Moor End Murder

 28th March 1891. 

Charlotte Cooper, an unmarried woman in her early 40s, left her little cottage at Moor End near Marlow to go on a trip to High Wycombe. She shared her home with her parents Henry and Jane. 

Henry was aged 67 and still working as an agricultural labourer. Though he had been born in nearby High Wycombe he had for some years lived in Bourton On The Water in Gloucestershire and as such was known as "Gloucester Cooper" in the hamlet. He worked at Moor End Farm, probably specifically as a cowman. Seven or eight years previously he, while suffering from sunstroke, had fallen off a hayrick. Since then he had suffered from bouts of dizziness and a "bad head". His wife Jane, in her seventies, suffered from an illness that rendered her paralysed and confined to her bed. She could speak but could only eat with a spoon. On the day in question she was in her bed, while Henry sat smoking his pipe downstairs. He had been able to lead the cows out that morning but his "bad head" was troubling him he told his daughter.

Charlotte was not overly concerned however and left for High Wycombe. Charlotte would say later that Henry was a patient and uncomplaining carer for her mother despite Jane accusing him of not doing anything for her and not really liking her. It seems these feelings were caused by her illness rather than reality.

When she returned, not receiving a reply from her father and puzzled as to why she found his boots set aside and hat on a chair if he was not in, she went upstairs to find him in the bed slightly conscious and covered in blood and her mother lying dead beside him. Henry had cut her throat with his razor, and then stabbed himself in the abdomen and throat in an attempt to commit suicide. She ran to a near neighbour Mrs Grimsdale, landlady of the Black Boy pub, who went to fetch the police while Mrs Grimsdale's daughter remained with Charlotte, comforting her. Dr Francis Culhane came up from Marlow to attend the scene.

Barely alive, Henry was taken to the Marlow Cottage Hospital. Dr Culhane said that Henry became very violent there and it was considered necessary to use the straight jacket in order to attempt care of his injuries. 

The inquest into her death was held at the Moor End farmhouse. The jury reached a verdict of willful murder against her husband. A few days later he died and another inquest was held for him this time at the Cottage Hospital.

Charlotte Cooper was the main witness in both enquiries.

That madness tended to run in families was a strong belief in later Victorian Britain so inevitability the mental health of the wider Cooper family was inquired into. Charlotte could not tell the court much about her father's side of the family but she admitted that she had a brother who had died in an insane asylum (perhaps her brother Thomas, she had half brothers too from either an earlier marriage or earlier relationship of Jane Coopers).

Her near neighbour Sarah Humphries testified to hearing Charlotte scream and run out of the house after she came home. She also saw her leave in the morning, helping to prove Charlotte could not have killed her parents herself as did the testimony of William Plumridge junior who delivered bread to the house while Charlotte was out. He spoke to Henry, making him likely the last person to see him alive. Henry looked "strange" he said and in answer to enquiries about his wife said that he feared that she would never be well again. Dr Deane of Hambledon who had visited the Cooper's earlier in the year said Henry had become "weak in the head". 

Some of the inquest jury members donated their fees for serving to the Cottage Hospital.

Related information: 

Biography of Dr Francis Culhane: 

here

Other posts relating to the Moor End/ Lane End area of Great Marlow Parish here

Index of crime related posts: here

All mentions of a person or family here can be found in the A-Z person index in the top drop down menu. 

Sources:

South Bucks Standard 3rd April and 10th April 1891. Buckinghamshire Examiner 8th April 1891. Bucks Herald 11th April 1891. All British Library Archives via the BNA.

"England and Wales Census, 1851," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SG27-CXN : 9 November 2019), Charlotte Cooper in household of Henry Cooper, Bourton On The Water, Gloucestershire, England; citing Bourton On The Water, Gloucestershire, England, p. 49, from "1851 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.

"England and Wales Census, 1861," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M7GZ-TCT : 3 March 2021), Henry Cooper, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom; from "1861 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 9, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey.

Slough, Eton and Windsor Observer, April 11 1891,/Slough reference library.