The mystery of the pupil and the poison
The death of young Walter Nowell Medhurst had all the elements of a good Inspector Morse mystery - a college, pupils and poison. All that was missing was a motive, as our history detective, Stephen Furniss, reveals
The death of young Walter Nowell Medhurst had all the elements of a good Inspector Morse mystery - a college, pupils and poison. All that was missing was a motive, as our history detective, Stephen Furniss, reveals A PLAIN and simple stone cross in Candie Cemetery marks the final resting place of a Victorian pupil at Elizabeth College, whose tragic and untimely death aroused great public curiosity on the island more than 120 years ago.
The grave contains the remains of 17-year-old Walter Nowell Medhurst, son of Sir Walter Medhurst (1822-1885) and his third wife Juliana Tryphena Medhurst (nee Burningham).
Walter Nowell was a boarder at Elizabeth College when he was to meet his tragic death in 1880.
On Thursday 17 June that year, Walter visited the shop of Mr W. Atkinson, a pharmaceutical chemist in St Peter Port. A section of the shop also included a grocery business and a number of the college boys were regular visitors to the premises, where they were able to purchase cooling beverages and sweets.
Mr Atkinson dispensed prescriptions and medicines while his assistant, Robert Way, dealt with the grocery side of the business.
Walter entered the shop at 3.30pm and asked for a drink. Mr Atkinson knew him to be a frequent visitor to the shop and he left him with Mr Way and went upstairs.
Mr Way then took down from the shelf a bottle containing lemon sherbet and mixed up a teaspoonful with water in a tumbler that Walter drank. Mr Way and Walter remained in conversation in the grocery department for about half-an-hour before Walter left to visit the home of Miss Russell, with whom the Medhurst family had stayed on a previous visit to the island.
Upon reaching Miss Russell's he was informed by her maid, Annie Bullock, that she was not at home, so Walter went to the Royal Hotel and saw the proprietor, John Gardner. The Medhurst family had stayed at the Royal and Walter was well known to Mr Gardner, who found him in good health and quite rational. They spoke of the probability that the whole Medhurst family would winter in Guernsey, after his father's intended trip to Italy, and Walter made an appointment to call again on Saturday.
He then left at about 5pm and returned to Mr Atkinson's shop. At 5.20pm Atkinson came downstairs into the shop and found Walter in the grocery department engaged in conversation with Mr Way.
Shortly afterwards they were joined by a fellow college pupil, Edward Rice, and Mr Atkinson remarked that the college principal, the Rev. J. Oates, would be wondering where the boys were.
Walter left the shop to return to the college, where Rice caught him up at the gates and gave him a piece of chocolate. The two boys then joined other pupils for tea, when Rice offered his friend another piece of chocolate, which he refused.
Walter appears to have finished his tea ahead of his fellow pupils, for at 6.10pm he went to visit Elizabeth Henry who lived in the college gate lodge. He told her of a holiday on the following day, but also complained of coldness in his hands.At 6.20pm Walter met the house master, J. Moffat, going upstairs in the college and asked him if he collected stamps, as he would be able to get a number for him if he wished.
At 6.30pm, Mrs Maria Snell, the school matron, was in the corridor near the boarders' bedrooms when she saw Walter, who complained of a headache and trembling legs. He went and laid down on a bed in No. 1 bedroom and asked her to fetch Rice, which she did by going to the window and calling down to another boy, Whiteside, to run the errand for her.
Upon returning to Walter she found him seized with convulsions and immediately raised the alarm.
Within a short space of time the principal, Dr Aikman, Rice and others were all in the room. Dr Aikman found Walter supported on the dormitory bed with his collar untied. He had been freely sprinkled with water, was not lock-jawed, and had not bitten his tongue. However, his eyes were turned upwards and on touching the patient's hands, Dr Aikman noticed they responded with slight spasms, which spread to his arms and feet.
Walter's back and neck were arched when the spasms became more general and his colour developed into a pallor.
His pulse was exceedingly rapid and his heart beat tumultuous, at which point Dr Aikman sent for Dr M. A. Corbin.
At 7.15pm the pulse suddenly stopped beating and, although Walter continued to gasp for some time afterwards, life was, to all intents, extinct. Dr Corbin arrived only in time to witness the final heart-throbs of the deceased.
Both doctors agreed that the symptoms they had just witnessed pointed to either disease of the brain, or poisoning by strychnine, and it was agreed to hold a post mortem examination the following day.
Their examination found the brain to be completely normal and in a perfectly healthy state. Walter's body was discoloured and they decided to conduct experiments to discover if the contents of his stomach were poisonous or not.
They selected two frogs, to which they fed with portions of the contents of his stomach, and soon witnessed the spasms associated with strychnine poisoning.
Half a gram of strychnine is ample to cause the death of an adult, taking effect from half-an-hour to three hours after digestion.
They concluded that there was no organic disease evident in Walter's body and that death was solely attributable to having taken strychnine.
The inquest into Walter Nowell Medhurst's death was held at the Court House before the Bailiff, Sir P. Stafford Carey, the Lt-Bailiff Edgar MacCulloch and H. M. Carre, Jurat, over two days, being postponed once to give the two doctors ample time to conduct their thorough post-mortem.
The witnesses were heard in private, although at the close their depositions were read out before the verdict was announced. All stated that Walter was perfectly rational both in his mind and in his conduct during the last hours of his life and it satisfied those present that the poison had not been taken deliberately but rather by accident.
HM Procureur, John de H. Utermarck, gave the verdict that there was no evidence to show under what
circumstances the poison had been taken, and gave permission for the body to be buried in consecrated ground, thus ruling out the possibility of suicide.
Sir Walter Medhurst, although present at the inquest, had not been called upon to give evidence, neither had he been privy to any of the interviews with the witnesses. However, he had managed to get the important witnesses', John Gardner's and Annie Bullock's, additional evidence heard at the inquest, which he felt went some distance in establishing his son's normal state of mind immediately prior to the tragedy.
The funeral was arranged for 4pm on Monday 21 June. The cortege left Elizabeth College preceded by the principal and the curate of St Peter Port.
The pall, upon which lay a floral cross and several wreaths, was borne by six of the college prefects.
Sir Walter was the chief mourner, followed by a number of the island's gentry and officials, college masters, staff and a large number of collegians.
Following a burial service at All Saints Church, attended by a large congregation, the interment took place at Candie Cemetery.Almost immediately a series of letters appeared in the Star newspaper regarding the lax handling of the sale of poisons on the island. A controversy lasted for several months regarding the proper regulation of poisons and the call for qualified pharmacists to be employed on the island.
Many islanders found it quite unacceptable that a schoolboy could wander at will unaccompanied through a chemist's shop, satisfying his boyish curiosity by tasting from different bottles within his reach. Not only that, but in a shop which also sold drinks and sweets to schoolboys. Eventually an island Pharmacy Act brought procedures in line with standard practices in England.
Walter Nowell Medhurst's mother, Juliana, died in Sussex the following year, aged 45. His father came out of retirement in the same year and threw himself into the formation of the British North Borneo Company, returning to the Far East in 1882 to organise a system of emigration from China into the company's territories. He resided in Hong Kong for 18 months, where he was a frequent contributor to the local press. He returned to England in 1884 and died at his residence in Torquay on 26 December 1885, aged 63.
Although the poisoning of his son remains an unsolved mystery to this day, two possibilities seem the most likely cause. Firstly, either the spoon or glass at Mr Atkinson's establishment, as used by Robert Way to mix up the lemon sherbet, was contaminated from a previous poisons order, and not thoroughly cleaned afterwards, or else Walter, finding himself alone in the shop at some point, had helped himself to the strychnine believing it to be an effervescent drink.
Sir Walter Medhurst benefited his surviving daughters and son in his will and no provision was made for the upkeep of Walter's grave in Candie. Fortunately, Candie Cemetery has always been well maintained and his grave remains in good condition. Sadly, I could find no photographs of the young man. But I did discover that his school friend, Edward Rice, became a bank manager and died at Richmond, Surrey, in the 1920s.
