The Servant Confesses that She Put Belladonna in the Rice Pudding.
The medical practitioners who were called by the police to attend to Mr. Henry Crawley, a Watford tradesman, and his family, who were poisoned on Friday last whilst having dinner, have decided that the poison used was belladonna.
From inquiries made, it appears that this poison had been placed in a rice padding which had been prepared for dinner that day Mrs. Crawley. Just before it was placed on the table one of the children tasted it, and called the attention his mother to an extreme bitterness in the custard. Thinking that bitterness was due to absence of sugar, Mrs. Crawley went into the shop, to get some, and subsequently mixed it in the pudding. The family, all partook of the pudding, and were soon afterwards seized with violent pains, and showed symptoms of poisoning. Owing to the exertions of the doctors the family were soon oat of danger, but are still very weak.
On Sunday the servant girl confessed to having put some belladonna, which was used by Mr. Crawley for his eyes, into the rice pudding. She was arrested at once and taken the Watford Police Station.
The bottle of belladonna was kept on a high shelf in Mr. Crawley’s bedroom. Only he and Mrs. Crawley and the servant knew where it was. The doctor had warned his patient as to the dangerous nature of the contents, and it is said that the servant was present at the time. After Friday’s dinner Mr. Crawley noticed that the contents of the bottle were materially reduced.
The servant, whose name Leonora Ann Melinda Florence Robinson, and who is only fifteen, was charged at Watford Court on Monday. Formal evidence of ### having been given, accused was remanded.
Whenever the
British Newspaper Archive announces that it has digitized an unusual newspaper I dive in to see what Hertfordshire news it contains. The above story comes from the
Illustrated Police Budget of 18th February, 1899.
The 1899 Kelly's directory lists a Henry Crawley, furniture dealer, of 139 Queen Street, Watford.
All in all a satisfactory month, with over 7,500 page views of the Newsletter (the best month yet) while the main web site had nearly 22,000 visitors. While there were only 20 new posts on the Newsletter several of the updates involved a lot of work. The level of background emails was lower than last month, and I have decided not to produce a summary this month.. 
On the administration front I have rewritten the Ask Chris page, to simplify the handling of emails from people who expect free help (and probably have no intention of making a donation) and who can't be bothered to find out what service is on offer before posting their query.
David Simkin, who runs the Sussex Photohistory web site kindly drew my attention to the fact that P & C Monson had been taking pictures in Hertford as early as 1853. I decided to follow this up by using the British Newspaper Archive, via FindMyPast, to see if I could reconstruct the early history of commercial photography in Hertfordshire, using references in the Herts Mercury and the Hertfordshire Guardian, both of which have been digitised for the relevant period.
Lewis is interested in the history of the Alford Arms and I was able to fill in some details from the 1841-1861 census and some newspaper accounts on the British Newspaper Archive - see Alford Arms, Frithsden, mid 19th century for full details. However I was unable to find out why it was called the Tyrant's Arms in 1851 (and possibly for long before that) or who the tyrant was. In addition I was unable to date the fire that apparently led to a rebuild in Victorian times. Can any of you help by commeting below.
The Alford Arms is buried in the countryside behind Berkhamsted, and I have heard the food is excellent. The hamlets of Frithsden, and nearby Nettleden, are harder to research than many places because of the parish and former county boundaries. Even if the pub you are researching is somewhere else my answer to Lewis may give you some ideas as to where information may turn up.
