Allegedly, a schoolteacher of Lamson's claimed that "the name George Henry Lamson would live long in the name of man." As a boy, Lamson was known to possess a "flair for friendship" and a "genius for languages," fluent in both French and German.[3]
Career
Lamson fought during the Franco-Prussian War with the French Ambulance Corps during the 1871 siege of Paris, receiving a Legion of Honour for his work.[4]
In his early career he had been a volunteer surgeon in Romania and Serbia, and decorated for his work. He returned to England, married (in 1878) and set up in medical practice in fashionable Bournemouth. Living beyond his means, and with his medical practice faring poorly, the morphine addiction he had acquired during his overseas service came to dominate his life and his financial situation grew desperate, with creditors pressing for payment of bills, cheques bouncing and his bank refusing further credit.[1]
Murder
Lamson's wife (née John) was one of five orphaned siblings who were wards in Chancery, and joint inheritors of a family trust fund. One of her brothers, Herbert John, died suddenly in 1879, leaving Mrs Lamson, her married sister Mrs Chapman (living in Shanklin) and her surviving brother, the youngest sibling, Percy Malcolm John. Eighteen-year-old Percy, a hemiplegic, was boarding at Blenheim House School in Wimbledon, where he received a visit on 3 December 1881 from Lamson (allegedly before making a trip to Florence to visit his father, although in reality, Lamson was staying in London, desperately trying to raise credit, pawn possessions or borrow funds). At tea with Percy and the headmaster Mr Bedbrook, Lamson brought a rich Dundee cake, already cut into portions, which the three shared, and also gave Percy a capsule, which he persuaded the lad to swallow, from a batch that were later tested and found to contain the poison aconitine, as recorded in the case history at Old Bailey Online.[4]
Scenes from the trial, wood engraving.
Lamson was tried at the Old Bailey in March 1882 before Mr Justice Hawkins and a jury; Montagu Williams acted for his defence: he was found guilty of murdering Percy in order to secure his share of the family trust fund, some £3,000 which Percy would have inherited on coming of age. He had poisoned his victim with aconitine in the cake, a substance which Lamson had learned about from Professor Robert Christison at Edinburgh University. Christison had taught that aconitine was undetectable, but forensic science had improved since Lamson's student days and the poison was easily identified, as well as Lamson's purchase of it from a London pharmacist.[5][6][7]
Lamson's execution was delayed when U.S. presidentChester Arthur,[4] wrote to the Home Office, requesting time for Lamson's well-connected family and friends in the United States to send proof of insanity in the doctor's family and in his own life. The evidence was received but failed to secure a reprieve.[1][8]
Lamson was hanged by William Marwood at Wandsworth Prison on 28 April 1882, having admitted his morphine addiction and effectively his guilt of murdering Percy John.[9]
123Shortly after Lamson's departure, Percy was taken violently ill and died in agonised convulsions that night, raising instant suspicion of Lamson, who had departed for the continent (to Paris, in fact, not Florence). Alarmed by press reports of Percy's death and confident that the aconitine would be undetectable, Lamson voluntarily returned to London and contacted the police to clear his name, considerably surprised to find himself arrest on a murder charge and refused bail as well as the morphine to which he was heavily addicted.Bailey, Stephen (31 August 2010). "The American doctor, war hero, drug addict and murderer who lived among us". Bournemouth Echo. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
↑Horace Bleackley (1929). The hangmen of England: how they hanged and whom they hanged: the life story of "Jack Ketch" through two centuries. Taylor & Francis. p.245. ISBN978-0-7158-1184-9.{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Sources
Adam, Hargrave L. (1955). "Dr George Lamson". In Hodge, James H. (ed.). Famous Trials 5. Penguin. pp.161–185.
Trestrail, John Harris (2007). Criminal poisoning: investigational guide for law enforcement, toxicologists, forensic scientists, and attorneys. Forensic science and medicine. Humana Press. pp.9–10. ISBN978-1-58829-821-8.
Parry, Leonard A.; Willard H. Wright (2000). Some Famous Medical Trials. Beard Books. pp.88–103. ISBN978-1-58798-031-2.
Old Bailey Proceedings Online(accessed 2019-01-26), Trial of George Henry Lamson. (t18820227-367, 27 February 1882).
