DR JOHN BLAKELY OF
CROOKES AND HIS 1934 TRIAL FOR MURDER
Originally
from Glasgow Dr John Blakely lived and worked from a large house 203 School
Road, in the Crookes district of Sheffield. His
practice opened soon after the end of the First
World War and he became, in subsequent years, the most popular doctor in the
district. Tall dark and distinguished he had "the old-fashioned family doctor's
air of curt, infallible mystery" that soon won the respect of any
doubters. His
patients were predominantly lower middle class: most were employed in either
ill-paid white-collar jobs or in skilled trades. However the prospect of
unemployment and ill health were never far away in the Sheffield of the late
1920's and 1930's and so it was not uncommon for families to descend into
poverty almost overnight. Prior to the founding of the NHS poverty meant no access to doctors as doctors visits
had to be paid for. Fortunately John Blakely never refused to treat a patient on
the grounds of ability to pay and would allow them to pay his bill at the rate of sixpence a week
should circumstances dictate such an arrangement. This concern with the
welfare of his patients was to be reciprocated in the first few months of 1934
when Dr Blakely was charged with the murder of a 25 year old unemployed waitress
On
10 February 1934 a small news item appeared in the Daily Herald under the
headlines:
|
DYING
WAITRESS RIDDLE - DRIVEN HOME THEN CAR VANISHED
The
story of a dying girl being driven home in a motor which
disappeared was told at the inquest yesterday at Sheffield on Phyllis
Staton, aged 25, an unemployed waitress who died in hospital. The inquest
was adjourned.
The
girl's father said that she had been keeping company with a professional
man for two years. In the middle of January she left home and he received
two letters with a Sheffield postmark but no address. On Saturday last, he
added, the girl returned home and fell on the floor saying: 'Oh Mother I
shall die.' The father rushed outside and saw a motor car being driven
away. The girl's sister said that when she asked who had brought her back
she said 'The Doc.' |
Eleven
days later on 21 February 1934 the Daily Telegraph carried a longer news story
under the headlines:
|
DOCTOR
& WAITRESS ALLEGED
STATEMENT IN MURDER CHARGE
Dr
John Blakely, 49, of School Road, Sheffield, appeared on remand at
Sheffield yesterday charged with the murder of Phyllis Staton, 25, an
unemployed waitress. A further charge was preferred of unlawfully applying
a drug for a certain purpose. Mr. J. W. Chant, prosecuting, said
that during the past eighteen months the woman had been continually in the
company of Dr Blakely. She left home on 15 January and her parents did not
see anything more of her until 3 February when there was a knock on the
back door of the house and the girl fell in. Dr Blakely was then seen
driving away in his car. The woman died in hospital the next day from
acute septicaemia. Detective Superintendent Bristow produced a statement
alleged to have been made by Dr Blakely in which he said that he had given
the woman some drugs but denied having carried out an illegal operation.
He admitted intimacy with the girl but said that she had been with other
men and that she had picked upon him because of his being better off than
the others. Superintendent' Bristow in answer to Mr. F. W. Scorah,
defending, said that he could find no evidence to support any allegation
about Miss Staton's relations with men. Dr James Clark, medical
superintendent of Sheffield City General Hospital, said there was no
evidence of any illegal operation or the taking of drugs. Asked if it was
possible for a medical
man to procure an abortion without leaving any evidence the doctor replied
'Yes, it is.'
The
hearing was adjourned until today.
|
The local paper The Sheffield Daily Telegraph gave a more
detailed report of the proceedings in its edition dated 21st February 1934
The following day
22 February the Daily Telegraph reported:
|
DOCTOR
ACQUITTED ON MURDER CHARGE
After
hearing the speech for the defence the Sheffield magistrates last night
dismissed the charges brought against Dr John Blakely, 49, of the murder
of an unemployed waitress Phyllis Staton, 25, and of supplying a certain
drug to the girl knowing it to be intended for unlawful use. The presiding
magistrate said the evidence was so weak that no jury would convict. For
the prosecution it was alleged that Dr Blakely had procured a miscarriage
in such a way that a post-mortem would not implicate him and that a drug
had been used. For the defence, Mr F. W. Scorah said that the miscarriage
was perfectly normal. There was no evidence that the accused had anything
to do with it. |
Taken from The Times dated Friday,
February 23rd 1934 (page4,Issue 46686)
No one can fault
the Sheffield magistrates' opinion that no jury would convict on that evidence.
The Crown's case was a non starter as Dr Blakely had admitted nothing damaging
in his statement and the principal witness, Miss Staton, was dead. What does not
appear to have been questioned was the fact that Miss Staton had been Dr John's mistress
for at least eighteen months prior to her death. However the effect of the trial on the doctor's
practice was nil - whatever the patients thought they kept to themselves. The
goodwill the Doctor had built up in the district had indeed stood him in good
stead
However the case
put a further strain on his marriage to his wife Annie. By 1934 John and his
wife Annie had been married 21 years and were the parents of three boys Derek
Andrew Gustav, John Brian, David Moffett Drummond and a girl Maureen.
According to people in the locality the marriage was not a particularly happy
one. Dr Blakely was very much the archetypal doctor, fond of golf and staying at
home, whilst his wife, who was by all accounts a smart sophisticated woman,
preferred a far more active social life. The children were looked after be
a nanny The youngest son David Blakely was
almost five when his father appeared on this charge of murder and it is most
improbable that he either heard or knew of the case.
Nevertheless it was clearly an incident that was unlikely to strengthen the
marriage of David's parents. Phyllis Staton was one of the major frictions in
the break-up, which came early in the Second World War. On 24 May, 1940, Mrs
Blakely was granted a decree nisi for the dissolution of her marriage 'by reason
that since the celebration thereof the said Respondent [Dr Blakely] had been
guilty of adultery'. No woman was named in the suit. The
divorce became absolute on 2 December, 1940. On 4 February, 1941, at the age of
47 Mrs Blakely remarried Humphrey Wyndham Cook, the wealthy son of a wholesale
draper.
On the face of it
this is just a small provincial drama that in most cases would have been
forgotten in the mists of time. The reason why it was not forgotten lies in the
life (and death) of Dr Blakely's youngest son David. David Blakely was shot and
murdered outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead, London on Easter Sunday 1955. The
person who pulled the trigger was
Ruth Ellis who was hung for the murder -
the last woman to be hanged in England.
The Daily Telegraph dated June
27 1999 contained an article on David Blakely's car and threw an interesting
light on the events surrounding his murder.
A number of books periodicals and articles
have been written over the years about the events surrounding the murder of
Davis Blakely and the subsequent execution of Ruth Ellis. By far the most
authorative and well researched book on the subject is one that was released in
September 1912. The following information is taken from the Amazon website. I
can thoroughly recommend this book should you want to know more about the
life and sadly the death of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to executed by the
British government.
Publication Date:
6 Sep 2012
In 1955, former nightclub manageress Ruth Ellis
shot dead her lover, David Blakely. Following a trial that lasted less
than two days, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. She became
the last woman to be hanged in Britain, and her execution is the most
notorious of hangman Albert Pierrepoint's 'duties'.
Despite Ruth's infamy, the story of her life has
never been fully told. Often wilfully misinterpreted, the reality behind
the headlines was buried by an avalanche of hearsay. But now, through
new interviews and comprehensive research into previously unpublished
sources, Carol Ann Lee examines the facts without agenda or
sensation. A portrait of the era and an evocation of 1950s club life in
all its seedy glamour, A Fine Day for a Hanging sets Ruth's
gripping story firmly in its historical context in order to tell the
truth about both her timeless crime and a punishment that was very much
of its time.
Postscript
Sources
The Daily Herald
The Daily Telegraph
The Times
The Sheffield Daily Telegraph 21st February 1934
Ruth Ellis - The Last Woman to Hang (1963) - Robert
Hancock
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