George Beeston left his thirty two year old wife Edith around 4.50 pm to go to his work at Messrs John Brown and Co. He was a twenty eight year old fitter by trade and that week he had started working night shifts. The couple had only been married for five years, but it had to be said that they were not happy together. Beeston assumed this was the reason for Edith’s low spirits as he left her on that Thursday evening. However he had also mentioned earlier that he intended to volunteer for service in the Boer War, which was taking place in South Africa at the time. He told her that he would like to volunteer as an ambulance driver, another reason which he assumed had added to his wife’s unhappiness.

Upon find the woman was deceased, Detective Officer Flint ordered the body to be removed to the mortuary and the City Coroner, Mr D Wightman was informed. He arranged an inquest to be held at the Normanton Inn on Grimesthorpe Road, Sheffield on Saturday 20 January 1900. The first witness was the same detective who told the jury that he had been attached to the Burngreave Division. He described how Beeston had rushing into the station and how he accompanied him back to his house and found his dead wife. The officer told the coroner that the police were at that point making enquiries at local chemists and pharmacies in order to establish where the woman had purchased the bottle of laudanum from.

George Beeston appeared to be very pale and haggard at the enquiry, which was not a lengthy one. Evidence was simply taken from him as to the identification of the body and a post mortem was ordered by Mr Wightman. Then he adjourned the inquest to the following Friday. Accordingly on Friday 26 January, the inquest was reconvened once again at the Normanton Inn and a local solicitor, Mr Neal appeared to watch the proceedings on behalf of Edith Beeston’s father. Inspector Smith of the Brightside Division also attended on behalf of the police force. Almost the first enquiries the coroner asked the Inspector was if had discovered how the deceased woman had obtained the laudanum.

The officer stated that his enquiries had established that the purchase of the liquid had finally been traced it back to a local chemist called Mr F Sheldon of Hanover Street, Sheffield. However the scent had stopped there, as the chemist had no records of who he had sold it to. Inspector Smith assured Mr Wightman that he had visited several chemist and druggist in the city, but no one could remember selling it to a Mrs Beeston. Then it was the turn of George Beeston to give his evidence of finding his wife dead in bed. He readily admitted to the jury that his marriage had not been a happy one on both sides.

At this Mr Neal quietly charged the witness if it had been true that he had once tried to stab his wife on a previous occasion? However George Beeston shook his head and outright denied the charge. Nevertheless the solicitor was not going to take this as an answer, and closely cross-examined him on the subject. He said to him ‘will you pledge [swear] that you have never stabbed her or that you do not remember stabbing her.’ Beeston admitted that he did not remember ever stabbing his wife. However Mr Neal was relentless. He asked Beeston if he remembered Edith’s father also asking him if he had stabbed his daughter.

Finally George admitted that he had in fact done so about a week previous to her death. Mr Neal then asked him if he remembered her father bringing a dress with him which clearly had a stab hole in it. At first Beeston denied it and then cried out ‘Oh God in Heaven help me!’

Satisfied, Mr Neal then went in for the kill!

He asked the witness if he had ever been cruel to his wife from time to time and Beeston replied that ‘I may have been’ but he added that Edith had spoken harshly to him too. Mr Neal, now sick of the witnesses prevarications, asked him if it was within the same week as her death that he had stabbed her, to which Beeston admitted that ‘if I had done so, I would have been immediately penitent afterwards.’ At this point Mr Wightman asked the witness if his wife had been a healthy woman, Beeston said that she was not and she had often complained of pains in her head for which she had resorted to taking medicine. Beeston also said that she had taken some laudanum when she had a cough.

The witness admitted that he was aware that his wife took the medicine from time to time and on one occasion told him that it had made her sleepy, but again he could not remember what day she had told him that. The coroner then told the jury that the inquest would have to be adjourned as no further evidence was available and therefore the police enquiries would continue. Mr Wightman also urged Detective Flint to try to established how the deceased woman had purchased the bottle of laudanum, as that might lead to a resolution, to which the officer agreed.

He then told the jury that:

‘I have never known a more contemptible man than the husband and I feel sure that you will all feel the same. The very fact that his wife was found with the bottle of laudanum close to her side and the fact that she had recently quarrelled with her husband, made it expedient to institute further enquiries. Of course you, the jury may put a little reliance on the man’s evidence, but I would not place any reliance on him whatever. Whenever he was asked a question that made him at all uncomfortable he had invariably ‘forgotten’ all about it.’

The following day Beeston’s suspicious conduct was the talk of the city, so much so that by the time the inquest was resumed on 9 February 1900, he had his own solicitor, Mr A Muir Wilson who was defending him. However little new evidence was heard and the coroner eventually stated that that he didn’t think they could progress the matter any further. He advised the members of the jury therefore to leave the matter in the hands of the police. Then, if any further evidence was forthcoming, they would be responsible for taking the case before the magistrates. Accordingly, an open verdict was recorded ‘that the deceased died from poisoning by laudanum, but by whom administered and for what purpose, there was not sufficient evidence to show.’

Had George Beeston actually killed his wife Edith, or had she taken the laudanum herself? What do you think?