Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/167

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SHOWELL'S DICTIONARY OF BIRMINGHAM.
155

John Nicholson killed Mary (or Minnie) Fantham, in Navigation Street, February 23rd, 1877, committing suicide himself. He was buried as a felo de se.

Francis Mason, Latimer Street, stabbed his wife, June 25, 1867, but the jury called it manslaghter, and he was allowed to retire for five years.

William Toy, a glasscutter, was killed in the Plasterers' Arms, Lupin Street, July 20, 1878, in a drunken row.

Edward Johnson, a retired butcher, of this town, killed his wife and drowned himself at Erdington, July 27, 1878.

Sarah Alice Vernon, married woman, aged 26, was first stabbed and then flung into the canal, at Spring Hill, by her paramour, John Ralph, a hawker of fancy baskets, early in the morning of May 31, 1879. He was hung August 26,

Caroline Brooks, a young woman of 20, was fatally stabbed on the night of June 28, 1879, while walking with her sweetheart, but the man who killed her escaped.

Alfred Wagstaffe, of Nechell's Green, kicked his wife for pawning his shirt, on October 25, 1879. She died a week after, and he was sent to penal servitude for ten years.

An Irishman, named John Gateley, was shot en Saturday, December 5, 1880, in a beerhouse at Solihull, by a country man who got away; the murdered man had been connected with the Irish Land League.

Mrs. Ellen Jackson, a widow, 34 years of age, through poverty and despondency, poisoned herself and two children, aged seven and nine, on Sunday, November&nbsp 27, 1881. One child recovered.

Frederick Serman, at the Four Dwellings, near Saltley, Nov. 22, 1883, shot Angelina Yarwood, and poisoned himself, because the woman would not live longer with him "to be clemmed."

James Lloyd, Jan. 6, 1884, stabbed his wife Martha, because she had not met him the previous afternoon. She died four days after, and he was sentenced to death, but reprieved.

Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Stewart were shot by Henry Kimberley at the White Hart, Paradise Street, Dec. 28, 1884. Mrs. Palmer died, and Kimberley was hung at Winson Green, March 17, 1885.

James Davis, policeman, while on his beat at Alvechurch, was murdered Feb. 28, 1885, by Moses Shrimpton, a Birmingham poacher and thief.

Elizabeth Bunting, a girl of 16, was murdered at Handsworth, April 20, 1885, by her uncle, Thomas Boulton.

Museums.—No place in England ought to have a better collection of coins and medals, but there is no Numismatic Museum in Birmingham. Few towns can show such a list of patentees and inventors, bu: we have no Patent Museum wherein to preserve the outcome of their ideas. Though the town's very name cannot be traced through the mists of dim antiquity, the most ancient thing we can show is the Old Crown public-house. Romans and Normans, Britons and Saxons, have all trod the same ground as ourselves, but we preserve no relics of them Though we have supplied the whole earth with firearms, it was left to Mr. Marshall, of Leeds, to gather together a Gun Museum. Fortunately the Guardians of the Proof House were liberal and, buying the collection for £1,550, nude many valuable additions to it, and after exhibiting it for a time at 5, Newhall Street, presented it to the town in August, 1876. There is a curious miscellany of articles on exhibition at Aston Hall, which some may call a "Museum," and a few cases of birds, sundry stuffed animals, &c., but we must wait until the Art Gallery now in course of erection, is finished before the Midland Metropolis can boast of owning a real Museum. At various times, some rich examples of industrial art have been exhibited in the temporary Art Gallery adjoining the Midland Institute, and now, in one of the rooms