Hope and Anchor, Hotwell Street, Bristol

Wilham Willey was charged with wilfully setting fire to his dwelling-house at Bristol while his wife and six children were in it on the 15th of April last. —Mr. Cooke and Mr. Sawyer prosecuted and Mr Cripps defended the prisoner.

P.C, 186 deposed that the prisoner occupied the Hope and Anchor public house in Hotwell-street, in the vicinity of Lower Clifton V Wood, Bristol, and also held several houses adjoining it. He was on duty on the morning of the 15th of April in Lower Clifton Wood, and about half-past one o’clock he saw a portion of the roof of the prisoner’s house on fire. The wood was much elevated above the road, and he had to look directly down upon the prisoner’s house. Having satisfied himself that the inmates were about, he sprang his rattle and raised an alarm.

By Mr. Cripps: Was in Clifton Wood when he first saw the flames.

P.C. 107, deposed that he went to the house on the morning of the 15th of April, to assist in suppressing the fire. He first saw the flames at the stairs and sprang his rattle. The prisoner then came from the front room, dressed, and asked him what he was making that “b—— row about. It was not half a b—— fire yet.” He went into the passage leading into the house but was stopped by two beer casks and a fire screen, apparently put there to prevent anyone from going into the house. He then went round to the back of the premises and found the staircase on fire; he assisted in extinguishing it. Shortly afterwards he saw the prisoner’s wife and children in the street, dressed.

P. S. 41 deposed that hearing an alarm of fire in Hotwell- street on the morning of the 15th of April he went to the prisoner’s house with apparatus to extinguish the flames. He saw flames on the roof and stairs. The prisoner was standing at the front door dressed. He asked him whether his family were at home. He said “Yes.” He told him to shut the door to keep out the draught, but he did not do so. The prisoner endeavoured to prevent him from going into the house and pushed him down the doorsteps. He told the prisoner he would ram the hosepipe down his throat if he did not get out of the way. He then put him out into the street. He asked the prisoner what he meant by acting in so strange a manner. He replied that he “should do what he liked in his own house.” He (witness) then got round to the back of the house, and played upon the roof, and succeeded in extinguishing the flames, He then went into the parlour, which had been on fire, but the fire was extinguished by reels from the city. There was no furniture in the house, which appeared like one ‘null and void.” He saw a great quantity of shavings, sticks, coal-tar, etc. under the floors. The sticks were piled crossways upon the shavings, in a systematic manner.

By Mr. Cripps: Had known the prisoner for a long time, and he always appeared a singular man, and was very strange in his manner. John Sims Handcock, Superintendent of Police, at Bristol, deposed that he heard of the fire in Hotwell-street about three on the morning of the 15th of April, and on-going to the prisoner’s house he saw smoke issuing from the roof and a cellar, the front part of which was occupied by a shoemaker. He found the prisoner running at the windows of the back premises with his foot and breaking them; he ordered him off. He asked the prisoner if he was insured; he said “No” He then went round to the front of the house and saw a light in the public drinking room. Mr. Maggs, a fire insurance engineer, went upstairs, and he followed him. Maggs showed him a pile of shavings, etc on the stairs, and at the top of the stairs a board had been taken up, and the place beneath it filled up with shavings and sticks. There were also shavings and sticks thrust under the floor and between the ceilings. Under a back window upstairs he also found a board taken up, and the place beneath it filled with combustible materials. He then went and told the prisoner that unless he could give a satisfactory account of the suspicious appearances in the house, he should take him into custody. The prisoner said, “Very well, Sir,” and added that he knew nothing about the matter, for they were all in bed on the previous night by eleven o’clock. In an upper room he (witness) found the floors taken up in several places, and combustible materials placed under them. In one place the floor was saturated with tar, and there was also a quantity of tar in an iron pot. Upon his pointing out these to the prisoner, the latter then said he had been sitting up the previous night, that he went down stairs to light a candle; “he struck a match, there was an explosion of gas, and away he went, and knew no more about the matter.” He left the premises in the charge of Maggs and returned a few hours afterwards to continue the investigation of the premises. The chairs, table, settle, and other furniture in the parlour were uninjured, and the drinking cups, etc. appeared to be hanging in their usual place in the room at the back of the parlour. There was no article of wearing apparel in any part of the house. There was a broken bedstead in one room, and in another a mattress, propped up with a mass of firewood. There were also a number of empty band-boxes, etc with the lids torn off and broken up, placed together. The house had been set on fire in fourteen different places, and a great quantity of sticks and shavings had been placed in several places under the roof. In various parts of the house, there were altogether 2700 sticks, varying from nine to eighteen inches in length, and four bushels of shavings. The passage had been fired in several places, and there was tar in almost all parts of the house.

Richard Maggs, engineer to the Sun Fire-office, Bristol, deposed that he visited the house after the fire, and asked him if he was insured. He said, “What is that to you.” Upon witness telling him that he was engineer to the Sun Office, the prisoner admitted that he was insured in that office.

A great number of witnesses were called, whose evidence was of a circumstantial character, and tended to prove that the fire was the wilful act of the prisoner.

Michael Fitzgerald, a labourer in the employ of the Bristol Gas Works, deposed to the prisoner having purchased a gallon of tar at the Gas Works.—Eliza Taylor deposed to having heard noises in the prisoner’s house shortly before an outcry of fire was raised; and Daniel Searle, foreman to Mr. Baker builder, of Bristol, deposed to the prisoner having purchased shavings from the yard of his master.

Mr. Tapp Pearce, clerk to Mr. Barrow, agent to the Sun Fire Office, at Bristol, deposed that on the 9th of November last, prisoner applied to him for an insurance on his house and furniture. He took out an insurance of 100l. on his house, 75l. on his furniture, 5l for his pictures, &e. 5l. on his china and glass, and 10/., on his stock-in-trade. There was another policy on the house, taken out by its owner, Mr. York.

Mr. Lowell, agent to the Royal Insurance Company, deposed that three months before the fire occurred the prisoner came to him and wished to insure his house and stock- in-trade, etc for but upon going to the house and examining it and the furniture he declined to take the insurance to that amount. He however offered to take it for 200/.

Eliza Willey a daughter of the prisoner, deposed: Before the fire took place my father went away, and came back on the Wednesday previously. On Sunday night, the 15th of April, my sister and I went to bed about nine o’clock, and my father mother, and the baby went to bed together about eleven o’clock. I slept in the front room; Father came and awoke me in the night. There were five children besides mother sleeping in the house. I am 15 years of age. Before we went to bed we had been sitting in the parlour. When we got up there was no fire, only smoke. Father brought us downstairs, and we dressed and went out the back way.

By Mr. Cripps: Mother and I cleared away the furniture before father went away, for fear of a county court execution. We used to sell wood. There used to be a ship opposite our house, and my sisters and I used to visit it, and get sticks from on board it.

Mr Cripps having made a lengthy and ingenious defence of the prisoner, in the course of which he attributed the fire to accident, the suspicious conduct of the prisoner on the arrival of the police to eccentricity, and disposed of the shavings, firewood, etc, on the ground that they were purchased for sale by the prisoner, (a theory to some extent borne out by the evidence of several witnesses.)

The learned Judge summed up at considerable length, analysing the whole of the evidence in the most careful manner. He remarked that the conduct of the prisoner appeared to have been so wild and reckless, that upon the supposition that he had caused the fire, his conduct had been calculated to excite rather than to allay suspicion. But sometimes men meditating crime committed acts of the most absolute folly, or at all events conducted themselves in such a manner as to leave some circumstances which were afterwards adduced as evidence against them. As regarded that part of the charge which related to his wife and children, the evidence was not conclusive that he meditated their destruction when the alleged crime was committed; on the contrary, it had clearly been shown that he had been most solicitous for their safety, and had himself conducted them from the house.

The jury found the prisoner guilty on the second count only. His Lordship, in passing sentence, remarked that the prisoner had been acquitted on the first count, upon which, had he been convicted, he would have received sentence of death. He had been convicted of a crime fearful to contemplate, for the purpose of fraud.

Prisoner: Not of fraud, your honour.

He had made every preparation he could devise, so that the house should be consumed so rapidly that the Company might not know the amount of furniture and other property destroyed in it. Although he might not have intended to kill any one, yet it was impossible to think what might have been the result of his diabolical act. The possible consequences were horrifying to contemplate, Had the flames spread as rapidly as it was the purpose of the prisoner they should have done, the whole neighbourhood might have been involved in one general conflagration, and whole families, unconscious, until too late, of their danger, invalids unable to move, and children improperly looked after, might have perished in the flames. No punishment could be too severe to mark an adequate sense of the frightful crime which the prisoner had attempted to commit. The sentence of the court was that he should be confined to penal servitude for the term of twenty years, The silence of the court was here broken by the screams of the prisoner’s wife and children. The prisoner, however, at appeared too stupefied to speak, but as he was being removed he shouted “Good bye for ever!” and then walked firmly down the steps.