From the Liverpool Echo, Friday November 29th,1907:

“Remarkable Will Suit – Irish solicitor and his wife.

Amazing disclosures at the Four Courts, Dublin yesterday before Mr. Justice Andrews and a special jury when the case of MacAreavey v Russell was heard to establish the will of the late J.H. Russell, solicitor, Newry, who died on the 17th of June last, leaving gross personal estate, returned at £6000.  The will was contested by his widow, to whom he was married in Birmingham on the 14th of April 18, 1906, and to whom he left only £20, upon the ground that he was not of sound mind when the will was executed.

Mr. Campbell, K.C., M.P., in his address to the jury on behalf of Mrs. Russell, who was a daughter of Mr. William Henry Bathe, accountant, of the Birmingham Gas Company. read a number of letters which the testator wrote to his affianced wife, all, as counsel described them, breathing the deepest affection while at the same time he was employing detectives to dog her steps through the streets of London in anticipation of finding her behaving herself improperly.

Counsel read extracts from the letters.  In one the deceased wrote

‘My own darling girl, I cannot but write again to send you all the love that is possible for a man to send to a woman.’

 In another letter he said

‘I love you, my girl, with all my heart and I’m just longing for the day when we shall be together forever and ever. Thine Jack.’

 Coming to the 11th of September, 1905, Counsel said that the circumstances associated with that day were so remarkable that they demonstrated the insanity of the man’s mind on the subject of his affianced wife’s character. Mr. Russell had been in London and had met her often during his visit. She had come to stay at a hotel off the Strand so they could meet. At his request, she accompanied him to Euston to see him off, and on the next day he wrote to her from Newry describing his return voyage. The letter concluded.

‘How did you get on, my dearest, after the train left, and what did you do? Was Adolphus (meaning a mutual friend) very nice, and did he say any nasty things like the Irishman you told me about? Tons of love, thine, Jack.’

On the next day he wrote again, acknowledging a little friendship calendar Miss Bathe sent him saying

‘Oh, I should how, how I should like to hold you in my arms, Gerty, and kiss you for it with all the love of my heart, Jack.’

 Side by side with these letters came the detective’s report from London, which counsel said clearly proved the delusion from which Mr. Russell suffered. How could his friends persist in their case in the face of this document?  Reading his letters alongside the reports of the detectives, could any other conclusion be come to than while he poured out his affection in this way to the woman he was going to marry, he was all the time haunted by this terrible suspicion of her virtue, even when the detectives themselves reported they could find nothing suspicious about her.

If he did not suffer from this delusion, which nothing could allay, then the only other alternative for them to arrive at was that he was a double-faced scoundrel, which counsel said he would be sorry to say he really was at heart.

From the very detective told off to watch Miss Bathe after she said goodbye to Mr. Russell at Euston, they had this document:

‘Confidential Report Monday, September 11th, 1905, I beg to report as instructed that I attended at Horrocks Hotel, Norfolk St. Strand at 6:00 p.m., saw Mr. Russell and was instructed by him to be at Euston Station at 7:00 PM. He was there with Miss B and I was to follow her and see what she did during the evening, and give it till midnight or later if necessary.  At 7:15. Mr. Russell left by train.  Ms Bathe went to Fleming’s Restaurant, 307 Oxford Street, where she dined. I followed in but she met no one. Upon leaving, she took a bus to Piccadilly Circus where she changed into another and rode to Wellington Street, Strand. She then went to Horrocks Hotel, Norfolk St. and entered at 9:15 PM.  I waited till 12:15 AM, but she did not come out.’

Counsel went on to say that the previous November and December, Ms Bathe had been dogged by detectives at the instance of Mr. Russell, and with the same result. This lady, to whom he poured out his natural love and affection, was exposed to this degradation by him on the streets of London. And yet the jury were asked to believe in the face of such facts, that she did not suffer from any mental infirmity enough to interfere with this testamentary capacity

Counsel, in conclusion, said, that, in such a case as this, he felt more than the ordinary weight of an advocate’s responsibility. He felt that to him was entrusted this lady’s honour and character, which could only be vindicated properly by the jury declaring, as he firmly believes they would, that this man, in spite of his great business capacity and intelligence was unfit, by reason of this mental infirmity, to do justice to the lady with whom he had linked his fortunes, and who, unfortunately, had suffered much misery and consequence. After the examination of Mrs. Russell, the court adjourned.”

Mr JH Russell, solicitor (the JH stood for John Henry) was in early middle age when he died.  During his courtship of his wife, he had been called as a witness in the famous Newry Election Petition case involving his friend (and later executor) Mr McAreavey, whose election had been overturned for bribery. The case was very stressful for Mr Russell, and he was greatly afraid of being reported to the Incorporated Law Society. 

Tim Healy KC, counsel for Mrs Russell in the will case, told the court in his closing submission that he himself had acted in the Election Petition case, and had been disturbed by the deceased’s demeanour; the word ‘freemasonry’ had been used by Mr Russell (sadly, no further details were given of the context in which this word was used).

Leaving aside Mr Healy’s obvious conflict of interest in acting for Mrs Russell, his submissions certainly strayed into unsworn evidence of counsel and should have been – but were not – restrained.  

The jury found in favour of Mrs Russell and overturned the will, which had given the balance of Mr Russell’s estate to his orphaned nephew Percy Wood Russell, of whom he was very fond; Mrs Russell obtained custody of Percy following the case.

Far from living the life of a Cinderella, Percy prospered, and, after a brief period as a solicitor’s apprentice in Newry, during which he became well known in its amateur dramatic society, he took to the stage under the name ‘Raymond Percy’ and later became manager of the Gate Theatre in Dublin.

Mrs Russell, who gave evidence that her marriage to Mr Russell had remained unconsummated, never remarried. Instead, she set up a school in Warrenpoint, Co Down, attended by Percy. Later, she also moved to Dublin, and established St Anne’s Private School in Clarinda Park, Dun Laoghaire. St Anne’s, later run by her Bathe nieces, survived as an educational institution for the rest of the 20^th century.

A fascinating case – and the story of the Newry Election Petition case itself – in which Serjeant Moriarty KC, Mrs Russell’s second senior in her Probate case, ‘lost’ a crucial document, merits a post in its own right!