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EPISODE ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-ONE:
Today’s episode is about Henry Hall, a loyal husband to his wife and father to three children, who made a honest living as a boot-maker. So, devoted was Henry, that he would willingly sacrifice everything to provide for his family; whether his energy, his health and even his sanity.
THE LOCATION
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The location of the home of the Hall family at 65 Dean Street, it is right in the heart of Soho (not the one in Piccadilly) and is located with a black cross. To use the map, click it. If you want to see the other murder maps, access them by clicking here.
Here's a video to go with this week's episode. It's a link to YouTube so it won't eat up your data.
SOURCES: As this case was researched using the sources below. MUSIC:
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE: SCRIPT: Welcome to Murder Mile; a true-crime podcast and audio guided walk featuring many of London’s untold, unsolved and long-forgotten murders, all set within and beyond the West End. Today’s episode is about Henry Hall, a loyal husband to his wife and father to three children, who made a honest living as a boot-maker. So, devoted was Henry, that he would willingly sacrifice everything to provide for his family; whether his energy, his health and even his sanity. Murder Mile is researched using authentic sources. It contains moments of satire, shock and grisly details. And as a dramatization of the real events, it may also feature loud and realistic sounds, so that no matter where you listen to this podcast, you’ll feel like you’re actually there. My name is Michael, I am your tour-guide and this is Murder Mile. Episode 151: No Way Out for Henry Hall. Today I’m standing on Dean Street in Soho, W1; ten doors south from the medical school where London’s Burke & Hare hawked a dead boy’s fresh corpse for cold hard cash, three doors east of the senseless beating of baby Richard, just to the rear of Dutch Leah’s death and five doors north of the suspicious ‘so-called suicide’ of ‘supposedly Peruvian’ priest - coming soon to Murder Mile... the book. On the corner of Bouchier Street, at 65 Dean Street currently sits Goldcrest, a post-production facility. Soho was once Britain’s film and TV capital, but as most companies failed to adapt to changes in the industry, some moved out and some were forced out, but most simply went bust. I worked nearby at two such companies. In one meeting, our producer barked “let’s make a film about a disabled African football team who are dying of AIDS”. You know, the kind of big-bucks blockbuster that audiences are crying out for. In another, being too thick to be original and desperate to leech off the fame of car-modification show ‘Pimp my Ride’, for an hour solid, the “creatives” (in inverted commas) piped-up with novel twists; like ‘pimp my bedsit’, ‘pimp my dog’, ‘pimp my anus’, ‘pimp my pimp’, ‘pimp my celebrity chef patio makeover from hell’ etc. As far as I know, both companies folded. But that is true of every industry; fashions change, and if they don’t keep up, they die. Back in 1877, 65 Dean Street was a four-storey lodging house inhabited by six working-class families. It was clean, safe and occupied by skilled tradespeople such as tailors, glovemakers, seamstresses, cobblers and bootmakers, whose small rooms doubled as where they lived and where they worked. On the second floor lived the Hall family; they were good, decent and loving. Like most families, they struggled to make-ends-meet as times-were-tough, but by working-hard, they survived. But when times became too tough to bear, Henry’s desperation would turn this doting dad into a danger. As it was here, on Friday 8th June 1877, seeing no way out from his abject poverty, that Henry did the unthinkable... only what drove him to kill were his feet and his teeth. (Interstitial) Love can be a powerful driving force. It can make the rational irrational; it can drive the sane insane... ...and it can even turn the most loving and mild mannered of men into a homicidal monster. In 1840, Henry Hall was born in the Shropshire town of Ludlow. As one of several sons to a bootmaker and a seamstress, he was blessed with an unremarkable upbringing, being burdened by no more trials and tribulations than others in that era. Built from sturdy country stock, he was raised with pride in his blood, and like the long line of men before him, he toiled to provide a good life for his loved-one’s. As a person, everyone described him as kind and attentive, with never a bad word said against him. In 1868, he married Jane, a woman six years his senior who hailed from Chalfont in Buckinghamshire. Being like two peas in a proverbial pod, they never spoke ill of each other nor slept with a curse-word spilled, as being hard-working and level-headed, they always found a way to resolve their issues. Therefore, it’s unsurprising that Mr & Mrs Hall would raise four children together, all of whom would turn out as bright and good. In 1869, having moved to Paddington (West London), their first daughter Jane was born. In 1871, the family moved to 11 King St in Soho on the eastern-edge of Old Compton Street, and it’s here that three more were born; Frank in 1871, Annie in 1873 and Louisa in 1876. With six mouths to feed, Mr & Mrs Hall held-down several jobs; with Jane working as a charwoman, a cleaner to a few well-to-do households, starting at 8am and often not finishing till midnight. Being a bootmaker - with his wife out - as Henry plied his trade in the second of their two-roomed lodging, a child-minder helped rear their kids so Henry could focus on his business, which was their main income. In the winter of 1876, the family moved into two smaller rooms on the second floor of 65 Dean Street; with a living space for this family-of-six at the rear, and next to a large bed, Henry’s tools of his trade. It wasn’t much, but it was home. They weren’t well-off, but they didn’t starve. Their life wasn’t wine and roses, but it was always warm and cosy. And although, Henry & Jane were often exhausted – even if it meant they didn’t eat or sleep - everything they did was for the sake of their children. As with an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, a 4-year-old and a toddler; living off Two small incomes, times were hard... ...but they made it work. Raised as a skilled craftsman, the family’s main income had always come from Henry. Henry was a boot-maker; not a cobbler, not a clogger, nor a cordwainer. There is a big difference and legally – although to the layman they all make shoes – to the industry, they were each very distinct. In 1395, the Mayor of London decreed that each profession must form their own guild, which held each craftsman to a set of strict rules and regulations to ensure that competition was evenly spread, but it also kept those of a lower rank in their place, in this very old, very traditional industry. The guilds were set-out like so; cordwainers were shoemakers who made new shoes from new leather meaning their products were of the highest quality. Henry was a bootmaker, who made practical boots for working man and woman, which could only be made from second-hand leather. Below Henry were the cloggers who could not make boots out of any type of leather (only wood, twine or ceramics) and, at the bottom, cobblers were not permitted to make any shoes of any type, ever. Their job is to repair. In order to work, you had to be a member of a guild, at which, you had to pay your dues. If you didn’t pay your dues, you didn’t work, and if you didn’t work, you didn’t eat – simple as that. And although many craftsmen - at all ends - flouted the rules, Henry never jeopardised his family by taking that risk. Being a bootmaker, it may seem as if Henry was in a better position than most - and he was – but he could only succeed if there was more demand and less competition. Boot-making was an ancient skill, handed down from father-to-son, which had changed very little in the last few centuries... ...but the industry was about to get a very rude awakening, owing to innovation. The 1870’s were a difficult time for traditional craftspeople, especially in Soho, as not only were they surrounded by the high fashion stores of Oxford Street and Regent Street, but also, times had changed. By the mid-1800’s, shoemaking had gone from a cottage industry into a mechanised production. It began in 1812, when Marc Brunel invented an automatic sole-fastener to supply military boots during the Napoleonic War. In 1853, during the Crimean War, Tomas Crick patented a riveting machine which maximised production, and introduced steam-powered rolling and cutting machines which precisely cut hardened leather to an exact template. By 1864, Lyman Blake had perfected the shoe-stitching machine, and so – with cutting, rolling, fastening and stitching no longer done by hand - by the late 1870’s, the process of mass-producing shoes or boots to the people was almost entirely mechanised. Shoes were now cheaper, there was greater choice, and the size and quality had been standardised. For the people, it was win-win.... ...but for skilled working-class craftsmen like Henry, who still made boots by hand as his forefathers had done for centuries, it would be impossible to keep up... or even to keep going. Through the bitter winter and sodden spring of 1877, Henry had struggled. As a 37-year-old married father of four, he had earned an honest wage as a bootmaker for almost all of his life. It was all he had ever done, it was all he knew how to do and owing to the guild’s rules, it was all he was allowed to do. But now, struggling to cover even just the basics like paying the rent and putting food on the table, he wasn’t sleeping and he wasn’t eating, as the endless worry plagued his mind. With his wife already working a 16-hour day, every day, it still wasn’t enough, but they were certain they’d get through it. Only, one problem would plague them all... their teeth. For the last four months, Henry had been suffering with chronic toothache. Like many people in this era, his mouth looked more like a box of brown broken biscuits than a smile, but now these unsightly stumps bled red with profuse frothy rivers and his impacted jaw protruded like he’d been thumped. Worried sick with money-troubles - even if he could eat or sleep, which he couldn’t – the pain had meant that he rarely got a good night’s sleep, making him unusually moody. He was never nasty, cruel or violent, but he would sometimes snap for no reason, only to apologise with his head hung in shame. Admittedly, he could have gone to a dentist, but with Britain still two years from Parliament passing the Dentist Act, which established a register and required that all dentists were trained and qualified to a minimum standard, many barbers moonlighted as dentists with little or no experience or training. So bad was British oral health, that often patients in their teens to twenties would willingly have their teeth ripped-out and replaced with a false set made from wood or ceramics. The idea being it saved on pain, decay, any future dental costs and it remained a popular 21st birthday gift up until the 1940s. But with the procedure being risky, painful and each tooth costing five shillings-a-piece, Henry couldn’t afford this. Besides, as a good decent man - as bad as his pain got - his priority was always his family. With his wife, Jane, plagued by shards of festering stumps dangling from her puffy red ridge of swollen gums like bloodied stalactites, being riddled with a pain so intense it caught her breath and made her question her own sanity, the meagre funds he could scrap together were used to cure her, not him. This was a rational decision, as if she couldn’t work – as their new breadwinner - they would all starve... ...but that would be one of the last rational decisions he would ever make. To try to pacify the pain; for those who could afford it, they were prescribed cocaine. But for those who couldn’t, they took Laudanum; a legal but potentially lethal and highly addictive poison concocted from a 10% solution of opium in alcohol, which was used to treat pain, insomnia and nerves. As a reddish-brown liquid with a very bitter taste, when given to babies to suppress a chesty cough, many parents would disguise its retch-inducting essence with spices or tea. A safe dosage was just four-to-six drops in a glass of water, but this would be enough to induce a feeling of rest and euphoria. But by the mid-1800’s, with accidental overdoses having become too frequent – leading to respiratory depression, hypoxia, coma and death – and laudanum the drug of choice for the suicidally-inclined, although it could be purchased without a prescription (as it would be until the 1970s), chemists were instructed to follow two simple rules; they must insist that each customer has a valid excuse (“I’ve got toothache”, “my child won’t sleep”, “my wife’s back is killing her”) and only then, would a very specific dosage be provided via a pipet. (Drops heard times six) “Thank you Sir, that will be one penny”. It wasn’t a fool-proof system, but it had saved lives. By Wednesday 6th June 1877, just two days before, Henry was a physical and emotional wreck. With his impacted gums throbbing like he’d gone eight rounds with a heavyweight, and every time his heart thumped, a rush of blood made his deformed face feel like it was about to burst open, this incessant thrumming – every second, of every minute – was one of the worst tortures Henry had ever endured. Looking little more than a frail ghost with bloodshot eyes perched on top of a thin streak of grey sallow skin; his words were unintelligible, his hands were shaky, and once again, he became unusually rude. It was rare that Henry ever lost his temper, but having shouted at the kids for barely uttering a peep, and having spat some truly foul words at his beloved wife of nine good years, all because he hadn’t the pennies to pay his dues to the Bootmakers Guild and the dire consequences that would inflict... ...he snapped. But again, he was never violent or cruel, and as a thick slick of quivering tears flooded his tired eyes, as always, Henry’s heart fell heavy with regret and he apologised. “I’m sorry, I... I... I don’t... sorry”. Henry Hall was trapped in a vicious circle which wasn’t of his making; unable to work, he couldn’t earn, he couldn’t eat, he couldn’t sleep, and so the pain continued. There was no way out for Henry Hall. Working harder, Jane scraped-by six pennies to help him out, which left him with a fateful choice; to pay his dues to the guild, or to buy some drugs for the pain. But unable to make a rational decision... ...Henry chose to do neither. The same day that he snapped, Henry walked into Mr Hartnell’s chemist shop at 7 Titchbourne Street, off Great Windmill Street and ordered an eighth of a teaspoon’s worth of laudanum, declaring “it’s for my toothache”. With his speech slurred, his eyes sunken and his jaw bulging like a rotting sack of offal, it was clear to the assistant that his need was legit. As Henry pulled out a small vile - marked with a crow and ‘poison’ scrawled in Henry’s own hand - the chemist dispensed enough laudanum to suppress a week’s worth of pain, he issued a stern warning “four-to-six drops in a glass of water once-a-day, no more” and having written-up the purchase in the Poisons Book, Henry paid him two pennies. Henry could have taken the laudanum right there and then, and eased his pain... (long exhale) ...only, his frazzled brain was elsewhere (electrical sparks). A short while later, he stumbled into Cooper & Co, a chemist’s shop at 20 Moor Street, just off Old Compton Street and placed his order, slurring “it’s for my toothache”. Pulling out a second vile, marked and labelled correctly, the chemist dispensed a drachm and a scruple, roughly an eighth of a teaspoon of laudanum, stated “four-to-six drops in water, no more”, wrote-it-up in the Poisons Book (which no governing body was overseeing so the exercise was prone to abuse) and Henry paid him two pennies. Henry could have been pain-free, within minutes... (long exhale) ...only, this good man had taken a very bad turn (electrical sparks). On Thursday 7th June, one day before, Henry staggered into Crow’s Chemist’s at 49 Princes Street, at the bottom of Wardour Street, still wincing with pain having not touched a drop. “It’s for my tooth”; he popped out a vile, was warned, the purchase was noted and Henry paid him two pennies. Henry now had enough laudanum to end his pain forever, and his life... (long exhale) ...only, seeing no way out, it wasn’t his pain he was trying to ease (electrical sparks). At 8am on Friday 8th June 1877, Jane headed-out for another 16-hour shift as a charwoman. With 8-year-old Jane, 6-year-old Frank, 4-year-old Annie and 18-month-old Louisa left at home, as per usual, their neighbour Mrs Mary Tice popped in every so often, so Henry could focus on making boots. The children were well-behaved, they played but didn’t disturb their dad, and having kept their energy up with a cup of tea and a slice each of bread and treacle for lunch, Mary Tice saw nothing unusual. The time was roughly two-thirty pm. Their eldest daughter Jane would later state “father came into the room, we were running about with a ball, we were rather noisy and he told us not to make such a racket, but he never said why. My mother had left the teapot on the table, and from his work-room, my father pulled a bottle”. It was a bottle they had seen among his things many times before, one he himself had drunk from to make himself well, and now this very bottle (which held the contents of three purchases from three different chemists) was held in the hand of their beloved father; a good kind man who they all trusted. Into the remnants of the morning’s cold tea, Henry poured the reddish-brown liquid. “The baby was playing with us”, Jane would state, of the little mite who was barely the size of a small bundle of rags, “he took her into the back room... when he brought her back, I think I saw some sick on her pinafore”. Laying his youngest on their shared bed, as his head thrummed louder, the baby began to wail... only its cry was a tear-soaked sob which grew quieter and fainter as her little life slowly ebbed away. Being unusually grumpy, although their father was never one to strike them for misbehaving, not wanting to upset him any further, they did as he said, so the four little children could go back to playing quietly. 4-year-old Annie was next “she did not like it, she said it was nasty stuff, but my father promised her a penny if she drank it, so she did” and never being one to turn down a shiny penny, Frank was next. Feeling woozy and with a trickle of sick spewing down their chests, all three children lay on the bed. And as Jane, his eldest daughter stared into her dad’s dead soulless eyes, “I told him I did not want any”. Being bright, she wouldn’t have supped from a bitter cup had it been offered by anyone else. But as this was her father – a man she could never believe for a single second had an ounce of hate in his heart, or would ever wish her dead - “I drank from the same cup, it tasted nasty and I was sick”. And as Jane lay beside her sickening siblings, Henry sat motionless as aside from an endless thrumming inside his head, the only sound which filled the room was the choking as his children lay dying... ... ...but again, never being a violent or cruel man, as a slick of tears flooded his tired eyes and Henry’s heart fell heavy with regret, he apologised and ran out, sobbing “I’m sorry, I... I’ll fetch mother”. At 3pm, Jane returned home to find her eldest vomiting into a bucket, and the silent and seemingly motionless forms of her youngest lying on the bed, their breathing only slight. Aided by Mrs Tice, she dashed her dying babies to Dr Clark’s at 23 Gerrard Street, and - with their pupils like pin-points and smelling the bitter stench of laudanum on their breath - he administered an emetic, and rushed the four innocents to Charing Cross Hospital, as each child clung onto a very thin sliver of life. (end) Poverty had driven their doting father to murder them. In an exhausted state of confusion, he believed he was doing the right thing to spare them from starvation, and although his poverty had been the overriding reason that Henry had made this irrational decision, it was also the reason they survived. Thankfully, had he poisoned himself, he would definitely be dead. But being so broke that he couldn’t afford enough laudanum to kill them all, sharing it evenly among each child, on Thursday 14th June, one week later, the last of his four children were discharged from hospital, having made a full recovery. Having fled in shame, at 8pm, Henry Hall was arrested and transferred to Vine Street police station. The next day, he was charged at Marlborough Street Police Court, with his solicitor pleading that “this is a very painful case, and I appeal to the magistrate for leniency”, as the children had all survived, and Henry Hall was widely regarded by those who knew him as a loyal husband and a loving father. Tried at the Old Bailey on the 25th June 1877, two days later, he was found guilty of ‘administering a poison with the intent to murder’. And just as poverty had saved their necks, it too would save his, as having murdered no-one, he escaped a death sentence and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Being a good strong mother, Jane moved her children a few doors away to 13 Little Dean Street and although she never remarried, all four of her children went on to live long and live well. But they would never again see their beloved father, as having served his sentence at Pentonville Prison, Henry Hall died in the spring of 1884, aged 43, in the St George’s workhouse... with not a penny to his name. OUTRO: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening to Murder Mile. As always, if you like a little quiz, a lot of waffle, the sound of a kettle brewing and a cake which you can’t see or smell, stay tuned till after the break for more info on this case in Extra Mile. A big thank you to my new Patreon supporters who are Grace Soria and Pam Kitchens. Thank you for supporting the show, it’s very much appreciated. Plus, a thank you to everyone who leaves lovely reviews of Murder Mile on your favourite podcast app’, it really is very much appreciated. Murder Mile was researched, written and performed by myself, with the main musical themes written and performed by Erik Stein & Jon Boux of Cult With No Name. Thank you for listening and sleep well. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER The Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast has been researched using the original declassified police investigation files, court records, press reports and as many authentic sources as possible, which are freely available in the public domain, including eye-witness testimony, confessions, autopsy reports, first-hand accounts and independent investigation, where possible. But these documents are only as accurate as those recounting them and recording them, and are always incomplete or full of opinion rather than fact, therefore mistakes and misrepresentations can be made. As stated at the beginning of each episode (and as is clear by the way it is presented) Murder Mile UK True Crime Podcast is a 'dramatisation' of the events and not a documentary, therefore a certain amount of dramatic licence, selective characterisation and story-telling (within logical reason and based on extensive research) has been taken to create a fuller picture. It is not a full and complete representation of the case, the people or the investigation, and therefore should not be taken as such. It is also often (for the sake of clarity, speed and the drama) presented from a single person's perspective, usually (but not exclusively) the victim's, and therefore it will contain a certain level of bias and opinion to get across this single perspective, which may not be the overall opinion of those involved or associated. Murder Mile is just one possible retelling of each case. Murder Mile does not set out to cause any harm or distress to those involved, and those who listen to the podcast or read the transcripts provided should be aware that by accessing anything created by Murder Mile (or any source related to any each) that they may discover some details about a person, an incident or the police investigation itself, that they were unaware of. *** LEGAL DISCLAIMER Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London”, nominated "one of the best true-crime podcasts at the British Podcast Awards", one of The Telegraph's top five true-crime podcasts and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totalling 50 deaths, over just a one mile walk
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AuthorMichael J Buchanan-Dunne is a crime writer, podcaster of Murder Mile UK True Crime and creator of true-crime TV series. 
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