George Smith, career criminal
Some villains drift into crime through circumstance or misfortune and some, like East End boy George Smith, seem born to it.
Smith was born at 92 Roman Road on January 11, 1872
and was just nine years old when he received his first custodial sentence – eight years in a Gravesend Reformatory. It was a criminal career that
was to conclude more than 30 years and at least three murders later, on the scaffold of Maidstone Gaol.
Smith received several
short sentences for theft between his eventual release and signing up for the Northampton Regiment in the early 1890s. But in 1896, his true modus operandi was emerging – exploiting women for financial gain.
In that year he received
12 months for persuading a woman to steal from her employers. He used the money to open a baker’s shop in Leicester. It was Smith’s final brush with genuine work, and the start of his tireless travels around England in search of more victims.
Bigamy
He married Caroline Thornhill in 1898, bigamously adding a second wife in 1899. She described his appeal:
“He had an extraordinary power; this power lay in his eyes. You had the feeling you were being magnetised, they were little eyes that seemed to rob you of your will.”
And robbing was Smith’s aim. He persuaded Caroline to steal a set of silver spoons from her employer, Smith acting as a receiver. The hapless pair were arrested, Smith getting two years on her evidence.
On his release in 1903, the vengeful husband went after Caroline, who fled to Canada to escape him.
The angry Smith returned to his bigamous bride, cleared out her bank account, and left.
It’s unknown how many more women Smith conned over the subsequent years. Certainly in 1908 he met and married Florence Wilson, a widow from Worthing, in the space of three weeks. He took her straight to the nearest Post Office, withdrew her £30
savings, went off to get a newspaper and walked out of her life, returning to clear out their Camden digs en route.
Next arriving in Bristol, he swiftly married Edith Pegler. Smith would disappear for months at a time, saying he
was off to Bedford, Southend, Croydon or Luton to sell antiques, and always returning with money.
Never returned
In October 1909, he married Sarah Freeman from South-ampton. He used the same scam as on Florence Wilson – clearing out her Post Office account before selling her war bonds and pocketing £400. He took Sarah to the National Gallery, nipped off to the toilet, and never returned.
But larceny turned to murder when he met Bessy Mundy in Bristol in 1912. The pair moved to Herne Bay, where Smith consulted a solicitor about how he could get his hands on Bessy’s £2,500 inheritance, despite the resistance of her family. A bequest seemed the only way, and the pair made their wills.
Smith’s plan seems transparent to us today. He repeatedly called the doctor about his wife’s ‘fits’ though she had no recollection of these, and he immediately bought a bath for their hotel room – a bath in which Bessie was found dead days later. No post mortem was held and the inquest decided it was misadventure.
Smith should have been rich, with his £2,500 inheritance, but he could never hold on to his spoils. In November 1913 he married Alice Burnham in Portsmouth. He swiftly had her life insured for £500, emptied her account, and took her
on holiday to Blackpool. He rejected a first hotel for not having a bath.
Drowned in bath
The next day, Alice was dead, drowned in the tub of their guest house. The landlady, Mrs Crossley, was appalled by Smith’s callousness – immediately selling his wife’s effects and refusing a deal coffin because “when they’re dead they’re done with”.
Along the way, Smith certainly conned many more women, but there was to be one final murder.
On December 15, 1915, Margaret Lofty went out for tea… and never returned. She had bumped into Smith, and within days they were married and moved to London. At 8pm on Friday 18, the couple’s Highgate landlady, Louise Blatch, heard a furious splashing from the bath upstairs,
followed by a gurgle, a sigh and then silence. Moments later she heard Smith playing the harmonium in the front room. The tune – ‘Nearer My God To Thee’.
Finally Smith had gone too far. The report of the inquest in the News of the World newspaper caught the eye of Mrs Crossley and Alice Burnham’s father. The similarities were too great and the pair called Scotland Yard.
Smith’s career of crime soon unravelled as the Yard travelled the country amassing evidence. He was convicted of the three murders – though there may have been more – and carried unrepentant, kicking and screaming to the scaffold on Friday, August 13, 1915.