Thomas Smethurst
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Thomas Smethurst (c.1810[1] - ?) was an apothecary, with a medical degree from a non-British university. Born in Budworth, Cheshire,[1] by the 1850s he ran the Farnham Hydropathic Establishment in Surrey and in the 1851 census was living in Badshot with his wife Mary.[1]
He is most notable for being convicted then pardoned of the murder by poisoning of Isabella Bankes, who had been living with Smethurst and his wife at 4 Rifle Terrace, Bayswater. He was sometimes known as "the Richmond Poisoner", as he and Bankes had lodged in Richmond (with Bankes going by "Mrs Smethurst") from 4 February until 3 May that year, when she died there.[2]
The coroner's inquest into the death indicted Smethurst for murder and his trial at the Central Criminal Court began on 7-8 July 1859,[3] with Serjeant-at-law John Humffreys Parry and George Markham Giffard as counsels for the defence, Sergeant-at-law William Ballantine, William Bodkin, Mr. Clark and Mr Merewether (a son of Henry Alworth Merewether) as counsels for the prosecution and Sir Frederick Pollock presiding[4] - Smethurst pleaded Not Guilty.[4] It was then interrupted by juror Thomas Instone[3] suddenly being taken ill[4][3] but resumed from 15 to 18 August.[5]
The chief toxicology witness was Alfred Swaine Taylor, though in his testimony he admitted contamination to one of his arsenic tests.[6] The trial ended in a Guilty verdict[4] but Queen Victoria accepted Benjamin Brodie and Home Secretary George Cornewall Lewis's advice to grant Smethurst a royal pardon for the murder conviction,[7] though he still had to serve a year in Wandsworth Prison for the bigamous marriage with Bankes.[6][8] After his sentence he successfully defended the validity of Bankes' will (leaving him all her property) against a challenge from her relatives.[9]