| Bob Frary had died after a long agony on Friday February 27th,
1835. He was buried in Westgate churchyard on the Sunday. Three weeks later,
his body was exhumed. Meanwhile, a good deal had been going on. As 'The Times'
of London reported: "This county of Norfolk has seldom been in a greater degree
of alarm and excitement than has lately been experienced in the town of Burnham Market and
its immediate neighbourhood." The poison which killed Bob had been
administered by Fanny Billing to whom the new widow Frary owed a favour.
"Let's bury him out of the way and there'll be some more of 'em
dropped," Kate Frary had promised Peter Taylor as they prepared her husband's corpse
for burial. First on their 'hit list' was Peter's wife Mary, the daughter of a
Burnham wheelwright, whom he had married eighteen years earlier when he and his brother
came from their native Whissonsett to work for Anderson the Burnham shoemaker.
Peter and Mary both worked at Anderson's but she was the sturdier of the two.
He had a reputation as a layabout, preferring to pick up beer money as a barber or
by serving in the local pubs where he also enjoyed a certain reputation as a
song-and-dance man. The Taylors had no children.
Two years earlier, Peter Taylor had begun an affair with his neighbour, Fanny
Billing. Her husband, Jim, had caught the lovers together twice: once in the
backroom of their cottage and once in the privy. Taylor had received a good hiding,
Fanny a black eye and Jim a summons to appear before the local magistrates for a breach of
the peace. Once Mary Taylor had been disposed of, he would be the next to be
'dropped'.
Fanny, who was 44, came from Blakeney where her father, John Plumb, was shepherd
to Mr. Drozier. She had "conducted herself with dignity in early life and had
lived in several reputable families." In 1808, she and Jim Billing were married
in the same Burnham Church where he had been christened by the Rev. Nelson, father of the
Local Hero.
The Pharmacy in Burnham Market looking much the same today as it did in 1835 and
where Fanny Billing bought her poison from Henry Nash.
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On Saturday March 7th, Fanny Billing persuaded her
elderly friend, Jane Dixon, to accompany her to Nash the chemist's where they bought two
packets of white arsenic, one for Fanny and another supposedly for a Mrs. Webster of
Creake. "We always require a witness before selling arsenic," Henry Nash
explained later to the trial judge. He served them himself, putting the innocent
looking white powder into two paper packets labelled 'arsenic-poison' -
"Enough", according the another witness at the trial, "to wipe out all of
Burnham." Fanny also bought a packet of pills for Mrs. Webster's
children and some lemon drops for herself. Jane Dixon received a penny for her
services.
Questioned later, Mrs. Anne Webster confirmed that she had indeed ordered some
of Mr. Nash's special pills; they had been delivered by the carrier and had
"operated very favourably upon my children." But at no time, she insisted,
had she asked Mrs. Billing to buy her any arsenic "or any other poison for the
destruction of mice or any other purpose."
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Jim Billing was obviously on his guard especially after the
mysterious attack of "cholera" he had suffered a few weeks earlier. This
had been after Fanny and Kate had visited their friend Hannah Shorten in Wells.
There had been an angry scene when Jim noticed that Kate had returned a good half hour
before his wife. Eventually she confessed that Peter Taylor had met her by the
bridge over the Burn and walked her home through the dusk. After this, Jim was taken
violently ill. Cholera was suspected. Certainly the symptoms resemble
those of arsenic poisoning. Jim recovered because the dose was not repeated:
their technique was still faulty!
On the day after the visit to Mr. Nash's chemist shop, Jim Billing found a small
hole in the wall between his house and the Taylor's. Removing a smooth flint, he
heard a noise on the other side. The next day, after pretending to leave for work,
he hid under the bed and heard one half of a sister conversation between his wife and the
man next door. "I told you one more Sunday would finish our concern!" she
whispered, then proceeded to scold Peter Taylor for paying too much attention to his wife,
Mary. The lovers agreed to meet that evening, after dark, the pebble was replaced
and Jim Billing was left crouching beneath the bed, alone.
An unsuccessful attempt on Jim's life was made a week later but abandoned when
his wife was arrested - for the murder of Mary Taylor. Mary's last hours were
described in great detail by several witnesses: Elizabeth Southgate; Phoebe Taylor,
her sister-in-law; Edward Spark, the driver of the mail cart; William Powell, a blacksmith
who came for a haircut; Robert Loose a Shoemaker at Anderson's; Mary Lake, the Frary's
landlady; Dr. Cremer, called in at the last minute. They all eventually testified to
the coroner, to the magistrates sitting in the Hoste Arms and to the judge at Norwich
assizes . . . .
Mary went to work as usual on the morning of Thursday, March 12th, leaving some
pork and dumplings for Peter to warm up for dinner. She came home, ate the savoury
dish and was immediately taken violently ill. That morning, Elizabeth
Southgate had seen Fanny hand Peter Taylor a white paper packet saying, "That's
enough for her."
That evening, Phoebe Taylor called on her suffering sister-in-law who asked her
to fetch the gruel which Kate Frary was kindly preparing next door. Kate said it
would need seasoning: there was salt and sugar in the Taylor's pantry.
Ten minutes later, the attentive Mr.s Frary came in to find her gruel getting
cold. It had been too thick for Mary Taylor's blistered throat. She took the
jug downstairs and returned a few minutes later. "It's thinner now and I hope
you'll take it," she said.
Downstairs, Peter Taylor had a visitor. William Powell, the blacksmith had
come for a haircut. When he heard there was sickness in the house, he offered to
leave but Peter insisted that he stay. Upstairs they could hear Mary moaning while
women flitted in and out of the shadows carrying bowls, cups and jugs."Kate
Frary put the basin on the table," Powell said, "I saw her put something into
the gruel which looked like powdered sugar or flour. She then took a much larger
portion of something which looked like salt and put it in the gruel which she then carried
upstairs.
"How is she?" Peter Taylor asked. "Very bad," Kate
replied. "But we have hopes."
Later, Mary Lake came to join the party, just in time to help put Mary Taylor
back into the bed from which she had fallen out in her agonised struggle.
Downstairs, her husband sat by the fire, smoking a pipe. |
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At midnight, after Mary had become unconscious, they decided to
send for the doctor. Mr. Cremer arrived and saw that there was nothing he could do.
He asked if there was any poison in the house, went downstairs and asked Peter
Taylor if he was troubled with vermin. "There are things laid about which might
be laid with the victuals," he observed.
When he went upstairs, Mary Taylor was dead. Mr. Cremer waited until
Mary's mother, Mrs. Miles, arrived then went home. Mrs. Miles, Phoebe Taylor, Mrs.
Lake and Kate Frary all helped to lay the dead woman out, washing her corpse clean,
plugging the bodily openings through which her life had leaked away, binding the sagging
jaw, closing her bloodshot eyes.
Then they all tramped downstairs to console the new widower who had just brewed
a cup of tea. But they used Mrs. Miles' sugar. "We didn't ought to have
none of that," Kat Frary said, pointing at the Taylor's sugar bowl.
They sat there through that dreadful night, drinking cup after cup of strong tea
until the cold March dawn. There were those who knew, others who guessed or
suspected. Already a message was on its way to the Coroner, Francis Quarles of
Foulsham. Their long vigil marked the turning of the time: there would be no more
poisonings (though one would be attempted), just the snapping of three sets of vertebrae
at the end of Calcraft's rope outside Norwich Castle in the blinding August sun.
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