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A Name that Fits By now, we might think that C–––s B–––w was not only the murderer of Sarah Smith but also the father of her daughter Sarah. It’s as clear a motive as any. Whether he seduced her or whether they were lovers and for a host of reasons could not or did not want to marry, the twin circumstances of Sarah’s death by alleged poisoning and the recent birth of her illegitimate child must be considered together. Yet
he was prepared to go through with a devilish plan to poison her
while allowing the accusation to stand against him unerased upon
her gravestone for all the world to see. We might assume from this that he, like most of the rest of the parishioners, could not read and was blissfully ignorant of the damning accusation. Maybe the gravestone only began to attract attention generations after the burial at a time of growing literacy. We
might also think that the cad ultimately got his come-uppence at
the drop of a hangman’s noose. Yet when we consider the incomplete
naming of the accused on the gravestone, would it not be more logical
to think that C–––s B–––w was likely
to avoid being judged in court over the allegation? For if the man
was going to pay for his crime by the time of the commissioning
of the gravestone, surely the family would have been less circumspect
about identifying him. Maybe he had powerful friends in the Parish?
By scouring the Wolstanton and neighbouring Parish records for a name that fits we are, of course, making the reasonable assumption that C–––s B–––w was a local. Yet, as the Parish of Wolstanton in this period extended far away to the south, even encompassing Tunstall to the north-east, one could live ten miles away and still have one’s details recorded in the Wolstanton Parish registers. And having checked the registers between 1720 and 1812, I discovered the following family names that fitted the B–––w (trusting to the clear typography of the 1903 transcribed edition of the registers - 2 Vols, 1624-1812). Bagshaw, Banshaw, Barlow, Barrow, Bastow, Batlow, Benbow, Blackshaw, Bradshaw and Bristow. Thank
goodness the author of the gravestone inscription decided on C–––s
B–––w and not simply CB - by doing so he refined
the search down to just two men! Of all these B–––w
surnames, the only two individuals whose forenames also fit the
C–––s part of the inscription are Charles Bradshaw
and Charles Barlow. Charles Bradshaw can be discounted at once because
he’s in the wrong period entirely. But what of Charles Barlow? He makes his first appearance in the record on the occasion of his baptism by Edward Sneyd’s predecessor as Wolstanton Parish priest, the Reverend John Harding, ‘Charles son of John and Anne Barlow was baptised September the 12th 1736’. [7] Just six years before Sarah herself was born. His next appearance in the record occurs, aged twenty-nine, just a year and a half after Sarah's death, on the occasion of his marriage to Mary Nixon of Newcastle-under-Lyme on 9 April 1765. Interestingly, while his new bride Mary signs the register with a cross, Charles Barlow signs his own very competemt signature. [8] The
next record of Charles occurs two years later at the baptism of
his first child. In the elegant hand of the Rev. Edward Sneyd, the
Wolstanton Baptismal register records, Over the next eight years, Charles and his wife Mary go on to produce three sons, John, his heir (b. 1768), James (b. 1770) and George (b. 1774), all of whom are baptised by the Rev. Edward Sneyd in the church at Wolstanton. It is when we come to the final records to be found of Charles Barlow in the Wolstanton Parish registers that a truly remarkable piece of evidence emerges. On November 4th 1778, when Charles was in his forty-second year, he and his family turned up at the church to bury his son James who had died at the age of eight. On the following day, November 5th, the Rev. Edward Sneyd recorded the event in the Burial Register in a most unusual way. This is a new volume to the previous Burial Register and instead of the unruled pages haphazardly inscribed with up to 28 entries per page, the new volume has pre-printed pages of blank forms allowing for ten burial records to be entered on each page. This is significant because the entries in question leap out from the pages with insertions in the space after ‘Parish’ that occur in almost no other places in the volume. To identify a person with a property - in this case 'New House of Red Street' - in the burial register is most unusual. But
the really extraordinary thing is that the Rev. Edward Sneyd recorded
this single burial twice - first at the foot of page 32 as the 24th
burial of the year [10], and again
second entry down on page 33 as the 26th burial of the year,
‘James Son of Charles Barlow, aged ... of this Parish (New
House) of Red Street was buried November 4 1778. Registered November
5, 1778, by me, Edwd. Sneyd Vicr.’ [11] In the second entry, there is evidence of writing having been scratched out - the erroneous date of ‘Nov 20’ is replaced by the correct date of ‘Nov 4’ and the words ‘New House’ removed above the printed line ‘aged.....of’. Having
realised his mistake here, it’s very odd that Edward didn’t
scratch the second version entirely. But could this duplicate entry
have been a deliberate mistake intended to draw attention to the
name of Charles Barlow? Was Edward privy to the answer of the riddle
on Sarah Smith’s gravestone? Had the Smith family unburdoned
themselves of Sarah’s deathbed accusation to their vicar -
the only man they could reasonably have turned to for advice and
solace? It’s hard to believe that Edward hadn’t given approval to the laying of the gravestone with its uncompromising allegation of murder. And as he was a younger brother of the Lord of the Sneyd Estate, maybe he approached his elder brother Ralph to see whether justice could be done in the matter of Sarah’s alleged murder. Then, having failed in this, did he follow the only path open to him - albeit fifteen years later - and make absolutely sure that anyone intrigued enough by the gravestone inscription to begin searching the church records for a name that fitted C–––s B–––w could not fail to spot the ‘(New House)’ and ‘(Red Street)’ entries thereby leading the reader to check the name of Charles Barlow? What
was so special about this man that he, almost alone of all the other
Wolstanton parishioners, had the distinction of being identified
with a property in the Parish registers? And what other possible
reason could there be for the Rev. Edward Sneyd to record a single
burial twice other than to draw attention to the name of Charles
Barlow? The
identification of Charles Barlow with ‘(New House) of Red Street’
might suggest that, if not a gentleman, he had at least become a
man of some means. Perhaps, even, a man who commanded some respect
in the Parish with friends in high places. He was certainly the
heir and main beneficiary of his father John and maybe it was arranged
for him to go away for a year and a half and let all the rumours
die down. Maybe, with a decent dowry on the marriage settlement
between the two families, Charles returned to his roots to make
his worldly way in the district that was most familiar to him. We
need not speculate for too long here because discovering these entries
in the Burial Register provided at least one researcher 250 years
later with a very significant clue that would bear fruit when examining
the Sneyd archive - so thank you Edward! Suffice
it to mention now that Red Street itself is the name of a village
just north of Chesterton about two miles to the north-west of the
church - most of the land in the whole area being owned by the Sneyds.
If it is this Charles Barlow who poisoned Sarah and was the father of her child, he not only escaped the hangman’s noose but went on to prosper. In the comfort of New House in Red Street, as already noted, Charles and Mary began a family just three years after Sarah’s death. After coming of age, Charles’ son and heir John Barlow (named after the boy’s grandfather) married Elizabeth and between them they produced three sons and three daughters. His firstborn son and heir takes his own name and the following sons take the names of his brothers, James and George. John and Elizabeth even make two attempts at naming their eldest daughter after his grandmother, Anne - the first of these dying in infancy. Yet the name ‘Charles’ appears not have been passed down so readily. Still, quite a clan of healthy children - to say nothing of all the uncles, aunts and cousins. Copyright 2006 Jeremy Crick |
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