On Saturday, the 1st of March 1856, at about eight o’clock in the evening, Harriet Dove asked for her medicine. For several days she had been suffering from seizures which those about her termed spasms; on that evening, the draught struck her as more bitter and hotter than usual. William, her husband, handed her the glass, rinsed it at the washstand, and went out to fetch further medicines. Two women remained in the bedchamber, Mrs Witham and Mrs Wood. A quarter of an hour later, according to their depositions as summarised at the trial, Harriet grew rigid, begged to be raised, and soon lost the power of speech. She expired at about twenty minutes to eleven. These witnesses had not seen what was mingled with the physic; yet their recollections were to form the first thread of a case in which the prisoner’s mind was to be debated as fiercely as the substance found within the body.
The brief laid before the court at York several months later was not confined to that final night. The compilation by G. Lathom Browne and C. G. Stewart, published in 1883 under the title Reports of Trials for Murder by Poisoning, records that William Dove, aged thirty, was indicted for the murder of his wife, committed at Leeds on the 1st of March. Their report, retrospective rather than stenographic, reviews the hearings, which it dates to the 16th, 17th, and 18th of July 1856. It sets out the depositions of witnesses, the arguments of counsel, the judge’s summing-up, and two statements subsequently attributed to Dove. A notice in the Spectator, published on the 26th of July, states that the trial occupied four days and concluded on Saturday evening. This discrepancy in the calendar cautions against treating the compilation’s heading as an exhaustive chronology.
The compilation traces Dove’s early years through the testimony heard at the assizes: schoolmasters and farmers recalled an intractable pupil, acts of cruelty towards animals, and conduct they deemed extravagant. In manhood, according to these witnesses, he alternated between fits of violence and childish ways; intemperance aggravated his infirmities. His marriage to Harriet, solemnised in 1852, was clouded by quarrels, separate chambers, and a projected separation that was abandoned. These memories did not constitute a diagnosis: each side assigned to them an opposite meaning.
That winter, the public prints were filled with the trial of William Palmer for the poisoning of John Parsons Cook by strychnine. Browne and Stewart opined in 1883 that a premature report had led people to believe the poison undetectable after death, and they connected this intelligence to Dove’s curiosity regarding the substance; this was their retrospective interpretation. The Crown maintained that Dove had obtained ten grains from Morley’s young assistant on the 10th of February, and a further four or five grains on the 17th, under the pretence of destroying cats. These purchases, even when proven, did not suffice of themselves to establish his felonious intent.
Harriet’s indisposition had preceded her dissolution. Ann Fisher, the servant, related that on a Monday morning her mistress collapsed while making the beds, and was seized by twitchings that recurred at the slightest touch. She subsequently complained of pains in the back and legs. Other witnesses described several paroxysms during the week, separated by intervals in which the sufferer appeared improved. Morley, the surgeon in attendance, at first suspected an hysterical seizure and prescribed soothing draughts. He stated at the trial that he did not alter his view until the final night, when the descriptions furnished by Fisher and her neighbours led him to assimilate the symptoms to those of strychnine. The interval between the attacks and the apparent amendment on the Saturday were thus thoroughly debated, without the medical attendant professing to have understood what was occurring from the outset.
On the 1st of March, Mrs Witham stated that she administered a dose at about half-past three; Harriet found it bitter, and Witham tasted the liquid. The surgeon called thereafter. In the evening, in Mrs Wood’s presence, William brought a fresh draught. The women described a sharp, harsh taste, though they had seen no powder added. They saw him hold the glass, and within minutes Harriet was seized with convulsions. Fisher, arriving later, heard her cries and found her in grievous agony. By the time she returned with the medical men, Harriet was dead. The witnesses differed as to the exact hours and regarding certain moments of this final scene.
Morley and Nunneley examined the remains some forty-two hours after death. In their report, they stated they had discovered no natural disease sufficient to account for dissolution, and that they had detected strychnine in the stomach and other viscera. They also tested extracts upon animals. Morley concluded that the symptoms and the chemical tests pointed to poisoning. According to the compilation, a dog believed to have licked blood spilled during the post-mortem examination died shortly after; the surgeons detected the alkaloid within its carcass. This circumstance supported the Crown’s contention, without demonstrating who had administered the fatal draught to Harriet.
Medical opinion was far from unanimous. Morley admitted he had suspected hysteria before hearing the women who were present during the final paroxysm. Nunneley and Christison considered the symptoms more consistent with strychnine, while debating the possibility of resemblances to other maladies. A medical practitioner called for the defence observed that he had noted nothing unusual in Harriet’s countenance or posture after death. The debate turned equally upon the earlier seizures: could they all be referred to poison, and what weight ought to be attached to the chemical tests?
Fisher ascribed to Dove certain threats uttered when in liquor, including one that he would give his wife a “pill.” Other witnesses stated they had heard him declare she would not live long, or inquire concerning a post-mortem examination. After her decease, he was said to have questioned Harrison, styled the “wizard” of Leeds, as to whether strychnine could be detected, and to have asked medical men what a jury would conclude if poison were discovered. To the prosecution, these utterances revealed premeditation; the defence laid stress upon the fact that no witness had seen powder introduced into the fatal draught.
Harrison, an astrologer and herbalist by his own testimony, had been consulted by Dove concerning his wife and strange noises heard in the house. The prosecution saw in these visits a path toward obtaining poison; the defence, the mark of a credulous and disordered intellect. A letter written in prison and addressed to the Devil was also read, entreating a favourable deliverance in return for the writer’s fidelity. The medical witnesses for the defence regarded it as evidence of delusion; it fell to the jury to decide whether it established Dove’s unaccountability at the moment of the crime.
Three specialists deposed on behalf of the prisoner. Caleb Williams considered that disease might render Dove incapable of resisting an impulse; Pyeman Smith spoke of an unsound mind, while conceding he could not affirm the prisoner was utterly unable to abstain. John Kitchen believed him diseased, but admitted initially that he knew right from wrong and the risk of punishment; he subsequently qualified that admission. Impulse, propensity, and disease were not decisive of the verdict: the jurors were required to weigh these opinions alongside the facts and the rule of law.
Baron Bramwell reminded the jury that insanity had to be established at the time the act was committed, notably by a defect of reason rendering the prisoner incapable of knowing the nature of his act or that it was wrong. He declined to allow medical theories to usurp the office of the jury. The summing-up reported by Browne and Stewart combines the exposition of the rule with severe strictures upon expert witnesses and the deterrent effect of punishment; it does not represent a consensus of medical opinion. The legal formula defined the threshold to be examined, not what Dove had actually comprehended.
Following the pleadings and the judge’s charge, the jury returned a verdict of guilty, accompanied by a recommendation to mercy on the ground of “defective intellect.” Bramwell pronounced sentence of death, intimating that the recommendation would be forwarded to the proper authorities. The report in the Spectator confirms the verdict, the recommendation, and the sentence, adding that the learned judge warned Dove not to rely upon a reprieve. Browne and Stewart append that he was subsequently executed at York. The jury thus rejected the plea of insanity, while placing on record their misgivings as to the prisoner’s mental capacity.
According to the compilation, Dove dictated two confessions a day or two prior to his execution. In them, he related his reliance upon Harrison’s divinations, and admitted having placed strychnine in preparations administered to Harriet, while asserting that his original purpose was to destroy cats and that he had not considered the consequences. He placed his awakening to what he had done at the moment she began to suffer. This belated narrative admits to acts debated at the trial, yet puts forward an intention at variance with that found by the jury; the manuscript itself has not been collated here.
At Leeds, chemical tests, the recollections of neighbours, the opinions of physicians, and a letter addressed to the Devil were laid before the jury. Their verdict declared Dove guilty, while recommending mercy on the ground of intellectual defect; the sentence of death was pronounced. The account published in 1883 also records subsequent statements that acknowledge the acts while advancing an altered intention. This conclusion leaves the underlying disputes unresolved: as to the contents of the draughts, the state of the prisoner’s mind, and the weight a court of law ought to accord to expert testimony.