74 | Murder at The Crumbles

In the summer of 1920, Irene Munro chose a solo holiday in Eastbourne, on the south-east coast of England, over joining her mother in Edinburgh. Days later, her body was found buried on the remote Crumbles beach by a family on holiday. She had been violently murdered. As police investigated, newspapers suggested she had led a double life. With the help of witnesses, detectives began to piece together what happened and who was responsible.

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Sources:
Ancestry
British Newspaper Archive
National Archives
Newspapers.com
Oates, Jonathan. Irene Munro and the Beach Murder of 1920 
Seaside Murders by Jonathan Goodman

Music:
ES_Theme Of Uncertainty
Long Note Three Long Note Two Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
ES_Maximum state by Ethan Sloan

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
In the summer of nineteen twenty, seventeen year old Irene
Munroe took a train to a Sussex seaside town, hoping
for a brief escape and perhaps to make new friends.
But what was meant to be a simple holiday soon
turned into a tragic mystery, her life cut short on

(00:22):
the windswept shores of the Crumbles, a lonely stretch of
beach between Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay. Welcome to Prashua's Murder map.

(00:51):
Irene Violet Munroe was born on twenty third of November
nineteen oh two in Brighton, on the southeast coast of England,
to domestic servant Flora Monroe. Her birth certificate didn't give
the name of the father, though Flora later said he
was a coal merchant named William. According to Flora, William

(01:15):
had died by nineteen eleven, and nine year old Irene
was sent to live with a foster family in nearby
Hove as her mother was unable to care for her
while working long hours as a servant. Irene was academically
gifted and quick to learn, which earned her a place

(01:36):
at the East Hove Higher Grade Girls School as a teenager.
During the First World War, she moved to London to
live with her mother, now a housekeeper for a wealthy
couple in South Kensington. Their home was near the Onslow
Court Hotel, a location that would later feature in the

(01:57):
case of Acid Bath murderer on George Haig. After leaving school,
Irene worked as a shorthand typist for a luxury shoemaker
on Regent Street. She was described as quiet, diligent and reserved,
but enjoyed the cinema, theater and dining out with friends,

(02:21):
especially Marion Ada Beasley known as Aida. She later took
a similar job at an accountancy firm, earning two pounds
seven shillings sixpence a week, from which she regularly sent
her mother thirteen shillings. Around this time, Irene became more

(02:42):
outgoing and started dating. She was five foot seven with
dark hair and brown eyes, and although she had previously
avoided men's attention, she began several romancers at the age
of seventeen, including a brief fling with a thirty nine
year old man she met a tube station to whom
she claimed she was twenty. In March nineteen twenty, Irene

(03:08):
met a forty five year old Belgian import export manager
named Ludwig Court. They dined out regularly, sometimes joined by
her friend Ada, and took trips together, once to Hampton
Court Palace. On one occasion, Irene turned down a date
with Ludwig to a tender dance, and he wrote her

(03:31):
a note hinting he wanted more time alone with her.
You naughty little girl, to leave me by myself until Friday.
I was hopeful to see you tomorrow. I quite understand
it that you like to go to the dance, and
wish you so much pleasure. Never mind, Ada, don't tell

(03:52):
her what we intend to do in the future. It
is so much nicer to be alone with you. I
enclose a pound note for you, little bird, to buy
some things you may be in need of, and also
will suggest you buy at the chemists and cream to
put every night on your pretty face to render it
clean and bright. Irene hid the letter from her mother,

(04:17):
who had grown up in the Victorian era and would
have considered such familiarity improper, a view that was still
common in nineteen twenty, As one Sunday Mirror journalist noted
at the time, during the Victorian Age, nice girls do
not speak to strange men. Nowadays, apparently almost all girls

(04:40):
regard that rule as piffle. Although fashions were changing and
social restrictions were loosening, class and gender still defined everyday life,
and there were many who would disapprove of Irene's romancers.

(05:00):
Irene's mother, Flora, discovered Ludwig's letter and urged Irene to
return his money and stopped seeing him. Irene ignored her,
writing in her diary, Dear.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Oh, dear, some mothers are the limit. They're nearly all
the same. Think we're going to be kidnapped or something.
She also reflected, some people think me quiet, some noisy,
some clever, some ignorant. And after all, what am I
just an ordinary girl whom everyone misunderstands. I do so

(05:35):
want to grow up quickly. Life is too short, and
I'm going to enjoy myself and make the best of it.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
In a tragic irony, Irene's life would prove even shorter
than she imagined. In April nineteen twenty, Court proposed marriage,
but didn't mention that he already had a wife and
three children back in Belgium. Irene declined, saying he was

(06:08):
too old, and instead began seeing her married boss John Maxwell,
and having lunch with him at the Golden Cross Hotel.
Maxwell would later admit to kissing her frequently at the
office when the other staff weren't around. That year, Flora

(06:28):
Munroe planned a holiday to Edinburgh and asked her daughter
to join her. While paid holidays weren't yet a legal
right for most workers, it was becoming more common for
employees to be granted a week or two off in
the summer. Irene chose to go her own way, opting
for a seaside break instead of accompanying her mother. After

(06:52):
leafing through the guide books, she settled on Eastbourne, a
coastal town in East Sussex. Looking forward to her break,
Irene packed her clothes and seven pounds of spending money,
then set off for the popular seaside resort, which had
a population of around fifty thousand and boasted three golf

(07:14):
courses and the Devonshire Park tennis courts, which had begun
hosting yearly lawn tennis events in the lead up to Wimbledon.
Before she left, Irene confided to a friend that she
hoped to meet a man at Eastbourne, adding it.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Will help me save my money. Besides, it is very
much nicer if you can find someone to go about with.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Irene took the train from London, a journey of about
an hour and a half, arriving at eight am on
a warm August morning with just a light breeze. She
barely needed her green woolen coat trimmed with imitation for
the hem, collar and cuffs. She spent most of her
first day exploring the town and soaking in the fresh

(08:03):
sea air, the lively music from the bandstand, the screeching goals,
and the steady lapping of the waves. After buying a
dozen postcards to send a family and friends, Irene searched
for a room. She hadn't booked a head and hadn't
realized how busy the town would be, but eventually she

(08:25):
found a place at three nine three Seaside, an end
of terrace house, charging at costly thirty shillings a week.
She already seemed to regret the trip, telling Landlady missus Winniat.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
My mother wanted me to go to Scotland with her.
I should have gone. I wish I had gone now.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Missus Winniat welcomed Irene and later described her as a
pleasant and respectable young woman. Over the next few days,
Irene walked along the seafront and sat reading on the beach,
still wearing her coat as she hadn't brought a bathing costume.

(09:09):
This wasn't unusual in those days, when modesty rules meant
few people actually swam, and even beech attire was kept
fairly formal. During her stay, Irene visited a gift shop
and bought a gold pencil case for her employer, John Maxwell,
engraved with his initials, though she told the shopkeeper it

(09:31):
was for her uncle. The item cost twenty three shillings
and sixpence, a generous purchase, especially when adder to the
cost of postcards and her accommodation. On the morning of Thursday,
nineteenth of August, she went to the post office to
send a letter to her mother asking for more money,

(09:53):
then told her landlady she was going for a walk
around Hampton Park, a public green space, with her lake.
She returned later, then went out again around two thirty pm,
this time wearing her coat as the weather had turned chilly.
When she didn't come back that evening, missus Winniat assumed

(10:17):
she was staying with a friend. The following afternoon, on Friday,
twentieth of August, a young boy holidaying with his parents
was exploring the Crumbles, a remote two mile stretch of grass,
beach and shingle between Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay. He tripped

(10:38):
over something partially buried beneath two inches of shingle, and
when his mother rushed to help, she was horrified to
discover it was a human foot. The police were called
and began digging beneath the stones. They un covered the
fully clothed body of a woman. Her black hat had

(11:01):
been pulled down over her face, and inside her dressed
pocket was a half eaten bag of sweets. A large,
blood stained stone lay about two feet away. Dr Ernest
Cadman arrived shortly afterwards and examined the body with the
help of a lamp as the light was quickly fading

(11:23):
into a blood red sunset. Riga mortis was present and
the woman's face was covered in blood. Her jaw was damaged,
and several teeth were found scattered nearby. He estimated the
time of death as somewhere between twelve and twenty four
hours earlier, and surmised that the bloody stone was the

(11:46):
likely weapon used to deliver a violent blow to the
right side of the head. There was no evidence of
sexual assault. Police surgeon doctor James Adams conducted the post
more atom, observing extensive blunt forced trauma injuries to the
face which were consistent with the heavy rock or stone.

(12:09):
Home Office expert doctor Reginald Ellworthy agreed with his findings,
but suggested that another blunt object may have been used
as well. The next day, Missus Winniat, growing concerned about
her missing tenant, read the news reports about an unidentified
young woman found at the Crumbles. She went straight to

(12:33):
the police and at the mortuary confirmed the body was
that of seventeen year old Irene Monroe. Authorities contacted Irene's
mother and her friend Ada, who both traveled to Eastbourne
to identify her. Formerly. When Irene's devastated mother noticed her

(12:55):
daughter's blue silk handbag was missing, reporters began to spec
that Irene had been murdered by a lover and the
handbag stolen to hide incriminating letters. Eastbourne Police, assisted by
Chief Inspector George Mercer from Scotland Yard, interviewed witnesses and

(13:16):
tried to piece together Irene's last hours. They even displayed
her clothes on a dressmaker's mannikin and published a photo
of it in the papers, hoping to jog the public's memory.
Two workmen employed to paint Missus Winniat's lodging house record
seeing Irene leave at around two thirty pm on Thursday,

(13:40):
nineteenth of August, walking toward the crumbles with two young men.
One workman, who had a clear view from a ladder,
noticed Irene laughing and talking with them. He spotted that
the younger and shorter of the two men carried a
distinctive walking stick topped with a carving a dog's head.

(14:02):
Soon after this sighting sailor William Putland, an ex soldier
Fred Wells, saw the trio. Irene was offering sueets from
a paper bag and stopped to stroke a stray kitten.
They then went through a gap in the fence near
the railway and disappeared from view. Several railway workers on

(14:25):
their lunch break in a disused carriage nearby also saw
Irene walking past with the two young men, adding that
one of them wore blue and the other gray. The
man in blue was walking arm in arm with Irene.
They were laughing and seemed in high spirits. These railway

(14:46):
workers were the last known people to see her alive,
and her body was later found just five hundred yards
from the carriage. The press continued speculating about the motive,
with some papers claiming Irene had led a double life,
meeting men on buses and trains and flirting with a

(15:08):
wealthy man she called Uncle, possibly linked to the pencil
case purchase for John Maxwell. Police investigated Maxwell and her
ex boyfriend Ludwig Court, but both had solid alibis. The
case third intense public interest, much of it judgmental, with

(15:31):
some placing the blame on Irene for befriending men and
going with them to such a lonely place. On Tuesday
twenty fourth of August, four days after Irene's body was discovered,
police identified the two men seen with her before her death.

(15:52):
One was Jack Alfred Field, an unemployed nineteen year old
who had been discharged from the Royal Navy six months
earlier for going absent without leave and had several theft
chargers to his name, including stealing from his own mother.
Field was five foot four with brown hair and gray eyes,

(16:13):
and his solicitor described him as a dark, well set
up young man. Who walked with a spring step and
always had a smile for the girls. His companion was
twenty eight year old William Thomas Gray, known as Billy,
born in South Africa to Scottish parents, His father had

(16:34):
committed suicide when Gray was a child. He was five
foot nine with brown hair, and still bore the scars
of gunshot wounds to his face and leg, sustained whilst
serving in the South African Army during the First World War.
He had arrived in England in nineteen sixteen and married
a sixteen year old Eastbourne girl. Like Field, Gray suspected

(17:00):
of theft, but had never been charged. He drifted for
a collection of short term jobs and was unemployed at
the time of the murder, financially supported by his wife,
who worked as a servant. During the investigation, several women
came forward to tell the police about Billy Gray's behavior,

(17:24):
revealing that he regularly prowed the beach and stalked women
along the promenade, posing as a bachelor to seduce them.
He was also known to frequent two seafront pubs, the
Albemarle and the Archery, looking for targets. That year, two
women had reported being raped by him. Anothers said he

(17:47):
threatened to throw off a cliff unless she had sex
with him, and yet another claimed he threatened violence when
she rejected him. Many victims never came forward at the time,
due to shame, fear, or because they thought they would
not be believed. One report stated Gray's conduct towards young

(18:11):
girls at Eastbourne is notorious, and his wife and her
mother know of his uncontrollable lust. Police discovered that in
the months before the murder, Gray had begun spending time
with Jack Field, and the pair frequently approached young women together,
convincing them into going for walks. While waiting to be questioned,

(18:37):
a policemen overheard Field say nervously to Gray, we're in
a nice hole. We're in a nice pickle. Now, how
are we going to prove where we were on Thursday afternoon,
to which Gray replied, I can't say what is going
to happen. When giving their statements, both men denied knowing

(18:59):
Irine Munroe or visiting the Crumbles that day, claiming they
had been eating ice cream and playing cards with a
woman named Maud Baxter. Maude, however, told police she hadn't
seen them at all that day. Police found clothing in
Field and Gray's homes matching witness descriptions, including a walking

(19:22):
stick with a dog's head carving that belonged to Field's grandmother.
Grey's trousers had several bloodstains. Suspiciously, the pair had appeared
flush with money the day after the murder, smoking more
expensive cigarettes, and Field even repaid a small loan, possibly

(19:44):
with money from Irene's missing purse, which was never recovered.
Multiple witnesses were willing to swear that Field and Gray
were the two men they had seen with Irene that day,
while others noted their shoes were dirty and scuffed the
day after the murder, consistent with walking on the shingled

(20:04):
Crumbles Beach. Police also learned they had first met Irene
the day before her death. On the Wednesday, Irene was
walking alone near the Albemarle Pub on Marine Parade when
one of the men greeted her and asked where she
was going. She invited them to join her, and the

(20:26):
three walked along the seafront as far as Beachy Head.
When they parted, they were heard agreeing to meet again
the next day how the Archery Pub. Jackfield and Billy
Gray were charged with Irene Monroe's murder and held at
Maidstone Prison. While awaiting trial at Maidstone Prison, new evidence emerged.

(20:53):
Archibald Darrington, who had just been committed for bicycle theft,
told authorities that Gray had approached him after disc covering
he was also from Eastbourne. Gray asked where he had
been on Thursday, nineteenth of August, and when Darrington replied
at the circus, Gray tried to convince him to say
he was there with him. Two days later, Gray allegedly

(21:18):
urged Darrington to tell police he had seen a sailor
struggling with a girl on the Crumbles, in an apparent
attempt to frame William Putland, whom Gray named and said
he intended to sought out. Another inmate, Bill Smith, reported
that Gray had described dropping a large stone on the victim.

(21:41):
Gray also admitted being with Irene in the hour before
her death, which contradicted what he had told police, which
was that he hadn't seen her at all. Irene's funeral
took place on twenty sixth of August at Langney Cemetery
in Eastbourne, attended by five hundred people. She was buried

(22:05):
on a hill overlooking the Crumbles a view which might
have been peaceful with its backdrop of sea and open sky,
had it not been forever marked as the spot where
a seventeen year old girl on a holiday had met
a sudden, violent death. The trial was held in December

(22:26):
at Lewis Assisar's before Mister Justice. Avery Gray was defended
by Sir Edward Marshall Hall and Field by mister John Castles,
both paid for by a tabloid newspaper hoping for exclusive interview.
In return, Charles Gill led the prosecution. Both defendants pleaded

(22:48):
not guilty, but only Field testified, denying he had ever
met Irene and claiming the money he spent the following
day came from his twenty nine shillings weekly unemployment benefit.
Their denials lost credibility when evidence showed that both men
had attempted to enlist in the army the Saturday after

(23:09):
the murder, perhaps as a means of escaping justice. Medical
experts confirmed the murder weapon could have been a walking
stick like Fields, alongside the large stone. The all male
jury visited Crumble's Beach to view the crime scene, and
the medical evidence was considered so distressing that female spectators

(23:33):
were asked to leave the court room during the pathologists testimony.
The sadness of the desolate, windswept beach and imagining irenes
last minutes there may have weighed on the jury's minds
as they considered the evidence. They found both William Gray
and Jackfield guilty, with a recommendation to mercy on the

(23:57):
grounds that the murder was not premeditator. Some speculated that
Gray had tried to rape Irene given his history with women.
When she resisted, Field had struck her with the walking
stick before Gray delivered the fatal blow with the stone.
Then they stole her handbag in case it contained a

(24:18):
clue to her identity. Both men lodged an appeal, with
each now blaming the other for the murder, but their
convictions were upheld. On Friday, fourth of February nineteen twenty one.
They were hanged by Thomas Pierpoint at Wandsworth Prison on
a quiet morning, with none of the noisy protests common

(24:42):
in more controversial cases. They were buried in unmarked graves
on prison grounds. Neither had ever confessed to the crime.
Jack Field's family left Eastbourne the year of the hanging,
but others connected to the case stayed in the area

(25:02):
and lived long lives, including witness William Putland and Grey's widow.
The house where Irene had lodged with missus Winiat was
later renumbered from three nine three to three five nine,
then became a working men's club before eventually being demolished.

(25:22):
Four years after the murder, another young woman, Emily Kay,
was murdered near the Crumbles by her lover Patrick Mahon.
Local rumors persisted about the atmosphere around the desolate stretch
of shoreline, which some claiming to sense an oppressive and
unsettling feeling there. The Crumbles was built over in the

(25:46):
late twentieth century, erasing the original crime scene, but even
though the landscape is changed beyond recognition, the tragic memory
of Irene's death remains u