Month: January 2021

Irish Barrister’s Wife Linked to International Man of Mystery, 1926

From the Evening Herald, 13 April 1926:

“A music hall star well known 35 years ago as ‘Bonnie Kate Harvey’ and now Mrs Kate Macaulay, wife of an Irish barrister, brought an action in the King’s Bench, London, claiming damages for defamation in respect of a story in which it was alleged that she assisted a notorious crook to escape from arrest. 

The story related to to a period many years ago when the plaintiff, touring in South Africa, had allegedly helped an admirer, Frank Tarbeaux, ‘the king of crooks, the prince of card sharpers, the best dressed man in town, barring dukes,’ to escape arrest by using her feminine wiles to distract his policeman pursuers.

There was not a word of truth in the story, declared counsel. His client had never known Mr Tarbeaux. When asked whether she had read the article, the plaintiff melted into tears, and said that having read part of it she could not go any further with it.  She had been very ill since.  “I used to move in the best society’ she declared.  ‘But now they are all cutting me.’

Mr Andrew Alfred Macaulay, of Belfast, barrister and husband of the plaintiff, said that when the article was first brought to his notice he did not mention it to his wife because he did not want to annoy her, hoping that no one would see it.  Later, however, he was told about it by several persons and was bound to show it to her.  In Ireland all women were known by their maiden names and this article had caused him and his wife to be ostracised.  People had ceased to visit them.

Counsel for the defendant said he was not in a position to call evidence as the magazine was defunct and the staff were dispersed. “

A verdict of £500 and costs was subsequently given to add to an earlier haul of £1000 recovered by the plaintiff from other publications which had carried the same story.

Mrs Macauley, of part Spanish, part Sligo extraction, and, as Bonnie Kate, a very popular comedienne of the late 19th century musical hall stage, died in 1943.   She and Mr Macaulay had met when they performed together at the Alhambra in Belfast, before he qualified as a barrister.

Frank Tarbeaux, who did exist, had also been a sensation in the late 19th century, posing as an oil-king, running a notorious gambling house, carrying out jewel heists and serving as the inspiration for ‘Tarboe,’ a popular novel by Gilbert Parker published in 1927. Tarbeaux’s own memoir ‘Adventurer,‘ published in 1933, is a fascinating read. In it, he details his time in South Africa and says:

‘There was a theatrical troupe in Jo’burg then, and I became very intimate with the star of the troupe, a beautiful red-haired Irish woman.  To avoid complications, I’ll call her Jolly Jill Maddern.  It is a peculiar thing, but Jolly Jill once brought a suit for libel and collected damages from a news paper that printed an article that she turned me over to the police.  And after thirty three years the last time I heard of her, not so long ago, she was suing me on the ground that she never knew me.  She was married to an Irish barrister, and maybe is now, for all I know.  It struck me as queer that she could sue the second newspaper when the first suit in which she claimed to be a friend of mine still must be a matter of court record in England.‘ 

A newspaper search does indeed disclose a previous libel action of 1896 by Bonnie Kate under a previous name, Alice Janet May, in which she admits – contrary to her assertion under oath in the 1926 proceedings – having known Mr Tarbeaux in South Africa.

Did ‘Bonnie’ Kate forget or did she perjure?

Let’s hope none of her acquaintances read Mr Tarbeaux’s memoir!

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Early Irish Bar Strike, c.1790

From the Irish Industrial Journal, 4 September 1850:

“REBELLION OF THE IRISH BAR – Lord Clonmel, upon occasion, in the Court of King’s Bench, used rough language to Mr Hacket, a gentleman of the Bar, the members of which profession considered themselves as all assailed in the the person of a brother barrister.  A general meeting was, therefore, called by the father of the Bar; a severe condemnation of his Lordship’s conduct voted with only one dissentient voice; and an unprecedented resolution entered into, that ‘until his Lordship publicly apologised, no barrister would either take a brief, appear in the King’s Bench, or sign any pleadings for that Court.‘

This experiment was actually tried.  The judges sat, but no counsel appeared, no cause was prepared, the attorneys all vanished, and their Lordships had the Court to themselves.  There was no alternative, and next day Lord Clonmel published a very ample apology, by advertisement, in the newspapers and, with excellent address, made it appear as if written on the evening of the offence, and therefore voluntary.”

Though unacknowledged, the piece in question seems to be a word-for-word extract from the memoirs of Sir Jonah Barrington, ‘Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Volume 1 (available here).  The Hacket incident is also detailed in Richard Lalor Sheil’s ‘Sketches of the Irish Bar’, though unfortunately no copy of the apology is available.

Possibly the first – though not the last – successful barristers’ strike against harsh language by members of the judiciary!

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Let off for Lunch: Pioneering Women Jurors, 1921

In 1921, Irish women became eligible for jury service on civil and criminal trials. This article by Anna Joyce from the Freeman’s Journal of 9 February 1921 brings us back in time to the very first High Court trial involving women jurors:

“Some people suffer from boredom to an excessive degree, and some do not suffer from it at all.

None of the lady jurors at the Four Courts yesterday appeared to be its victims, and when I tentatively suggested to one of them that being on a jury was a tiresome business, her answer seemed to me at the moment irrelevant, not to say flippant.

“We were let off for lunch!” she exclaimed; and her tone was jubilant, her eyes bright, and her head held at a most unweary angle.

To me, after half an hour’s yawning in the stuffy court, while she and her confrères considered their verdict and lackadaisical men of the law chatted and laughed and yawned and strolled about, or writhed softly in their seats, such gratitude and good spirits over a long-past lunch hour was little short of blasphemous.

considered their verdict and lackadaisical men of the law chatted and laughed and yawned and strolled about, or writhed softly in their seats, such gratitude and good spirits over a long-past lunch hour was little short of blasphemous.

Those seven ladies certainly kept up an interest in the case from beginning to end.  Not one of them lapsed into an indolent or inattentive attitude – in fact, their manner was perhaps, laughably, the reverse.

At the beginning, when Mr Justice Dodd and learned counsel sought to salt the proceedings with humour, the ladies smiled, and even laughed.  Now and again, later on, Mr Justice Dodd attracted to himself their smiling glances; otherwise they gave a strained attention to the matter in hand.  Here a peering face, there a head tilted to listen; square shoulders which seemed to refuse to allow the droop of boredom to settle on them.

The five male members of the jury found no such novelty of interest in their work.  Now and again one might be caught endeavouring to curb restive limbs and stifle yawns.

These first lady jurors in the Irish High Court got off luckily on one point, if we take it as luck that yesterday’s case was in no way a test for a mixed jury.  It was about as simple a case as could well be, involving only an accident to a child in a disrepaired building, and the consequent claim against, and defence of, the landlord.  And the only original touch at the end of the affair was when the jury – and it looked as if the lady members started the idea – sent a message to the judge that their jurors’ fees (amounting to one guinea in all) should be given to the child.

Mr Francis Kennedy, the Associate, declared the jury he called was excellent; that the ladies were good citizens and jurors; and that his only complaint was in regard to their attendance.   The attendance of both men and women was bad and if not better next day, why there would be a goodly handful of fines.“

Soft writhing, restive limbs, yawns and bright eyes – was there ever a more sensual account of jury service! How did the Irish legal system adapt to female jurors? Very slowly. For the first few decades, attendance was very poor – possibly due to family commitments, with ‘mixed’ juries still a rarity as late as the 1970s.

What a nice gesture on the part of the jurors to give their payment to the child plaintiff. I hope the tipstaff – who usually got an emolument of a few shillings out of every jury guinea – didn’t lose out as a result!

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Judge Calls Women’s Fashion the Ruin of the Country, 1895

From the Sheffield Daily Telegraph , 5 January 1894:

“The Kilrush correspondent of the ‘Freeman’s Journal’ says:

‘At the Quarter Sessions here yesterday a milliner brought an action against a pension for goods supplied to his daughter, who is now in America.  His Honour Judge Kelly said women were the ruin of the country.  Nothing pleased women nowadays but those extraordinary fashions comprising parasols, petticoats, feathers and all this ludicrous headgear which brought ruin on parents and husbands.  Here was this girl, the daughter of a pensioner with 10d a day, procuring parasols, corsets and feathers from this milliner.  The women who a generation ago wore the Galway petticoat, shawl and bonnet looked far more handsome and graceful.  The fashions of the present day were the ruin of the country.‘”

Judge Kelly’s House at 34 Fitzwilliam Square, today.

The same Judge Kelly featured in the news again in 1898 when his housekeeper Mary O’Connor and her two daughters, aged 15 and 17, were arrested for systematic stealing of items from his residence at 34 Fitzwilliam Square when he was away on circuit.  Pawnbrokers gave evidence of receipt of at least 54 parcels of stolen property including jewels, wearing apparel, candlesticks and bedclothes.

This event cannot have done much to improve the learned judge’s opinion of women!

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The (Would-be) Serial Killer of Church Street, 1861

From the Belfast Morning News, 2 January 1861:

“Joseph Dwyer is now in custody on a charge of having made one of the most daring and diabolical attempts to deprive a fellow-creature of life, for the mere purpose of pecuniary gain, that perhaps the world ever heard of. A young man of simple appearance, scarcely to be known out of his own street, had taken a stable which he sought to convert into a slaughter-house and a cemetery.

The stable in question had been, it is said, in the possession of the father of the accused at one time; he knew it well and, no doubt, selected it on account of its comparatively isolated position. A shovel and pickaxe were purchased, and discovered in the stable alongside of the grave which had been dug in it in secret and in silence, and many persons residing in the neighbourhood observed this well-dressed young man passing to and for, never dreaming of the horrible agency that was working within him.

The accused being identified as the perpetrator, into the old double house, No 65 Church Street, the searchers went, put their shoulders to a door on one of the landings made scrupulously fast, and revealed Joseph Dwyer standing in company with a woman in the centre of the room. In the meantime Mulholland was sent for, and at once identified the prisoner as the person who had shot him. The wretched culprit, on seeing his intended victim, lost all firmness and self-control, and burst into tears. In the course of his observations he stated that he was not in his right mind, and with strange adroitness referred to the fact that some member of his family had been insane…”

What had Joseph Dwyer done? He had rented a stable at 57 Queen Street, Smithfield, purchased a pistol and a shovel, and then gone to buy some second-hand clothes from Hyam & Co, Dame Street, engaging Mulholland, a porter in the establishment, to carry them back to the stable for him, only to fire at him with the pistol when he arrived there. Fortunately, Mulholland managed to flee and raise the alarm; the police, arriving at the stable, found a freshly dug grave presumably intended for him.

No 69 Queen Street today

Dwyer was subsequently sentenced at Green Street Courthouse to penal servitude for twenty years after pleading guilty to shooting with intent to murder. In passing sentence, Lord Justice Christian described his actions as unprompted by any passion, vengeance or rankling sense of wrong, but rather a thirst for plunder due to having fallen into irregular habits of living and a practice of supplying himself with money by pledging clothing.

With respect to Lord Justice Christian, the cost of renting the stable probably well exceeded the monies garnished from a couple of coats and some trousers. As with many reports of cases where the accused pleads guilty, there is a sense of some information lacking.

65 Church Street, where the accused was apprehended, is now long gone. 57 Queen Street is also no longer there, but would have looked very much like No 69 above. The rear stable the scene of the crime would have backed onto what was then the Bluecoat School and what is now the headquarters of the decidedly non-criminal Incorporated Law Society of Ireland!

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