An account of the circumstances attending the imprisonment and death of the late William Millard, formerly superintendent of the Theatre of Anatomy of St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark.

Date:
1825
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the circumstances attending the imprisonment and death of the late William Millard, formerly superintendent of the Theatre of Anatomy of St. Thomas's Hospital, Southwark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    hour after the alarm in Mr, Thomson's house. Where had he been from the breaking out of the fire? When he found the house in flames, why go through the skylight, when he might have walked out at the street door ? And again, why break the skylight to get upon the leads when there was aback door ? There was another circumstance worthy the attention of the jury. It had been suggested by the plaintiff, that he had lost a quantity of guineas contained in a writing-desk. The writing-desk had been burned, but the guineas would not burn, they would not even melt; and yet no guinea could ever be found among the ruins, although the rubbish had been sifted. Still the unknown stranger might have stolen the guineas. There were two circumstances against that: first, he had left untouched a pair of silver candlesticks close to the desk ; and next, although the desk had been burned, the lock had been found in a locked state ; a thief, after stealing the guineas, would scarcely have taken the trouble to lock the desk after him. In fact, as the jury would see, Mr. Wakly had been mer- cifully dealt by, for the murderer had made wounds only skin deep, and the thief had carried away nothing. G. Be forth and D. Bliss were the watchmen who entered the house on the alarm. They proved, that before the servants rushed out, they heard the bolt of the street door undrawn; that Mr. Wakly could be found no where, and that the back parlour door was locked. Stephen Lavender, the police ofiicer, gave important evidence as to the cuts in the clothes of the plaintiff. [A figure was put in the witness box, of the size and figure of the plaintiff, dressed in the clothes worn on the fatal night.] There are two cuts in the shirt where only one appears in the waistcoat. There is a considerable stain on the cut part of the shirt; but there is no correspotiding stain on the inside of the waistcoat. The stain here upon the shirt is certainly made by a mixture of blood and tvafer. If the stain had been made by blood flowing from a wound, it would, no doubt, have been of a much deeper colour. Mr. Wakly told me that he had received two threatening letters before the fire ; but he did not say that they spoke of his having cut off the heads of Thistle- wood and his companions. He said he believed them to have arisen out of some jealousy at his late man-iage. Mr. Thomas Harvey, a surgeon, thought the stains were made by a lighter fluid than blood.