eastlondonhistory.com

The life of a middle-class businessman in Victorian times had to be whiter than white. In those pre-permissive days, any hint of scandal could prove fatal to the reputation of the bourgeoisie.
Of course, that didn’t mean that all Victorians behaved with propriety. Behind many respectable front doors lurked violence, sexual licence and – in the case of Henry Wain-wright – murder.
Wainwright seemed to be the epitome of hard-working Victorian respectability. He lived in style at 40 Tredegar Square, with his wife and four children, and ran a brushmaking business at 84 Whitechapel Road, with a warehouse opposite at number 215.
Henry loved the theatre. The Pavilion was sited right next door to the brushworks and he often invited performers to Tredegar Square for dinner. Often, they would perform and recite in the Wainwrights’ drawing room.
However, his interest in the actresses went beyond the purely artistic, and he would entertain the younger, prettier ones at a succession of addresses around the East End. When he met pretty hatmaker Harriet Lane he decided to set up a lovenest for the two of them, well away from the grand Georgian facades of Tredegar Square.
First he took an apartment at 70 St Peter’s Street – the street is demolished today,
but ran along the same course as the modern Warner Place. He then moved Harriet to
the West End, before bringing her back to Stepney’s Sidney Square.
But Wainwright soon tired of his lover. Hoping to avoid fuss and scandal, he devised an elaborate plot to be rid of her, asking his brother Thomas to court her. To add to the confusion, Thomas adopted the
curious pseudonym of Teddy Frieake – much to the anger of the real owner of the name, an auctioneer who was a friend of the Wainwrights.
What went wrong with the plan is uncertain. What is known is that Henry killed Harriet, battering her with a hammer and shooting her three times in the head. She was then interred in Henry’s Whitechapel Road warehouse.
Wainwright’s life was rapidly falling apart. His business collapsed and he decided to leave Whitechapel Road for cheaper premises in Borough High Street. The only problem was Harriet. The stench of her decaying body was beginning to drift from the warehouse and into nearby Vine Court.
Henry decided to take the evidence with him. He dug up the corpse, dismembered it and packed it neatly into paper parcels, even enlisting his employee, Alf Stokes, to help him lug the packages into the Whitechapel Road. The smell was unmistakable, but despite Alf’s protests, Wainwright left him guarding the parcels while he went to find a taxi. The suspicious Stokes sneaked a look in the top parcel and was appalled to uncover a human hand.
Wainwright took his cab. Flushed with the success of his plan, he even invited Alice Dash, a chorus girl at the nearby Pavilion Theatre, to share the ride to his new premises. Henry lit a cigar and the two set off for Borough, while the distraught Stokes ran behind, desperately trying to find
a policeman to arrest the
murderer.
It wasn’t until the procession reached Leadenhall Street that Stokes managed to find a PC. Two coppers dismissed Alf’s tale as the ravings of a madman, and it wasn’t until the cab and Stokes crossed London Bridge and entered Borough High Street that the hapless warehouseman managed to persuade a pair of constables to stop the taxi.
The audacious Wainwright refused to open his parcels. “Why do you interfere with me,” he demanded. “I’m only going to see an old friend.” As the pair persisted, the desperate Wainwright said: “Say nothing about this, ask no questions and here’s £50 for each of you.”
The officers nevertheless opened the parcel to find the year-old dismembered parts of Harriet’s body.
Henry didn’t stand a chance. His brother admitted writing a letter in the name of Teddy Frieake to provide Henry with an alibi, as well as buying the chopping block and spade used in the disposal of the body.
Henry still protested his innocence, only recanting immediately before his hanging, even agreeing that death was a fair sentence.
Stokes received a £30 reward and set himself up in business, while Alice became lead dancer at the Pavilion.