relationship was more than that of good neighbours, giving Elizabeth motive.  But Elizabeth Gale can speak for herself: this is what she told the court when called as a witness:

“I am a widow living at Powerstock. James Gale, my husband, died about old Christmas last. I knew Mary Hounsell and her husband. I attended Mary Hounsell on the Monday of the week in which she died. Earlier in her illness I made a sweat for her. The prisoner was present. She was taken ill on the Sunday, and the sweat was made the Tuesday after, and on the Monday after that I was again called for. Her husband carried the sweat to her bedroom. I afterwards went upstairs; her husband was there. She said she was sick and could not take any more; she was vomiting. After Mr Hounsell, the surgeon came. On Friday I sat up with her all night. Mr Hounsell sent medicines for her, in taking which she vomited every time. On Sunday she was better; on Monday morning I went and made some broth, and afterwards gave her some tea, bread and butter. She died about twelve on Thursday night. I was not present, but present just before; her husband was then in the kitchen.”

“Prisoner sent me to Mr Roper, a chemist at Bridport, before the illness of his wife, with a note. Mr Roper gave me a small parcel in paper, which I put in my pocket. The paper broke in my pocket, and some of its contents came out. I afterwards gave the parcel to the prisoner. The day on which Mary Hounsell died I eat some pears which I had in my pocket when I fetched the parcel, and they made me sick all the afternoon and night. There was no peculiar taste in the pears. I examined my pocket the next morning, and found some white powder stuff, which I shook out near the window. I afterwards saw the prisoner. I asked him what was in the parcel I brought from Bridport.  He told me it was poison.

After my husband’s death I was intimate with the prisoner and went to Radipole with him. This might be a fortnight after my husband’s death. Prisoner had made me an offer of marriage; banns were published.”

Under cross examination Elizabeth Gale also told the court: “The sweat was made at the desire of the deceased. It was made of rosemary hyssop and beer. Prisoner is a cattle doctor and people went to him for such complaints as the itch. At the head of Mary Hounsell’s bed was a shelf, on which I saw bottles and pots and boxes. Prisoner and his wife lived very happily together, and during her illness he was very kind and attentive to her. Mr Hounsell [the surgeon] was sent for at his desire. Prisoner had frequently sent me to the druggist’s with notes for parcels.”

Other witnesses were called including Henry Mintern, Elizabeth Gale’s father, who corroborated parts of her evidence and Elizabeth Biles stated she knew the prisoner and the deceased woman. He was kind to her, and, against her own wish had sent for a doctor to attend her.

John Roper stated that he was a chemist at Bridport, and that he delivered to the coroner a note, found on his file, from the prisoner. He produced two samples of the arsenic and corrosive sublimate sold in his shop. Under cross examination he said “I have never known arsenic used for cutaneous diseases. Country people sometimes purchase small quantities.”

Elizabeth Gale was re-called: “The parcel I had from the druggist was like this [arsenic] I fancy the powder I had in my pocket was rather rougher than this. It was gritty like this [corrosive sublimate], but not so rough.”

James Daniel, a surgeon, of Beaminster, stated that he attended Elizabeth Gale after her eating pears “I should say distinctly the symptoms were those of poison from arsenic. There is no particular taste about arsenic. Corrosive sublimate has a peculiar burning and coppery taste.”

The prosecution case was poorly presented by Mr Bond and Mr Butt appearing for the Crown, and at the time it was thought they should have argued more strongly against the notion that this was a suicide. The Dorset County Chronicle commented “the case was not well got up and, in spite of very strong evidence of his guilt, the jury acquitted him.”

If John Hounsell was innocent he had plenty of time between February and July to speculate about how his wife came to die with sufficient arsenic in her stomach to kill six people. John Housell did not marry Elizabeth Gale after his acquittal.

Our true story begins at Powerstock, a village in West Dorset near Beaminster. You will have to decide if this tale is about the Real Lives of two lonely people seeking solace one from the other following the early passing of their spouses, or a coldly calculating couple capable of murder, twice over.

On a chilly afternoon one day early in February 1839 the Revd George Cookson, the vicar of Powerstock, found two of his parishioners at his door. They had come from the nearby hamlet of Nettlecombe to ask him to publish their marriage banns and to marry them the following month. Surprise would best describe Cookson’s reaction to this request but as he thought about the matter, surprise turned to shock.

Not twelve weeks had passed since the vicar had officiated at the burial of the man’s wife and it was just a fortnight since he had buried the woman’s husband. Those events recorded on page 60 of the parish burial register; entries 479 and 480. It is perhaps not surprising that by the following morning Cookson’s shock had turned to suspicion.

As the days passed George Cookson became increasingly vexed. He knew full well the affair would become public knowledge following the first publication of the banns and he anticipated many of his parishioners would be horrified. He was not wrong: members of the congregation at St. Mary’s considered the matter a scandal and were not slow to make their feelings known. It is no light matter to forbid the banns without good reason. The consequences could be serious but, taking full responsibility, the vicar employed someone to forbid the banns at second reading and he sent a message to Mr Frampton of Cerne Abbas, the County Coroner.

When John Hounsell and Elizabeth Gale visited their vicar they had no idea of the storm that was about to engulf them. Within a few days their dream of a married life together had turned into a nightmare that could end with the hangman dispatching them both on the long drop into eternity.

There were sufficient grounds for suspicion the Coroner agreed, and he ordered that the bodies of the departed spouses should be exhumed and an inquest take place on February 20^th in the village at the Three Horse Shoes alehouse. Of what followed we have an eye-witness report.

Riding into Beaminster on the morning of February 20^th our informant expecting to attend a meeting of the Board of Guardians was surprised to meet the chairman coming away from the town. “I am going to Powerstock. The doctor tells me there is an inquest to be held there this morning upon two bodies which have been exhumed and a strong suspicion of murder” said the chairman. Needing no second bidding our informant turned around and the pair was at Powerstock within the hour.

At the gate to the churchyard they found a group of men watched by half a dozen or so old people and some children. There were the Coroner, the jury, and half a dozen doctors from Beaminster and Bridport; some had been summoned to attend others were present out of curiosity. The coroner, our two observers were told by the vicar, who had joined them, had the day before sent his order for the opening of the graves and this had been done during the night. The inquest was being held at the little alehouse and the jury were now about to view the bodies. “The bodies are in their coffins in the chancel of the church,” the vicar explained to the pair, adding that he would not go into the church and went home.

The friends, on reaching the church door, were advised by the sexton to stay outside unless their presence was required. They noticed a pile of earth against the church wall and by standing on this they could see everything through the chancel window as well as if they had been inside.

The jurors, made up of small farmers and villagers, made their way up the “damp and dreary” nave evidently dreading what they were about to witness. It was a duty but on this miserable winter’s morning all of them would have preferred to be anywhere other than this place.

The two coffins had been placed unopened inside the altar rail and the coroner, the jury and the doctors gathered around. One coffin had been in the ground for three months, the other for two or three weeks. Everyone present was filled with foreboding and was dreading what would be revealed when the coffins were opened; even the doctors had little idea what to expect.

There was a pause of some minutes, broken by the coroner asking the sexton to unscrew the lids of the coffins and remove them; this he did without hesitation. Those watching through the chancel window observed one to the other that “both bodies lay in their coffins perfectly arranged…yet they had been brought down from upper rooms in cottages, they had been carried on men’s shoulder, they had been dug up again; yet in neither was there any sign of its having been shaken or disturbed. Not only were the shrouds and grave clothes in order and in decent folds, but the little branches of herbs and evergreen which had been put upon each body were just as they had been first laid.”

When asked to remove the grave clothes from the faces the sexton refused: his courage failed him. He would not listen to either command or persuasion and according to our eyewitness “drew back in evident fear.” No one else volunteered; the doctors said it was not their business, the jury members shuffled about with bowed heads and the coroner clearly believed his part in the proceedings was to give the orders. The coroner barked out his order to the sexton who eventually and much to everyone else’s relief went to the first coffin and, turning his back and averting his eyes, removed the cloth covering the woman’s face.

“The face of the dead woman was scarcely changed…every feature was distinct, the eyes scarcely sunk, the nose and mouth were natural and her black hair plainly drawn across her forehead added to the calm and almost living expression…” There was no difficulty in identifying her.

Bolstered by this experience the sexton removed the covering from the man’s face; he had been buried not three weeks but the sight was shocking to look at and beyond recognition. No one could swear that the occupant of the coffin was James Gale. Confirmation was arrived at following evidence of the carpenter and the sexton who swore that they had seen James Gale’s body in the same coffin that had been exhumed the night before and was now before them.

Satisfied with the evidence of identity the coroner hesitated about what to do next and after discussion with the doctors two of them removed the “faded old covering from the Communion table and lifted the table itself to a more convenient position, close under the light of the chancel window.” At the realisation of what was about to take place some members of the jury voiced concern: was it not bad enough that the church was being used as a kind of charnel house? The coroner decided that what had been done so far had been “done decently and with a solemn quiet and propriety.” Had he been present George Cookson, the vicar, may have taken a different view.

The doctors were instructed to carry on and after some discussion the body of the woman was taken out of her coffin, uncovered as was necessary and laid at full length upon the table. The doctors arranged their instruments and two of them rolled up their sleeves; basins of water were called for and the post mortem commenced. Several professional men were soon busy at their work and quickly fell into their usual talk and habits perhaps forgetting where they were. More than two hours passed before the examination of both bodies was completed.

Proceedings then moved to the Three Horse Shoes, a small ale house in the village. The doctors reported they had found enough arsenic in the woman’s stomach to kill half-a-dozen people. The extraordinary preservative powers of the arsenic was responsible for the body of the women and character of her face appearing unchanged from when she passed away. The result of the examination of the man’s body was less conclusive: if he had of been poisoned it must have been a vegetable poison and the doctors found nothing to prove the case one way or the other. “Wilful murder” was the verdict of the coroner’s jury.

To be continued in Part 2 when we will tell you what happened next. You will have to decide for yourself if John Hounsell was a murderer and Elizabeth Gale his willing accomplice.