90-year-old secret of a severed hand

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33857, 31 May 1975, Page 10

90-year-old secret of a severed hand

The Severed Hand; or The Howard Mystery. Anonymous pamphlet. Capper Press reprint. 76 pp. N.Z. price $4.25. Taylor’s Mistake, two miles beyond Sumner, is an unlikely setting for a macabre tale of unsolved mystery, perhaps even of murder. There on the beach on December 16, 1885, the brothers Godfrey, out for a day’s fishing, met a heavily disguised stranger in wig and goggles who presented them with a severed human hand he claimed to have “found” on the sand. The hand became » orir" 0 m what quickly became “the Howard Case." At least 12 Uoctors inspected n; carefully preserved, it was produced in Court when the Godfreys, along with Mr and Mrs Arthur Howard, stood trial for conspiracy to defraud. The Howard Case is still a local legend in Christchurch, although not many people could give an accurate account of what really happened, even as far as the events became known in court at the time. Capper Press have performed a signal service for antiquarians with a taste for the bizarre. Their latest reprint is a rare pamphlet rushed out m Christchurch while the trial was still proceeding. It gives an almost verbatim account of the lower Court hearing up to the time the four accused were committed to the Supreme Court for trial and. incidentally. provides a mine of delightful asides on police methods. Court procedure. and suburban life in Christchurch 90 years ago. A brief summary of the tale of the Howards is worth recalling here, but no summary can do justice to the wealth of detail and learned argument in “The Severed Hand.” Mr Howard, a railway worker on nine shillings a week, appeared to go swimming at Sumner on a stormy day early in October, 1885. When he failed to return his wife advertised for his body and attempted to claim insurance from 'hree substantial policies Mr Howard had recently taken out on his life. The insurance companies were reluctant to pay. at least until there was Hear evidence of death. This the severed hand appeared to provide, including a ring said to be Howard’s. Yet the police had no difficulty in proving ring and hand to be a clumsv forgerv and Howard himself was arrested in Lower Hutt on January 4. 1886. after attending a Y MCA picnic In the time he was “presumed dead"

Howard had worked in various places in the North Island, had visited Christchurch in disguise, had probably met his wife in the Square, and had’probably been the man at Taylor’s Mistake who had “planted” the hand on the Godfreys. Howard had even been arrested, under another name, on December 21 in Wellington after “being given in charge for insulting a young woman,” but the charge was dropped. The police attempted to prove in court that the Godfreys were parties to a deep conspiracy that would have yielded £2400 had the insurance oh Howard been paid out. That left open the question of the hand. If Howard was alive, whose was the hand? Howard was found to have shown undue interest in fresh graves in the Wairarapa and seven bodies were exhumed. All had hands intact. The suggestion was made that one of the Godfreys, a cook at the Christchurch Mental Hospital, had somehow

obtained the hand. No body with a missing hand was ever found. Years later Mr Justice Alpers recorded that Howard’s lawyer, Mr T. I. Joynt, had said Howard told him where he got the hand. The secret appears to have died with Mr Joynt, the origin of the hand is still unknown. A final note:'The four were acquitted of conspiracy, but Howard was convicted of attempting to defraud the insurance companies. He was sentenced to two years’“gaol and made a spectacular, but unsuccessful attempt to escape from Lyttelton Gaol. Howard, on his release, went to Melbourne where he died genuinely not long afterwards in a railway shunting accident. It would be interesting to know if the insurance was finally paid out then. The last word has certainly not been said on the Howard Case. For those who would pursue it further “The Severed Hand” is prime source material.