Five Star Reviews

Posted on October 13, 2015 by jacquib333

It’s always lovely to log onto Amazon and find a new review, and even better if it’s a five star review. I am grateful for each and every review, believing that any writer can learn something from a reader’s comments, be they good, bad or indifferent. In this case I was especially pleased to receive the following accolade, not just because my reader enjoyed the book, but also because she acknowledged the relatively unusual story telling technique:

“This book is brilliant – a real page turner!
It was fascinating to see how women were treated in the different times. You can’t believe how unfair some women’s lives were through no fault of their own and you find yourself feeling sympathy for a really unsympathetic character which is an amazing achievement for the author.
I especially enjoyed the information at the end of the book and the story of how it came to be written – a twist I have never come across before.”

Many books combine fact and fiction; many combine stories set in different time periods. I have often read books combining different genres – but Vote for Murder is unusual in that it does all of that, at the same time as being inspired by real characters from my own family history. The kindle version of Vote for Murder links to a real family tree and a website with articles relating to the true crime contained within the book. This will be updated in the future.

So Vote for Murder is a work of faction in the historical fiction and true crime genres, set in Victorian and Edwardian England with family saga & genealogical overtones, based on my own family history! Quite a mix. Does it work? I will be watching future reviews with interest…..

Location #1 – Christchurch Park

Posted on October 10, 2015 by jacquib333

Vote for Murder is set in two main locations; Stonham Aspal during 1851 and Christchurch Park, Ipswich in Edwardian times. Suffragette Louisa Russell, cousin of Millicent Fawcett, lives in Ivry Road on the outskirts of Christchurch Park. These two areas, together with Henley Road and Fonnereau Road, account for many settings within the book.

Christchurch Park was the former site of an Augustinian Priory disbanded by Henry Viii during the dissolution of the monasteries. It was acquired in 1545 by Edmund Withipoll and later in the 18th century, by Claude Fonnereau. In 1892 Felix Cobbold gave it to the City of Ipswich.

There are various monuments set within Christchurch Park, both the Brett Fountain donated in 1863 and the Burton Drinking fountain, gifted in 1895. The same year The Cabman’s shelter was moved from Cornhill to Christchurch Park.

Vote for Murder was set in 1911. One scene in the book describes Louisa walking past the Martyr’s Memorial:

“…The cross-topped monument stretched skywards casting a lanky shadow over the path ahead. Recently completed, the carved round pillars caught the light of the morning sun and the carved inscription stood fresh and clear.”

The Martyr’s memorial was erected in 1903 following a campaign through The East Anglian Daily Times to provide a symbol to remember the protestant martyrs. The Ipswich martyrs were a group of men and women put to death during Queen Mary’s reign for their refusal to recognise the Roman Catholic doctrines. Many were burned at the stake. There are nine martyrs named on the memorial, all of whom are mentioned in Foxe’s book of martyrs. They were reported to have met their deaths with bravery and spirit.

A cenotaph dedicated to the men and women who fell in World War I was placed in Christchurch Park in 1924 joining the Boer War memorial erected in 1906. Further features of the park include a fountain, an ice house and an Arts and Crafts shelter known as ‘The Bandstand’. Prince Albert visited Christchurch Park in 1851, the same year that Mary Cage was hanged in Ipswich Gaol.

Christchurch Mansion, a red brick Tudor House, still houses the museum in which furniture, paintings, and pottery can be found. Exhibits have a strong Suffolk theme with displays by John Constable and Thomas Gainsborough and cases of Lowestoft porcelain.

Nowadays Christchurch Park is a busy, family orientated area, ideal for indulging in outdoor pursuits, sports and the Arts. The Park enjoys strong support from The Friends of Christchurch Park.

“Oh may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia.”

(Inscription on the memorial to the Ipswich Martyrs)

Mary Emily Cage – Murderess or victim?

Posted on October 6, 2015 by jacquib333

On 23rd March 1851, James Cage took his last breath, poisoned to death by his wife, Mary. The Press were quick to report on the murder and before long produced damning reports of Mary and her ‘depraved’ character, as evidenced in the extract from the 9 August 1851 Norfolk Chronicle, below:

“It will be remembered that just before the last Assizes, Mary Emily Cage, at Stonham, was examined on a charge of murdering her husband, by poisoning him. The case was remanded until the Summer Assize, and at half-past eight o’clock on Saturday last, the wretched woman was placed at the bar to take her trial for the offence. She exhibited little alteration in her appearance. It is not our intention to lift the veil from the domestic history of this woman, any further than the trial itself removed it, for unfortunately there is not a feature in it that is not degrading to our common humanity. – Messrs. Power and Mills prosecuted; Mr. W. Cooper defended.

The case presented features of great depravity. The deceased was an agricultural labourer, and with his wife, the prisoner, lived at Stonham Aspal. They had a family of seventeen children, but one of them, now a lad of twenty years of age, was not the result of wedlock. The deceased was imprisoned twelve months, and during his incarceration she cohabited with another man, and the result was the birth of the boy. During the last eighteen months, she left her husband not less than three times, and exposed her daughter, sixteen years of age, to be debauched. In other respects she led a very dissolute and depraved life…”

“Vote for Murder” is a murder mystery based on Mary’s life . It takes a more sympathetic view of her behaviour than the Victorian press, taking into account the abject poverty in which she found herself. The murder of James Cage contrasts with the second (fictional) murder set in a comfortable, middle-class household close to Christchurch Park in Ipswich. Both lead female characters are headstrong; Mary determined to behave as she sees fit despite the social conventions of the time and Louisa, a suffragist campaigning for the right of women to vote.

Vote for Murder is a work of ‘faction’, where historical fact meets fiction. From the first moment I read the Mary Cage story many years ago, the circumstances of the crime did not ‘feel’ as black & white as the press implied. Vote For Murder is my fictional interpretation of Mary’s life and times.

Vote for Murder is now available through the Amazon Kindle Store http://tinyurl.com/pbpzehr

“There can be no peace until women get the vote”

Posted on October 4, 2015 by jacquib333

In Vote for Murder, Louisa Russell witnesses the unedifying spectacle of Clara Delaney enduring force-feeding in Holloway prison. Though a work of fiction, this is based on numerous true accounts of the tortuous force-feeding of suffragettes who resorted to hunger strikes, willing to die for their cause.

The Bath Hotel in Felixstowe was completely gutted on 29^th April 1914 when suffragettes Hilda Birkett and Florence Tunks burnt it to the ground. The women, who refused to give their names to the police, were arrested in Felixstowe on suspicion of being involved in the fire. When the fire was investigated, evidence of arson was soon found. Cotton wool had been carefully placed on the broken edges of the glass window of the kitchen at the east end of the building. It was assumed that the cotton wool was placed to avoid injury while undoing the latch. Once inside, the arsonists started fires in the bedrooms and corridors of the empty hotel.

Evidence against the suffragettes was found in the form of tie-on labels bearing inscriptions in ink in large capital letters with the slogan – “There can be no peace until women get the vote” and other similar declarations. These labels corresponded to similar labels in the possession of the suffragettes.

Hilda Birkett and Florence Tunks were tried at Bury St Edmunds in June 1914. The women, described as ‘of superior education,’ were disruptive in court, making frequent outbursts. Hilda Birkett “refused to recognise this Court, a Court which is entirely of men. It is absolutely wicked and wrong that they should dare to try women. Women are not recognised under the law.”

In the course of the trial it transpired that Hilda Birkett had been convicted in Birmingham in 1909 for damaging a railway carriage by throwing stones. She was imprisoned again in 1912 for damaging plate glass windows and was awaiting trial for setting fire to a grandstand in Leeds in 1913. Florence Tunks had not been convicted but she was under suspicion for other matters.

While Florence Tunks had nothing further to add before passing sentence, Hilda Birkett spoke passionately. The Bury Free Press of 6^th June 1914 reports her address to the judge thus: “…Whatever sentence you impose, I shall not serve because I have made up my mind that I will not take any food or drink while I am in prison. I cannot stand the torture of the feeding tube for a great length of time … and if Mr McKenna does not release me I shall die in prison…”

Despite her eloquent address, Hilda Birkett was sentenced to 2 years imprisonment and Florence Tonks to 9 months imprisonment.

Following letters of support in the weeks following the trial by Ursula Hartley, member of WSPU, it transpired that before their trials both Hilda Birkett and Florence Tunks endured weeks of forcible feeding while in prison. Ursula Hartley wrote again on 17^th June 1914 to make it publicly known that the father of one of the suffragettes had been unable to locate his daughter, despite having applied to the Home Office for advice of her whereabouts.

Hilda Birkett was finally released on 1^st September 1914 following the Home Office amnesty. During her imprisonment, she was forcibly fed 292 times.

Vote for Murder – Suffragette Protest

Posted on September 30, 2015 by jacquib333

“One of the women in the group, notably taller than her peers, clapped her hands, “quickly now girls,” she said. “We do not want Millicent to get wind of this.”

They hurried down a wide road into a warren of alleyways and presently found themselves at a street corner. The tall woman beckoned them to stop and they stood quietly in the shadow of the wall.

“The police station is over there,” she whispered. “As soon as you have let loose run as quickly as you can in different directions, like you did before. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” asked Louisa, but her voice was drowned by a sea of noise as the women ran towards the red-brick station, hurling a volley of stones into the windows of the building. They cracked like gunshots in the dusky night.”

Extract from Vote for Murder

Suffragist or suffragette?

Posted on September 27, 2015 by jacquib333

Vote for Murder combines a true Victorian murder with a 1911 story of suffragism and census evasion. Both events were inspired by ancestors within my family tree. But what is the difference between a suffragist & a suffragette?

Women’s suffrage was the struggle for the right to vote and stand for electoral office. Throughout the nineteenth century, women had no place in politics but in the 1800’s, women began to campaign for the right to vote. These women were known as suffragists. My ancestor, Herbert Cowell, married Alice Garrett in 1863 against her fathers’ wishes. Alice’s older sister, Elizabeth Garrett (later Garrett Anderson), became the first female doctor to qualify in England and Alice’s younger sister, Millicent Garrett, later Millicent Fawcett , was a prominent suffragist.

Many local suffrage societies were formed following the inception of the Sheffield Female Political Association in 1851 and in 1897 these individual units were bought together under the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies headed by Millicent Fawcett. The NUWSS was mostly composed of middle class, educated women and they took a long-term, peaceful approach to gaining the vote.

In 1903 a suffragist, Emmeline Pankhurst, became impatient with this method and left the NUWSS to set up her own society, the Women’s Social and Political Union. She employed more militant tactics and the Daily Mail coined the name ‘suffragettes’ as a term of derision. Suffragettes were prepared to break the law to gain the vote, chaining themselves to railings, damaging property and disrupting public meetings. They endured imprisonment and force feeding as a result of their activities.

When World War I started in 1914, all suffrage activity ceased. And in 1918, women over the age of 30, who met minimum property requirements, were given the right to vote. It was only in 1928 that women achieved full electoral equality with men when voting rights were given to every woman over the age of 21.

Vote For Murder – Sample Extract

Posted on September 25, 2015 by jacquib333

“Alfred said he was afraid of this but continued without preamble stating that Mary had been found guilty of murder by poison and would die within a week. There was nothing that could prevent her execution, so any renewal of our friendship would inevitably be of short and painful duration.”

Extract from the diary of Anna Tomkins, August 1851

A short excerpt from Vote for Murder is available here

Vote For Murder – Available Now

Posted on September 22, 2015 by jacquib333

In the Spring of 1911, suffragist Louisa Russell finds an old diary in a box of artefacts, while attending a census evasion night at the Old Museum in Ipswich. The diary recounts the last days of Mary Emily Cage, executed for the murder of her husband six decades earlier.

When Louisa’s next door neighbour, Charles Drummond, dies under suspicious circumstances, the parallels between the two deaths become impossible to ignore. But can two deaths sixty years apart be linked? And can Louisa find the poisoner before an innocent woman is convicted?

Vote for murder is based on a real poisoning by Suffolk murderess, Mary Cage. Set in Ipswich in 1911, the novel brings together suffragism in the early 1900’s and a grisly, Victorian murder. Vote for Murder will appeal to readers of historical fiction, genealogical mysteries and Suffolk based crime books.

Available in the Amazon Kindle store now http://tinyurl.com/pbpzehr and will follow in paperback shortly.

Coming Soon…….

Posted on September 9, 2015 by jacquib333

Vote For Murder

Vote for murder is based on a real poisoning by Suffolk murderess, Mary Cage. Set in Ipswich in 1911, the novel brings together suffragism in the early 1900’s and a grisly, Victorian murder. Due for publication at the end of September, Vote for Murder will appeal to readers of historical fiction, genealogical mysteries and Suffolk based crime books.

Hacked Off

Posted on April 8, 2015 by jacquib333

My other WordPress site has just been hacked; attacked by malicious software & closed down without warning yesterday, just like that. My web site host sent a blunt and somewhat complicated email last night; then relieved me of my monthly renewal fee this morning.

I’m still smarting at the injustice of it. I use an Antivirus; I am ultra- selective when uploading files & I run regular scans so it doesn’t seem fair that some backdoor virus has sneaked its way into the guts of my website. I backed it up, of course – but apparently I am not allowed to use the backups in case the site gets re-infected.

Did I mention it’s a genealogy site? A large genealogy site – I would tell you how large only I no longer have access to the statistics. I can still look longingly at it using the Wayback machine but it’s not the same.

I haven’t uploaded any new data for about 2 years. The site was large enough then but after 2 years of constant research & some fortunate removal of brick walls, I now have 43,892 individuals on my working tree. Take away those who may be living (bad manners to publish the living online) and those with whom I have a historical but not genetic interest, and there are still probably around 40,000 individual relatives. (Does that make me a record breaker in family history terms?)

It took me forever to upload half as many records two years ago and website hosting isn’t free, so I wonder whether it is worth all the time and frustration to put it back together again? And is there any point in a world where websites are destroyed just because somebody can?

I am a writer as well as a genealogist and am currently editing my first book for adults. It is a murder mystery set in the heart of Suffolk, beginning in the 1850’s and concluding during the 1900’s when the suffragettes were active in East Anglia. It is not only based on a true story, but features some of my relatives on www.eastanglianancestors.co.uk – or who would be featured if the site still existed. I would have enjoyed bringing the two ideas together.

So I’m licking my wounds and wondering whether to go through the painful process of reviving my dead website – or let it rest in peace. I am undecided; feedback would help. If you have relatives in Norfolk or Suffolk; if the names Bird, Fairweather, Corben, Dennis or Kersey have any meaning to you, drop me a line. My fragile ego needs stroking before I decide to grit my teeth and get on with it, or consign the website to history.

Update: It has taken a few days to get over myself, but I have stopped sulking long enough to re-instate the website & although it has taken the best part of 4 days, it was nowhere near as difficult as I first thought. The original website is back. I will try to update the last 2 years worth of research in the near future.

Jacqueline Beard Writer

Historical Mysteries & Psychological Thrillers – Published by Vinci Books

Category Archives: Vote For Murder