Dark Deeds Done.

The next day we were off in the cool but sunny morning with a few miles to make.

Just before the Dimmingsdale Bridge is a little set of moorings that have been created behind an old wharf that had a warehouse at one time. I very nice spot too.

This is Compton Lock and is said to be the first narrow lock that James Bridley actually constructed. You could say it has stood the test of time well, but it has been rebuilt since then.

Despite getting closer and closer to Wolverhampton the canal still retains its rural charms, especially with the leaves changing and the smell of wood smoke in the air.

This big girder bridge carried the Great Western Railway across the canal. It is also known as the Meccano Bridge. It was known as the Wombourn Branch or the Wolverhampton and Kingswinford Railway. It was built to link up with the many collieries and brickworks of the area using a single track way and the southern section was built in the 1800's. The northern section had an Act of Parliament passed in 1905 and construction started in 1913 as can be seen from the maps of the time. WWI intervened and construction was delayed until 1918 and the line was opened in 1925. It was now running passenger trains, but numbers were poor and this service terminated in 1932. Next time this was we must have a look at Tettenhall station just near the bridge that is all but intact and even has a small transport museum. 

A little further along the still wooded banks we come to a little basin that didn't get dug until around 1900. The maps do not reveal it being attached to any industrial site. You can see the bridge over the entrance at the left. It seems it is now owned by the West Mercia Guides and houses their narrow boats.

The next bridge along is also from the 1920's when Courtalds built a rayon yarn factory on the site of old Dunstall Hall. Construction started in 1924 and production started in 1926 so this bridge was added between those dates as a branch into the Courtauld factory. The factory was the other side of the Wolverhampton Race Course whose other side runs along the canal up to the Aldersley Junction.

In this photo we are just passing the bottom pf the Wolverhampton 21 at Aldersley Junction The bridge here is No.64 and has the little horse hole on the tow path.

On the other side was the boatman's lodgings. This was four stories high with the bottom one on the towpath and was the stables, as you can see from the large doors. The rest of the buildings stories have gone now. In the corner between the bridge and the stables where ovens for something or other too.

After the junction are more bridges. The first is the loop from the main line to the Wombourn branch. The next is the GWR main Line. After that is the old Oxley Moor bridge and then the new road bridge. After that there are several pipe bridges that carry 'liquids' over the canal to the sewage farm on the left bank.

Autherley Junction. The Staffs. and Worcester Canal opened in 1772 and enjoyed a good trade as a few months after the canal opened a link with the Birmingham Canal Navigation was made at Aldersley by way of the Wolverhampton Locks. Trade then flowed to the north via Great Hayward on the Trent and Mersey Canal. That was until 1835 when the Birmingham and Liverpool Canal opened in 1835 and the junction with the Staffs and Worcs. was made here at Autherley, via a stop lock to protect each others waters. The Staffs and Worcs. lost a lot of income as boats now passed up the Birmingham and Liverpool rather than travel to Great Hayward and to the north via the Trent and Mersey. To make up for this they increased the toll to pass from Aldersley to Autherley junction, half a mile to exorbitant levels! The Birmingham and Liverpool and the BCN got together and decided to obtain permission to build the Tettenhall to Autherly Canal. This would have left the Wolverhampton flight at about Lock 19 and cross the Staffs. and Worcs. in an iron aqueduct and then drop down three locks to meet the north going canal. It was never built as the Staffs. and Worcs. realised that some tolls are better than no tolls and dropped their charges. The bridge has obviously been painted white at some time, but I doubt it was originally so. I wonder when it got its first coat. It would certainly beautify it now, but would be a blank canvas for tag artists unfortunately.

After the junction you come to the 'Pendeford Rockin'', which is almost like a tunnel as the trees and ivy seem to enclose the channel. That channel narrows right down as it is cut through a band of sandstone. With the slight bend you can see in the photo it seems as though you have taken a wrong turn and are heading up a back channel, and starting to wonder if there will be a winding hole! There are several passing places along the roughly half mile length so there should be no fear of having to travel astern for long distances.

We passed under the M54 and moored for the night just past the Fox and Anchor and walked into Coven for a fish and chip supper that evening. Not a bad days cruising at all.

History corner today unfortunately is another death, even worse than the last blog. At Aldersley Junction there was often a large fleet of boats waiting for the locks and on Saturday 30th October 1875 it was no exception. At about 04:20 on Sunday morning a boatman named Frederick Musson knocked on the door of the toll house at the south side of the bottom lock of the Wolverhampton flight and asked the BCN toll collector to come to his boat as the little girl fainted or had a fit. Musson was 23 and lived aboard with a small son, Frederick,  and wife Ann Maria, 21. Musson was a boat steerer with the Shropshire Union Canal Co., and seems to have been on the Chester to Wolverhampton/Birmingham. In 1871 he had been a mate of the boat 'Form and Thought at the Grand Junction Co Wharf at Leicester. Fred Beasley went along and found a small girl, about 7 years old, laying on the narrow bed covered in a couple of coats. He felt her, and her face was cold, but her body warm, but she was dead. He noticed she had black eyes, but was told she had stumbled and hit the coal box earlier. He told Musson to go and fetch a policeman and a doctor, meanwhile the body was taken to a stable near the toll house. Later that day he again looked at the body and found that it was covered in cuts and bruises 'from head to toe'. There were large cuts with skin missing and a massive bruise in the small of her back, and her stomach and ribs were black and blue. PC Clayton had arrived and he corroborated these findings. Charles Millington had been asked by Musson to report the crime and when he returned he noticed the boat had been moved about 40 yds and that the body had been moved and the face washed. Later Police Inspector Hackney and PC Billett searched the craft and found a blood stained apron and absolutely no medical remedies. Musson and his wife were remanded in custody. There is no mention of what happened to the baby.

Aldersley Junction Toll House.

At the inquest it turns out that Musson and Ann Maria were not married, her name was Hillman. The dead child was named as Elizabeth Lowke. It seems that she was the daughter of a boatman Joseph Lowke and had been placed with th Musson and Hillman by another boatman Joseph Lowke. The circumstance were that he had three children and his wife, Caroline, had died in 1873. Elizabeth was the eldest child then came William and Hannah. At the inquest it was stated he was living in rented accommodation and could not cope with the children and work. He placed his eldest with another boat couple, but they mistreated her. Joseph was from a boating family with his father Thomas and grandfather Joseph being boaters, as well as his brother William. Our Joseph's son William also went on to be a boatman until at least WWII. He had known Musson 8 years and Hillman 2 years, but did not know they weren't married. The plan was that Elizabeth would look after the baby, Frederick jnr.,  in return for food and clothing and the hope that they would adopt her later. She had been with the couple for around four months. It did not come out at the inquest or subsequent trial but I think Joseph had remarried a widow, Elizabeth Harrison, nee Blick, in June 1874! Joseph had seen his daughter every two or three weeks and had found her clean and tidy. he thought that if she had been ill treated she would have said so. But, when questioned, she was always in the presence of Musson. When the 'defendants' were questioned they said that the girl had been kicked or trodden on by the horse and as they were travelling they did not call a Doctor.

 A Doctor Cooke performed an autopsy on the body and found that the girl had died from blood and fluid on the brain caused by injuries to her head. He listed the other extensive injuries too.. The inquest was reconvened several times for the collection of more evidence but in the end the inquest said that Elizabeth had been willfully Murdered and Musson and Hillman were committed to trial at the next Staffordshire Assizes at Stafford.

At the trial the prosecution brought forward many witnesses to mistreatment of Elizabeth. At the inquest many of these had been heard but it was felt that none of them related to acts close to the time of death so a jury may not be convinced of guilt. One, Sarah Swift a boatman's wife, said that In Chester Musson had told her that he was going to give the girl back as he couldn't cope with her and he was too 'heavy handed with her'. Others spoke of Musson and Hillman both beating the girl and leaving her standing outside with few clothes on. They defendants said that the girl frequently soiled her bed, not surprisingly perhaps, if she was being ill treated. Labourers at Chillington Wharf, (This was built in 1830 to serve the Chillington Iron Works.), witnessed the girl being beaten with the butt of a whip on 7th October. They also witnessed her being left naked in the hold.

Chillington Wharf.

Thomas Cowern was a check clerk for The Staffs. & Worcs. at Aldersley Junction and gave evidence that he noticed Elizabeth had swollen lips and scratches when she came to his office for the ticket for the boat to travel to Ellesmere Port. She wouldn't tell him how it happened. On the boats return he saw her again. She was very weak and had difficulty walking being lame in her right leg. This was the day before her death. On the day before the death Tom Mander and his mother Mary were on a boat moored a little away from Musson's boat. Tom saw Hillman lift Elizabeth on to the tow path that evening,  with hardly any clothes on. It seemed she had soiled the bed. He saw Hillman strike her. He also gave evidence that at about 22:30 that night he heard a loud cry from the boat. He went up to the boat and called out, but got no reply and as there was no further noise returned to his boat. He stated that as Musson was ashore when the earlier event had happened ho assumed that he had returned and on being told of events had given out punishment. It is obvious that it was well known that they did not treat the child correctly, but maybe the collective of boat families did not interfere. Although some did tell Musson and Hillman to stop treating her badly, or take her to the hospital, or return her to her father if they did not want her!

The jury were out of the court for around 30 mins before returning. The foreman gave their verdict as manslaughter and made a point of being very critical of Joseph Lowke for the neglect of his own child. The judge stated that they were as close to it being full murder, and the death penalty, as it was possible to be, before he sentenced them both to 20 years penal servitude. Musson was sent to Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight and Hillman to the Female Prison in Fulham, in London. Musson was transferred to Portsmouth Prison in 1876. It looks like they were both well behaved prisoners as they were out by 1891. That year we find Fred. Musson marrying an Ann Maria Hawkes. This is very likely Hillman as other details fit. Musson returned to his old trade and in 1891 he is on a boat named 'Florence' in Wolverhampton, with his son aged 18. in 1911 he is still with Ann Maria and now has another two children Charles, 18, a boatman and Annie, 14, at school. Frederick Musson died in 1920 and Ann Maria in 1938.

It can't be said that events such as these do not happen during our own era, but arrangements for caring for children  are now not quite as ad hoc as in 1875. The boat people had a bad reputation for theft, drunkeness etc and this case will have done nothing to disabuse the public of those ideas. The fact that it could be seen that the boat families tried to keep it all in house would maybe also solidify these thoughts. It should also perhaps be noted that in 1839 the murder of Cristina Collins by the crew of a Pickford's fly boat between Stone and Rugeley also involved a member of the Musson family. William Musson was the boy aboard, and was the only member of the crew exonerated.