Literary Views & Reviews AN UNSOLVED POISONING CASE

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29850, 16 June 1962, Page 3

Literary Views & Reviews AN UNSOLVED POISONING CASE

Poison and Adelaide Bartlett By Yseult Bridges. Hutchinson. 251 p.p. Index.

The great sensation tn London during the April of 1886 was the trial of Adelaide Bartlett. To this affair “The Times” devoted a leading article, at the end of which the writer exclaimed. “Whether on the theory of guilt or innocence the whole story is marvellous.” Adelaide Bartlett herself was from the first a mysterious figure. She was born at Orleans in France in 1856. On her marriage certificate she gave her name as Adelaide Blanche de la Tremouille and that of her father as Adolphe de la Tremouille, who was the premier duke of France. No connexion, however, was ever acknowledged by the Tremouille family; as a baby, Adelaide was entrusted to the nuns of the convent at Orleans, w'here she grew up. In due course a marriage was arranged for her by some person unknown. The arrangement was that from the day of marriage the husband was to be absolutely responsible for her, in return for which obligation a sum of money would be made over to him for investment m his business. The person chosen was Edwin Bartlett, junior partner in a flourishing London grocery busmess. The marriage took place early in 1875. and in due course the young couple set up house at Station street. Adelaide’s attitude to her new English family was puzzling; but it soon became clear that her feeling for her husband’s younger brother Frederick was more than sisterly. At ’one stage they disappeared together for a whole week, at the end of which time Frederick fled to America rather than face his brother and his father. In spite of what had happened, Edwin took Adelaide back again, although it was obvious that the marriage could never be satisfactory to either partner. Nevertheless, life continued quietly and prosperously, on the surface at least, until in January, 1885, Edwin and Adelaide attended a service at the Wesleyan Chapel at Merton, where a new minister was preaching his first sermon. The Rev. George Dyson made a great impression on the Bartletts, particularly on Adelaide. He became a constant visitor at the Bartlett home, mostly during business hours, when Edwin was absent. “You cannot doubt.” the learned Judge was later to remark, during the trial, "that these two people got into that state of intimacy when in some fashion or other the death of the husband. and the possibility of Dyson succeeding him, were matters of familiar discussion.” Adelaide heftelf > alleged that Edwin was a man of very peculiar ideas where marriage was concerned. Only once had he had intimate relations with her. Thereafter he had derived a perverted pleasure in "watching the effect of her charms upon other rhen.” He did all he could to throw her and Dyson together, even insisting on their kissing in his presence. Eventually he had “given her to Mr Dyson.” However that may be, Ed-

win began to show signs of physical deterioration. He visited Dr. Alfred Leach, who examined him and came to the conclusion that he had been dosing himself with mercury, Leach thought that his patient was syphilitic; but when this idea proved to be false, he decided that Edwin must have had a phobia about this disease. He was quite sure that the patient was dosing himself with mercury; and therefore did not bother to consider any other possibility. What was apparently taking place, however, was lead poisoning. Edwin’s death, nevertheless, was proved to have been caused by a large dose of liquid chloroform. It was alleged that Edwin committed suicide in this way. driven to despair by what he had been suffering. But the drug could not have been self-administered, for no bottle containing a trace of chloroform was found in the house. Dr. Leach was called in, but felt unable to give a death certificate without a post-mortem examination. This revealed the remarkable

fact that the dead man had taken a large dose of chloroform without any of the corrosive effects of the drug being noticeable in his mouth and throat. Under pressure Adelaide admitted she was in the habit of keeping chloroform in the house. It seems possible that the bottle from which Edwin was dosed was procured for her by George Dyson. Adelaide Bartlett and George Dyson were detained and in due course committed for trial to the Old Bailey. On April 12, 1886 the court was crowded. The judge was

Mr Justice Wills. Dyson’s counsel rose to ask that the prisoners should be tried separately, and the Attorney General at once intervened. He stated that no case could be submitted to the jury upon which they could properly be asked to convict Dyson. After his arraignment no evidence against him would be offered. Dyson accordingly left the dock. Adelaide Bartlett herself escaped the gallows, because medical experts testified to the difficulty of administering chloroform in liquid form so as to produce the death of a person sleeping or partly insensible. “It would be a difficult operation and a delicate operation.” Where there is an element of doubt, the accused, under the law England, must be given the benefit of it. The jury expressed grave suspicion, but returned the only verdict possible in the circumstances. After the trial Sir James Paget, surgeon to the Queen, remarked that since Mrs Bartlett had been declared not guilty, “she should tell us in the interests of science how she did it.” The solution suggested by the writer of this book was put forward in court by Sir Charles Russell, “that she had handed it to him as if for an ordinary purpose, and he with his senses dulled by the drug had swallowed it obediently.” Mrs Bridges goes further. She suggests that Dyson had hypnotic powers, which he exercised on Edwin Bartlett, so that he took the drug, “without pain or vomiting, sank back upon his pillows in a relaxed and natural attitude, and so passed from hypnotic trance into death.” There are many strange features about the affair. The withdrawal of the charge against Dyson had always been a puzzle. Then there is the fact that large amounts of money were forthcoming for Adelaide’s defence. Her counsel was Mr Edward Clarke, Q.C., M.P., one of the leading advocates of the day. Forty years after the trial he wrote, “Adelaide Bartlett was the unacknowledged daughter of an Englishman of good social position.” This is perhaps a modest statement. .Mrs Bridges writes, “In August 1855 Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort paid a state visit to Napoleon 111 and the Empress Eugenie, and certain members of the old French nobility sank their abhorence of the Corsican upstart’s dynasty to do honour to the sovereign of the world’s greatest power. The following year Adelaide was bom. It is suggested that her father was a member of Her Britannic Majesty’s entourage.”