The Damnation of John Donellan (25 page)

A great pity, then, that Rattray did not think to ask Powell, who was with them at Lawford Hall. And a great surprise that Powell, having just seen Sir William Wheler, who was in a flat panic over the subject of poison, did not mention the subject at all.

The next four witnesses to be called were all ‘gentlemen of the Faculty': Wilmer and Bucknill, who had examined Theodosius's body; and two ‘experts', Dr Ashe, a physician who lived in Birmingham, and Dr Parsons, a professor of anatomy at Oxford University.

Wilmer confirmed that the subject of poison was not mentioned on the evening of 4 September – ‘I never heard a word of poison.'

Q: Supposing it had been communicated to you that Sir Theodosius Boughton had died by poison, should you have been satisfied without opening it?

A: I should have then opened the body at all events.

Wilmer was also asked about Rattray's animal experiments, and confirmed them all in detail, reading from notes that he had taken at the time. He stated that the experiments were attended by Sir William Wheler, but he did not explain why the three men were particularly interested in the effects of laurel water, or why Wheler, who was not medically qualified, should be interested in witnessing them. An explanation, however, does appear in an article
published after the trial, in the
Hibernian Magazine
(‘Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge') for May 1781.

The article explains that the idea of experimenting on animals with laurel water had been the idea of Bradford Wilmer. Anna Maria had told Mr Wilmer that the draught smelled like bitter almonds; Wilmer had then researched the subject of poisons and found that ‘laurel water was a poison having the peculiar flavour and smell of apricot kernels, and bitter almonds'.

Having asked ‘an ingenious chemist in London' to prepare a mixture of the same, he told Sir William, who then consulted the family solicitor Caldecott. Caldecott made it his business to visit Lawford Hall, and found that ‘three days after the death' John Donellan had asked a servant to clean out a still which he had been using. We know from Edward Boughton's letters just before the trial that the discovery of Donellan's possession of the still had been ‘kept secret to prevent Donellan getting intelligence of it'; nevertheless Donellan did address the issue in his
Defence
.

Wilmer then proposed trying the laurel water on a horse, to see its effects; and this was the reason why, in March, just a matter of days before the trial, Wheler, Rattray and Wilmer had gathered to see the deadly consequences of the draught.

It must be noted that the experiments, the secrecy, Caldecott's investigation at Lawford Hall and the research by Wilmer all sprang from a single source – Anna Maria Boughton saying that the draught ‘smelt like bitter almonds'; a smell not detected in the bedroom after Theodosius's death, or by the servants, or when the body was viewed on 4 September, or at the autopsy except by Rattray.

Wilmer's evidence to the prosecuting counsel ended on a rather significant point: he confirmed that he knew nothing about the effects of laurel water on the human body – ‘I do not know it of my own knowledge, but from my reading.'

Mr Green, acting for Donellan, conducted the cross-examination of Wilmer.

His questions centred upon the effects of apoplexy and epilepsy in human beings; Wilmer confirmed that epileptics foam at
the mouth, and that sometimes their tongues are blackened. Asked about loss of blood, he stated that ‘the loss of blood will evidently occasion convulsions' and confirmed also that two pints of blood (or what he thought was blood) were in Theodosius's chest cavity. His evidence here contradicted that of Rattray, who had said that ‘if a blood vessel of that magnitude had been ruptured, he must have died immediately without convulsions.'

Next Wilmer was asked about Donellan's requests after he and Rattray had seen Theodosius's body on the evening of 4 September, and here again he directly contradicted Rattray's testimony. Wilmer claimed that he had not himself been asked to tell Sir William Wheler about their decision not to open the body that night, but said, ‘I believe he [Donellan] asked Dr Rattray whether he should see Sir William Wheler. I think Dr Rattray said he believed he should, and would give him an account of the business.'

So, although Rattray disclaimed any responsibility in not advising Sir William, his own colleague – much the senior and more respected man – said this was not true.

If Wilmer was correct, why did Rattray lie about this? Why did he tell Donellan that he would inform Wheler that the body had not been opened, and then not do so? Or did he actually tell Sir William on 5 September, and Wheler did not act on it until the next day, 6 September, when they met at the Black Dog?

Whatever the answer, it lay between Wilmer, Rattray and Wheler. If there was an attempt to obscure the lack of an autopsy on 4 September, it was not Donellan's doing.

Dr Ashe was the next witness called by the prosecution.

On being asked the cause of Theodosius's death, he answered that ‘he died in consequence of taking that draught'. He also claimed that Theodosius's appearance at the autopsy was similar to that of animals which had died by poison.

Ashe was only on the stand for a matter of minutes, and was not cross-examined, but in those few minutes he was asked nine questions, of which three were on how Theodosius died, and two of those asked him to confirm that poison was the cause.

It is strange that Ashe was called to the stand at all; he had not been involved in the case. It is possible that he was asked to give testimony because he was well respected locally (he founded the Birmingham General Hospital and was its first physician). He was also a passionate amateur botanist, and therefore it could have been felt that his repeated statements about poison bore some additional weight – although his knowledge of botany was never referred to in court.

The next medical witness was Dr Parsons, professor of anatomy at Oxford University. The prosecution, in the person of Howarth, got straight to the point:

Q: What, in your judgement, occasioned the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A: From the description of his health … and from the violent nervous symptoms that immediately followed … he died in consequence of taking the second dose, which proved to contain a poison … her ladyship said it smelt like the taste of bitter almonds which particularly characterises the smell of laurel water …

This is an extraordinary statement. The dose had
not
been ‘proved to contain a poison', unless Anna Maria's sense of smell was proof.

Parsons was then asked to distinguish between epilepsy and apoplexy. (Apoplexy is what nowadays would be referred to as a stroke.)

A: Epilepsy is distinguished by a total absence of sense but an increase in motion of several of the muscles so that the patient will appear convulsed … apoplexy is a sudden privation of all the powers of sense and voluntary motion, the person affected seeming to be in a profound sleep … as a part of Sir Theodosius's symptoms, the state in which he lay seems to have been more of the apoplectic kind than the epileptic.

Q: Was the heaving of the stomach the effect of apoplexy or epilepsy or of this draught?

A: No doubt, I think, that the draught was the cause …

Q: And from your knowledge of the effects produced by laurel water, your opinion is that laurel water was the poison thus administered to Sir Theodosius Boughton?

A: It is.

The cross-examination by Newnham continued on the theme of apoplexy versus epilepsy. Parsons conceded that apoplexy could result in the sudden bursting of a blood vessel; he also said that there could be no doubt that apoplexy was a
possible
cause of Theodosius's attack.

It was reported in the magazine
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction
in 1833 that ‘Donellan said Sir Theodosius had been subject to epileptic fits since infancy', but this is the only reference; it was not said at the trial even by Donellan, and though – if true – would be of vast significance, unfortunately the source is unreliable.

In his next reply, Parsons immediately dismissed apoplexy as a probable cause because ‘there is no reason to go so far for a cause … when this medication, as all the world knows, will effect it'.

Q: That is assuming, as a fact, that he took two ounces of laurel water?

A: A much less quantity would be sufficient for the purpose.

The answer is almost comic. Parsons was not being asked necessarily about the quantity. He was being asked about his
assumption
that laurel water was the cause, and converting this assumption into fact. But Newnham let it pass. He concluded the cross-examination with all the ‘assumptions' of the medical witnesses:

Q: You ground your opinion upon the description of its smell by Lady Boughton?

A: Yes; we can ground our opinions upon nothing else but that.

No record remains of the reason why Dr Parsons was called, but a good guess would be that a professor of anatomy from Oxford University would be thought to be an impressive, well-respected medical man whose distance from Warwickshire provided at least some degree of objectivity. As such he fulfilled the same criteria as John Hunter, the anatomist who would be brought for the defence.

The experience and competence of the two men, however, was not comparable. John Hunter was nationally famous; he had conducted over 30,000 dissections in his career; his study and collection of anatomical specimens was second to none. Parsons, in contrast, did not enjoy such a good reputation.

Oxford University in the eighteenth century was not the centre of excellence that it is today. It awarded very few medical degrees and, prior to its reforms of 1833, it was bound by outdated ceremonies and traditions. In 1770, Parsons had become the first professor in the Chair of Clinical Medicine, but the weekly lectures that he was required to give at the Radcliffe Infirmary were not well attended ‘on account of the paucity of the students, and the indifference of the Professor', according to the nineteenth-century chronicler of the Royal College of Physicians Arnold Chaplin. Chaplin noted that both professors and students found the lectures and disputations ‘irksome', and, although Parsons also held the first Lee Readership in Anatomy from 1767, ‘it cannot be said that a single professor contributed to the subject of medicine anything particularly worthy'.

The final medical witness to be called was Samuel Bucknill, who was described as ‘professing surgery'. He confirmed that he went to Lawford Hall on 5 September of his own accord and offered to ‘take out the stomach', but that Donellan refused to allow him to do so because it would ‘not be fair in him or us to do anything after men so eminent in their profession had declined it'.

Bucknill then described the following day, the day of the funeral. He had received a verbal message from Sir William Wheler that he was to meet Mr Snow at Lawford Hall and together they were to perform the autopsy. When he arrived, Donellan told him he was
waiting for more orders from Sir William. Donellan's action here is mystifying, in that he already had a letter telling him to let Bucknill proceed. Donellan's hesitation might have been because Mr Snow was not there; but Wheler's postscript to his letter of 6 September says quite plainly: ‘If Snow is from home, I do not see any impropriety in Bucknill doing it, if he is willing.' Nevertheless, Donellan was adamant that both men had to be present.

Bucknill described the frantic to-ing and fro-ing around Lawford that day; of his leaving the Hall because he had an urgent case to attend to; of a servant catching up with him to say that Snow had arrived at the Hall; of his own response that he would be back in an hour.

Q: Did you come back in an hour?

A: I came back, I believe, in the hour.

Q: What passed then; was Mr Snow there?

A: I asked Captain Donellan if Mr Snow was gone. He said, ‘he was, and he had given them orders what to do, and they were proceeding according to those orders' but, says he, ‘I am sorry you should have given yourself all this unnecessary trouble.' I took my horse, and rode away as fast as I could.

There was one witness missing: Sir William's apothecary, Bernard Geary Snow. From 1702, the defence could call witnesses but, unlike the prosecution, could not compel witnesses to attend. Snow, according to Donellan, had given orders that the funeral should go ahead. But why did Donellan take orders from a lowly apothecary and not wait for Bucknill to return to carry out the autopsy? On what authority could Snow give those orders? Donellan protested in his statement to the court that ‘the body was buried that evening, but not by my directions or desire'.

Donellan's statement tried to explain the matter by saying that Snow had waited a ‘considerable time' for Bucknill, and that when he did not arrive, he had called ‘the plumber and others' (the plumber meaning the man who had soldered and re-soldered the
coffin) into the parlour. ‘After examining them as to the putridity of the body, declared he would not be concerned in opening it for Sir Theodosius's estate; and recommending it to the family to have the same buried that afternoon, immediately left Lawford before Mr Bucknill's return.'

Recommendations are not orders, so why did Donellan tell Bucknill that Snow had ‘given them orders what to do'? Was it that Donellan was relieved that an opportunity had at last arisen to bury a body that might reveal his own guilt; or was it simply a case of not wanting to keep a house full of mourners waiting any longer in the oppressive heat? Theodosius's body was laid out on the great hall table all the while; it could only have been a source of distress to his mother and sister. Was Donellan acting out of relief and compassion, or relief and guilt?

Donellan's counsel could not compel Snow to come to the stand and the prosecuting counsel did not call him. In his summing up, even Francis Buller was astonished at the omission. He commented: