MUCH-MARRIED MAN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)

MUCH-MARRIED MAN.

REMARKABLE CAREER OF AN AL-

LEGED SWINDLER

Arthur James Hawley, an engineer with many aliases, of Cheadle Hulme, near Manchester, was at Leicester, last month, committed for trial on two charges of bigamy, and one of fraudulently obtaining money. The prisoner reserved his defence.

The story told by the prosecution was remarkable. The prisoner, who is 45 years of age, and of fine physique and smart appearance, had been a widower for nearly 11 years, when, in 1886, he married, at a Birmingham registry office, a Miss Cooper, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, to whom he represented himself as William Alfred Howard, a commercial traveller. They , set up as pork butchers, first at Birmingham, and later at Alderley Edge, aear Manchester. Frequent absences from home on his part were attributed to his business According to the evidence of witnesses, there appeared in October last year lrn a London newspaper the following advertisement:— "English gentleman, 36, bachelor, wltn an income of £600, desires correspondence with young lady of medium height and good appearance. Jewish lady not objected to. Meaais not essential. Strictly confidential. Absolutely genuine. No agents/ As a result of this advertisement, the prisoner made the acquaintance of Mre Vernall, a widow keeping a boarding house at Southsea lie was then Arthur Alexander, of Wellington Grove, Stockpors, consulting engineer. Marriage" followed on December 11th, and within a couple or hours of the. ceremony the prisoner had disappeared with, said Mrs Vernall, £127, which he had induced her that day. to withdraw from the bank. Her next meetingwith him was when he stood In the docfc.

In June, this year, Ha»vley was in Leeds, and here, having advertised for a wife of a lovable nature, he met Mrs Raynor, a widow of independent means, who, wishing, as she told the court, to satisfy herself of Hawley's bona fides, went with him to Market Harborcagh, the headquarters of his reputed firm, and was takeu to an office on the table of which lay a large plan, and whose walls displayed a number of framed drawings. Satisfied with what she saw, she mamed him' at Hull. On the following day, on Hawley's advice, she transferred to him 30 fully paid up £10 shares fn ~a Hull fishery business, to pay for certain land which the prisoner told her he had bought for building purposes.

The prisoner left with the money resulting -from their sale, but wrote in endearing terms from Manchester to say that he had been called to France on business of moment. Subsequently she Teceived from Calais a letter, signed Duprez, purporting to report his death, Dut which the prosecution alleged was in Hawley's handwriting.

The following August saw him In Leicester again seeking matrimony thiough the agency of an advertisement. As the nephew of a deceased Leicester alderman, he promised marriage to a widow named Rose Hannah Davies, from whom, It was alleged, he obtained £90. Going thence to Stockport, he was arrested while engages on a letter to still another lady who had answered one of his advertisements.