marsh family history
[unknown] Turner married [unknown]
Kate Turner - known as Bonny Kate Harvey (gaiety girl) and married very well as a result -
not in
touch with family after leaving for musical variety career as 'Bonny Kate'
Mrs Turner then met [unknown] Marsh, son of [unknown]. Marsh and Mrs. Turner, before they were
able to be married, had the following children:
Emily Turner
Fanny Turner
Abraham Turner
Children of Marsh and Mrs. Turner after they were able to be married:
James Marsh
Alice Marsh
Philadelphia Marsh born 27-Jan-1879 in Brighton, Sussex, died 10-Jan-1954 in
Eastbourne,
East Sussex. Married William Harris at St. Peter's Church, Brighton
in 1906. William was born
1877 in Hastings, England and died 1911 at Thames River.
Florence Alice Harris born 05-Jun-1907 in Brighton, Sussex and died 01-Mar-1997 at
Eastbourne. Married Roland Thomas Harva
Tomsett on 05-Oct-1929 at St. Mary's Parish
Church, Eastbourne, East
Sussex. Roland born 12-Jan-1903 in Eastbourne, East Sussex and
died 14-Sep-1974 in
Eastbourne, East Sussex.
an unfortunate ending
Excerpted from Dr. Thomas Neill Cream by Joseph Geringer, with permission from
Crime Library
Chapter 5 - "A Beauty, Bane and Blackmail"
Late on April 11, 1892, Cream followed Alice Marsh and Emma Shrivell, a pair he had just met loitering in St. George's Circus off the dreary pavements of Stamford Street. Outside, a tug boat moaned as it crept down the Thames, rippling the dark waters, causing a succession of waves to slosh along the wooden pilings that paralleled Stamford. Ascending the squeaking steps of Number 118, the trio reached the landing where a hallway led to the girls' separate rooms. Key inserted, they stopped into Alice's flat, whiffing a strong surge of gas as she lit the jet beside the door. The cramped cubicle of a parlor took on a ruddy glow.
Cream grinned. Of course, they credited the bloke's good humour to his expectations of what was to come, alone with two young nubile women - Alice was twenty-one, Emma was eighteen - in the inviting solitude of the apartment. They promised to drink with him, perhaps do more with him, then - and this was why he grinned - maybe sample one of his cute little pills that he carried in his polished leather Gladstone bag. The pills, he told them, prevented "the disease" so rampant and feared among the girls' profession.
They watched the man as he set the bag on the divan, so pedantically, a cute topper he, soft-spoken and even a little bit shy. Alice, in particular, felt sorry for this Dr. Neill, lonely, just come from America to work at St. Thomas, and still without friends in the city. They whispered and together decided to give the poor blighter some feminine fondling tonight.
"But we haf'ta be quoy'et like mice, so's we don' wyke up the oul' biddy lan'lord' Missus Vogt downstairs," was Alice's only request. "She thinks we're actresses in town! Wouldn't she be s'rproised!" And she dropped her blouse to the floor, revealing a curved torso of white frilly puffs and laces. She tossed a let's-give-the-doc-a-real-show kind of wink to her friend.
The carousing over, they invited the trooper to partake of some malt beer and canned salmon that Alice had stored in her pantry. "On one condition, that you let me reward you with a gift," he answered, unlatching his satchel. "You will find them more precious than money." He motioned to the Queen's banknotes he flung on the tabletop beside the opened, foaming brown bottles of Guinness. "Let me be your personal doctor for the evening."
"Why not?" Emma chuckled. "You were a mite good patient of ours a few moments ago!"
Alice howled after her friend's wit and added, "Ver'ly, wasn't 'e now?"
Dr. Neill, their friend, threw open his case with the delight of an Irishman uncovering a leprechaun's pot of gold. The women marvelled at the sight of little bottles tucked into little pockets inside the pouches; square bottles, rounded bottles, corked bottles, capped bottles, green bottles, and blue, and black, and white; ceramic bottles and glass bottles. Some had labels with odd words and strange equations, some were numbered with tape; others said elixir-this or elixir-that, others were bare. Form one of the latter, Cream spilled six gelatin-covered white pills into his palm, handing each of the women three. "Take these before retiring," he told them. "I will give you more next time we meet."
"Are you sure these work?" Emma asked.
"Oh, you can count on it," he nodded. "Like nothing you've ever tried before."
It was the bewitching hour, about 2 a.m., when the doctor left number 118 Stamford. Outside, he muttered a ga'evening to the local bobby, Officer Comley, who tapped his helmet in return. Each man went his separate direction along the Thames. Inside the home, all was quiet...
... Until about 2:30 a.m. The landlady, Mrs. Charlotte Vogt, awakened, half-conscious of a whimpering upstairs where her boarders lived. This was soon followed by groaning, then a terrible rhythm of screams attended by a horrendous banging noise. Mrs. Vogt stirred her husband and they both scrambled from bed and fumbled in the dark for their robes.
At the top of the stairwell the couple found Alice Marsh trembling on the hallway carpet, her body an amoeba, jerking in spasmodic gestures; her hands grappled at nothing above her open moth as if trying to catch air in her fists to plunge down her gullet. Unable to swallow, she spat up bile. From inside Emma Shrivell's room, a banging continued. When Mr. Vogt broke in, he saw the younger girl enduring the same grotesque attacks, threshing in poses he didn't think the human body capable of. One foot slammed the wall as she, like her friend, groped for oxygen.
The Vogts fetched a policeman who, in turn, wired for an emergency wagon, but by the time it delivered the women to St. Thomas they were dead.
At first ptomaine was suspected, but that was quickly ruled out. An autopsy uncovered deadly doses of strychnine in both victims. The murders mirrored that of the "Lambeth Mystery" girl, Ellen Donworth six months earlier.
Scotland Yard took note. It believed it had a poisoner wandering the streets of Lambeth.
If you want to read more... I would recommend picking up a copy of "A Prescription for Murder: The Victorian Serial Killings of Dr. Thomas Neill Cream" by Angus McLaren. You can find used copies online, or you may find the title in your local library.