67 | The Charlotte Bryant Murder Case: Love, Lies, and Arsenic

Charlotte Bryant was at the centre of a rural murder case that shocked an English village in 1935. When her husband died after a series of unexplained illnesses in their Dorset cottage, suspicions turned to poison. This true crime episode explores the investigation, the role of arsenic, and the events that led to one of Britain’s most infamous murder trials.

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Music:
"Long Note Two" and “Lightless Dawn” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Unusual Suspects

Sources:
Daily Herald - Thursday 02 January 1936
Sheffield Independent - Friday 20 March 1936
Taunton Courier and Western Advertiser - Wednesday 04 March 1936
Coventry Evening Telegraph - Thursday 28 May 1936
Dundee Courier - Friday 29 May 1936
Gloucestershire Echo - Thursday 28 May 1936
Weekly Dispatch (London) - Sunday 31 May 1936
J.D. Casswell - A Lance for Liberty

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Charlotte McHugh was born in Londonderry, Ireland, on fourteenth of
February nineteen o three, to a labourer named John and
his wife Sarah, known as Lottie in childhood. She was
the eldest of four daughters. Although her mother could read
and write, Charlotte remained illiterate. School attendance was compulsory by law,

(00:24):
but rarely enforced. The family was Catholic, though Charlotte had
little interest in religion. As a young woman, she was
five feet tall, weighed one hundred and twenty pounds and
frequently drew the attention of local men with her jet
black hair, dark eyes and cheerful charisma. By the time

(00:48):
she was nineteen, Charlotte was well known to the British
troops posted at Londonderry in the early nineteen twenties. The
city of Londonderry is now part of Northern Ireland, but
at that time Ireland had not yet been partitioned. There
was fierce resentment towards British forces, particularly the Blackened Tans,

(01:11):
a paramilitary unit recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary who
were deployed to suppress the Irish Republican Army's armed campaign
for independence. Nationalists often reacted with hostility to anyone seen
fraternizing with the British, and Charlotte was threatened with tarring

(01:31):
and feathering for flirting with the men sent to quell
the rebellion. In nineteen twenty two, she met Frederick John Bryant,
a quiet Englishman from Dorset who was posted to the
Military police in Londonderry. In his earlier years, he had
worked on his father's farm, but had later joined the

(01:53):
army and fought in the First World Wars a sergeant
of the Dorset Regiment were a bullet wound in the
leg had left him with a slight limp. Charlotte and
Frederick left Ireland together and were married in Somerset. Later
that year. Frederick found work as a cow hand in

(02:14):
the village of nether Compton on the Dorset Somerset border,
earning thirty eight shillings a week. The job came with
a modest farm cottage, and the couple moved in. While
Frederick worked, Charlotte gained a reputation as a bar fly,
spending her days in local inns and taverns, often chatting

(02:35):
up the men a habit that didn't endear her to
the women of the close knit village. To supplement Frederick's
low wages, Charlotte began selling sex. Britain's post war economy
in the nineteen twenties was bleak. By nineteen twenty one,
two million people were unemployed and wages were falling across

(02:58):
the country. In such times, Charlotte may have seen prostitution
as a way to support the family. Locals knew her
by string of colorful aliases Compton, Liz, Black Bess and
Killarney Kate. That last one was curious. Killarney lies over

(03:19):
three hundred miles from her hometown of Londonderry, but to
villages unfamiliar with Irish geography, it may have simply been
a nod to her accent and heritage. By nineteen twenty three,
Charlotte had given birth to a son, Ernest, followed by
a daughter, Lily in nineteen twenty five. Three more children

(03:42):
would soon arrive, but it's unknown how many were Frederick's.
He seemed unconcerned by his wife's activities, largely because she
was doubling his wage every week through casual prostitution. Four
pounds a week is better than third Bob, he told
a neighbor, adding, I don't care a damn what she does.

(04:07):
Her earnings allowed them to live in relative comfort, buying
fruit tarts and salmon, and on occasion hiring a car
to cost of thirty shillings, almost an entire weekly wage
for Frederick's farm work. In December nineteen thirty three, Frederick
and Charlotte attended a Christmas party in the village, where

(04:29):
they met a man who would play a pivotal role
in their future. Leonard Edward Parsons was a tall, gray haired,
blue eyed traveling salesman who sometimes went by the alias
Bill Moss, visiting fairs and markets to pedal household items
and trade horses. He had been in trouble with the

(04:52):
law of the previous year for getting into a fight,
and had reappeared in the docks shortly afterwards for selling
cows which were unable to produce milk, for twenty five
pounds when they were only worth three pounds. He began
visiting the Bryant's home regularly and even joined them for
Christmas dinner. During one conversation, Parsons mentioned that he was

(05:17):
unsatisfied with his current lodgings, so Frederick suggested he move
into their cottage as a paying guest. There were no
spare bedrooms, so Parsons slept on a couch in the kitchen,
even sharing Frederick's shaving kit. It wasn't long before he
was also sharing His wife. Charlotte quickly fell for Leonard Parsons,

(05:45):
and the two began a relationship right under Frederick's nose.
Not long after, Frederick's employer decided he could no longer
tolerate the gossip about Charlotte's behavior and dismissed him. The
job had included their cottage, so the Bryans were forced
to move. Frederick found work as a farm hand for

(06:08):
a mister Aubrey Priddle in the nearby hamlet of Coombe
near Sherbourne in Dorset. The family, now with four young children,
moved into a smaller bleaker stone cottage beside the farm,
with just two rooms upstairs and two downstairs. Parsons went

(06:28):
with them, Still lodging on the sofa in the cramped
kitchen living room and still involved with Charlotte, she neglected
the housework and spent most of her time with Leonard,
while after work her lover would even join Frederick at
the pub, both men seemingly at ease with the situation.

(06:49):
After a while, Frederick told Parsons to leave. Charlotte insisted
on accompanying her boyfriend to Dorchester along with two of
her children, and the four spent two uncomfortably cramped nights
together in a single room. Two days later, Charlotte returned
to Coombe Farm with the children, but Frederic didn't even

(07:10):
ask where she'd been. Not long afterwards, he changed his
mind and told Parsons he was welcome to return, likely
because they needed the rent money and his presence kept
Charlotte at home with the children. Parsons sometimes disappeared for
days on end as he traveled from village to village

(07:32):
selling pots, pans and linoleum. During these periods, he often
visited a thirty three old woman from the traveler community
named Priscilla Loveridge. The pair had known each other for
ten years and had four children together, with Priscilla referring
to Leonard as her fancy man. When Charlotte found out,

(07:56):
she was filled with jealousy and insisted on accompanying Leonard
on his travels in future, describing herself as his wife. Meanwhile,
Frederick was left to look after the children at the farm,
but when the lovers returned, he did not complain and
even continued sharing his shaving kit with Leonard and drinking

(08:17):
with him at the pub. On fourteenth of May nineteen
thirty five, Charlotte Bryant and Leonard Parsons went to visit
a market on business. While they were out, a neighbor
heard Frederick Bryant calling out in pain and ran next
door to find him shivering and clutching his stomach in

(08:39):
agony after eating something his wife had left in the
oven for dinner. The neighbor helped him into bed and
sent for the doctor, who diagnosed him with gastroenteritis. After
four days, Frederick felt better and returned to work. Less
than three months later, on seventh of August, Frederick suffered

(09:02):
another painful bowt of gastro enteritis, but recovered after a
few days. Around this time, it became apparent that Leonard
Parsons was growing tired of his mistress. By now, Charlotte
had given birth to a fifth child, most likely fathered

(09:22):
by Parsons, but nothing would induce him to stay. One
morning in November nineteen thirty five, Leonard announced he was
moving out for good. Charlotte was distraught and spent hours
searching the nearby villagers for him, but he had completely
vanished from her life. Missing the income from Parsons, Mister

(09:46):
and Missus Bryant took in another paying lodger, this time
thirty four year old widow Lucy Malvina Osler. Lucy had
seven children, so she and Charlotte took turns babysitting for each.
The tiny cottage was now more claustrophobic than ever, housing
twelve children and three adults. On Wednesday, leventh of December

(10:12):
nineteen thirty five, Frederick suffered a third bout of agonizing
stomach pain. Around this time, Charlotte had inquired about life insurance,
and an agent named Edward Tuck called at the cottage
while Frederick was unwell. Tuck refused to issue an insurance policy,

(10:34):
as he looked so ill that he was not considered
a fair risk. Tuck would later say he looked like
a man who had not much longer to live. His
eyes were bulgy, and he looked wasting and thin. At
eight am on Sunday, fifteenth December, Frederick's employer, the farmer

(10:56):
mister Priddle, was walking past the cottage and complained of
the noise coming from all the children. Can't you keep
those children quiet? How many families do you have? He
asked missus Bryant. Irritably, she replied aggressively, three dozen. If
I had the chance fight a gun, I'd shoot you.

(11:21):
A few days before Christmas, Charlotte hired a car and
drove with her newborn baby forty miles to Western super
Mayor to the Traveler's encampment where Priscilla Loveridge lived. She
may have hoped to find Leonard Parsons there, but he
was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she confronted Priscilla with

(11:41):
the baby and told her that Parsons was the father.
Priscilla was forced to admit that the baby bore strong
resemblance to Leonard, but it made no difference. The nomadic
salesman was a law unto himself, and even Priscilla had
no idea of his whereabouts. He was a man who

(12:02):
came and went as he pleased. Charlotte Bryant returned to
Coombe Farm in disappointment. A few days later, her husband, Frederick,
now thirty eight endured his final most torturous bout of illness,
describing the pain in his stomach as like a red

(12:23):
hot poker inside him. By the morning of Saturday, twenty
first of December nineteen thirty five, he lay in bed,
unable to speak, immobilized by the intense, searing pain. Charlotte
returned home later that day from a shopping trip to
find Frederick vomiting, but she simply stood with her arms folded,

(12:47):
offering no care or comfort, a scene witnessed by farmer
Aubrey Priddle. That night, Frederick and Charlotte slept in their
bed as usual, with the youngest child in the cot
by their side, while lodger Lucy Osler slept in a
chair in a corner. At three a m Lucy Osler

(13:11):
awoke and noticed that Charlotte was coaxing her husband to
drink some oxo, a meat extract like a thin broth.
In the dim light, she couldn't see if he drank
it or not, but a few minutes later he was
vomiting again. Charlotte sent her eldest son to farmer Priddell's
house to ask him to call the hospital. An ambulance

(13:36):
arrived to transport Frederick Bryant to Yateman Hospital, Sherborne, but
by the afternoon Frederick was dead. The following day, the
insurance agent, Edward Tuck, visited the cottage again, unaware that
mister Bryant had died. Charlotte told him, well he is gone.

(14:02):
I've been a good wife to him. Nobody can say
I have not, and nobody can say I've poisoned him.
Taken aback by this remark, mister Tuck asked why would they,
to which Charlotte replied ominously, well, you never know what
will come of these things. On the same day, Charlotte

(14:25):
was seen at the railway station asking about the price
of affair to Wellington, Somerset, where she believed then at
Parsons was now living. The doctor was suspicious about the
death of the previously healthy farm hand and refused to
sign the death certificate. An inquest was scheduled for Christmas Eve,

(14:50):
and Charlotte responded with confusion, asking what an inquest was
and saying indignantly, can't see how they can say I
poisoned my husband. If they can't find anything, they won't
be able to put a rope around my neck. The
police thought This was strange, as nobody had mentioned poison

(15:12):
at this point. On twenty eighth of December, Senior Home
Office analyst doctor Gerald Rosch Lynch reported a startling discovery.
More than four grains of arsenic had been discovered in
the dead man's organs, when just two grains would have

(15:32):
been fatal. The final dose had been administered somewhere between
twelve and thirty six hours prior to death. Arsenic, though
once common in household products, was by then a known poison,
regulated by law and easily concealed in food or drink
due to its virtually odorless and tasteless nature. Two Scotland

(15:58):
yard detectives arrived from Love to aid the investigation, and
they examined the cottage in Coombe, while Charlotte and her
children were moved to the Sturminster Newton Public Assistance Institution,
which had once been a workhouse for the poor. The
detectives collected one hundred and fifty separate samples of dust,
dirt and rubbish from the Bryants home. After analysis, thirty

(16:23):
two of the samples were found to contain traces of arsenic.
Police officers diligently visited every chemist's shop within a fifty
mile radius and checked the poison registers to see who
had purchased arsenic recently. They found a pharmacist in Yeovil

(16:44):
who remembered selling a tin of weedkiller to a woman
who signed his register with a cross. Detectives found that
Charlotte Bryant had signed her marriage certificate with a cross
in nineteen twenty two, as she couldn't write can this
be proof that Charlotte had bought weed killer containing arsenic?

(17:06):
Charlotte Bryant and lodger Lucy Osler were both asked to
take part in an identity parade for the Jovial pharmacist,
but he failed to recognize either of them as the
woman who bought the weed killer. Missus Ostler's witness statements
about Charlotte were damning. She recalled seeing Charlotte urging her

(17:28):
husband to drink some oxo just hours before his death,
and claimed Charlotte had once confided that she hated Frederick
but stayed with him for the sake of the children.
More troubling still, Ostler said she'd seen a tin of
weed killer at the cottage after Frederick died, and remembered
Charlotte pointing to it and saying, I must get rid

(17:51):
of that. On Boxing Day, Charlotte had struggled to light
the fire for the boiler. Missus had discovered ashes beneath
it and noticed the grate was clogged with bits of
burnt clothing and a scorched, dented tin. She swept up
the mess and threw it all out into the ash

(18:12):
tip in the garden. Police recovered the tin during a search.
It tested positive for arsenic the brand Eureka, the same
weed killer sold by the chemist in Yoville. Dorset police,

(18:32):
with the help of Scotland Yard, tracked down Leonard Parsons.
He admitted to having an affair with Charlotte Bryant for
two years, but claimed to have nothing to do with
her husband's death, although he revealed that the previous summer
Charlotte had told him several times that she would be
a widow soon. Charlotte, however, maintained that she had no

(18:56):
relationship with Parsons and that she didn't even like him.
On Monday tenth of February nineteen thirty six, four days
before her thirty third birthday, Charlotte Bryant was arrested and
charged with the murder of her husband. Her children remained

(19:16):
at the Public Assistance Institution and were told their mother
had gone on holiday. As the family couldn't afford a barrister,
Charlotte was granted free legal aid under the Poor Prisoner's
Defense regulations, and Joshua David Caswell was appointed as her
defense counsel. A seasoned criminal advocate with more than twenty

(19:39):
five years experience, Caswell supported capital punishment in principle, but
at deep reservations about women being sent to the gallows.
He worked tirelessly to save the lives of those he represented,
Yet he was less than impressed with his adulterous client,
later describing her disparagingly as an ugly Irish gypsy and adding,

(20:05):
Charlotte Bryant was nothing like the conventional picture of the
wronged heroine. She had neither charm nor any other attraction.
By the time I saw her in the cells beneath
the a size court at Dorchester, her face was prematurely
scarred with lines, Her dark hair fell in rat tails,
and a solitary tooth showed behind her lips. The trial

(20:33):
opened at Dorchester on Wednesday, twenty seventh of May nineteen
thirty six. Only in the month before, nurse Dorothea Waddingham
had been executed for poisoning disabled women, so the shadow
of the noose undoubtedly loomed large in Caswell's mind as
he presented the case for the defense. There were one

(20:56):
or two weaknesses in the prosecution's case, which Terrence Connor Casey,
leading for the Crown, freely admitted. They were unable to
prove beyond doubt that Charlotte Bryant had purchased the poison,
and the case hinged on the evidence of Lucy Ostler,
who told the story of the oxid drink and the
tint of weed killer. When Caswell rose to cross examine

(21:19):
the lodger, he tried to raise doubt in the jury's
minds about whether Lucy Osler herself should be seated in
the dock. After all, she was living in the cottage
with the Bryants and would also have had access to
the weedkiller. Caswell, however, was grasping at straws as it
was confirmed that Lucy had not been living there on

(21:41):
the previous occasions that Frederick had been ill. Leonard Parsons
also gave evidence, telling the court that Charlotte had asked
him if he would marry her if her husband died.
The technical side of the prosecution rested on the estimony
of Dr Rosch Lynch and his analysis of the arsenic

(22:06):
He stated that the ashes under the boiler contained one
hundred and forty nine parts per million of arsenic, which
he stated was an abnormally large proportion, proving that something
containing arsenic must have been burnt in the fire. He
was forced to admit, under Caswell's rigorous cross examination that

(22:27):
it was possible for the victim to have had arsenic
on his hands then eaten without washing them, allowing traces
of arsenic to enter the stomach, as there would be
low levels of the element in the soil surrounding the cottage,
but it was unlikely to be enough to prove fatal.
When Charlotte herself took the stand, she claimed to know

(22:51):
nothing of the weed killer and refuted having a sexual
relationship with Leonard Parsons, denying that he was the father
of a youngest child. She even stated that she hadn't
given her husband a drink of oxo in his final hours,
claiming that it was missus Osler who attended to Frederick

(23:11):
that night after just an hour of deliberation, the jury
found Charlotte Bryant guilty of murder. Justice McKinnon's voice reportedly
shook as he delivered the death sentence. Charlotte wept and
cried out no, no, my lord, I am not guilty

(23:35):
as she was led from the dock by two wardressers.
The distressing scene would echo in J. D. Caswell's mind
for years to come, particularly each time he defended a
woman on a capital charge. He launched an immediate appeal
when the two eldest children, twelve year old Ernest and

(23:56):
ten year old Lily, who were informed that their mother
was to be execut for murdering their father. Lily collapsed
and was cared for by nurses, while the younger children
remained unaware. While in the condemned cell, Charlotte dictated a
letter to a friend, which the prison staff wrote on
her behalf. It hinted at someone else's involvement, saying it's

(24:22):
all dot dot dot fault. I'm here, but the prison
authorities had censored the name. A week later, J. D.
Caswell was contacted by a Professor William Bone, who disputed
the evidence presented by Dr Rosch Lynch After reading about
the trial in the papers, the hopeful defense barrister met

(24:46):
with a professor who explained that the normal contents of
housecoal was in fact one hundred and forty parts arsenic
per million, which was only just under the one hundred
and forty nine parts per million found in the ashes
under the Bryan's boiler, indicating that the level wasn't as
excessive as ros Lynch had testified, potentially casting doubt on

(25:08):
Charlotte's guilt. The appeal was held on twenty ninth of June,
but the judges refused to hear Bone's evidence, arguing that
it should have been presented at the trial. They were
convinced that even with this information, the outcome would have
been the same. The appeal was denied and the death

(25:31):
sentence stood. The only hope now was that the Home
Secretary would intervene and urge the King to grant a reprieve,
but this too failed to materialize. Charlotte Brightt refused to
see her children to spare them the ordeal of seeing
her in prison, but she wrote them letters, having learned

(25:52):
to read and write a little while in the condemned cell.
By now it was said that her once black hair
had turned completely white. On the morning of Wednesday, fifteenth
of July nineteen thirty six, almost one thousand people gathered
outside Exeter Prison to be among the first to hear

(26:14):
the news of the execution. Just after eight am, Charlotte
Bryant was hanged by Thomas Pierpoint. Twenty minutes later, the
gates creaked open and the notice of death was pinned
up for the onlookers to read. J. D. Caswell walked

(26:34):
away with a heavy heart, but had he been granted
a glimpse of his future record, he may have been
cheered to know that Bryant was one of just five
of his clients to be hanged out of forty capital
defense cases during his long career at the bar. As
for Leonard Parsons, he was charged with carthft in nineteen

(26:56):
thirty eight, but was cleared, after which he likely took
another alias and quietly continued his life of traveling and philandering.
Charlotte Bryant was buried on prison grounds and her money,
totaling five shillings ninepence, was divided among her children. They
were adopted into new families through the Dorset Public Assistance Committee,

(27:20):
and although not all of their paths can be traced.
The eldest, Ernest, died in two thousand and one at
the age of seventy seven. The next eldest, Lily, also
lived a long life, dying in two thousand and five
at the age of eighty, leaving behind children and grandchildren,
though it is not known how much they were aware

(27:42):
of their family's painful history. You've been listening to Pressure's
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