George Arthur Bailey

George Arthur Bailey murdered his 22-year-old wife Kate Lilian Bailey and sentenced to death.

He poisoned her with prussic acid at Barn Cottage, Little Marlow on 29 September 1920.

George Bailey had been an ex-convict with the following convictions:

• 1908: Forgery - 20 months.
• 1913: Embezzlement - 6 months.
• 1915: Aliens Restriction Act - 2 months.
• 1915: Stealing a pony and trap - 10 months.
• 1917: Forgery and larceny - 3 years.

He was believed to have married a in 1908, but she was thought to have got into trouble by another man whilst he was in prison and to have left him.

It was also thought that he had lived with two other women and then in 1916 to have married, perhaps bigamously, Kate Lilian Lowden.

Kate Bailey had been an omnibus cleaner. She was said to have had respectable parents, but that George Bailey dragged her down with him and she got 6 months as an accomplice when he was convicted in 1917.

George Bailey was released from penal servitude in February 1920, and after staying with his sister at Swindon he got employed as a milk roundsman at Bourne End. He and Kate Bailey went to Bourne End in June 1920 and until September 1920 they lived in a house called Millbrook. Then in September 1920 they took Barn Cottage in Little Marlow.

Whilst he had been at Millbrook, George Bailey began advertising in the South Bucks Free Press for young ladies 'not under 16 years of age, well built with full figure or slim build', who were required for highly paid specialised work, and towards the end of August 1920 he began collecting poisons.

He first asked a woman to get cyanide of potassium for him to kill wasps and then wrote to various chemists ordering large quantities of the most deadly poisons, including prussic acid and stramonium etc, and then at last got considerable quantities of those types of drugs from a local chemist.

Several girls answered his advertisements and he told them that he wanted to instruct them in a new system of musical notation that he had devised so that they might teach it. He was to pay them 3 guineas a week. At the time he had been in receipt of £3 a week wages and the rent of Barn Cottage was 20 shillings a week.

On Wednesday, 29 September 1920, three girls attended Barn Cottage and had a lesson in the musical system. They left about lunch time, but George Bailey arranged with one of them that she should go back and sleep at the cottage, explaining that there were other girls coming down from Scotland, who would be sleeping there.

Kate Bailey and their little girl had been about the house that morning and Kate Bailey was later seen in the afternoon apparently quite well and cheerful.

The other woman returned to Barn Cottage at 7pm and George Bailey received her, smiling, and showed her to her room, which was marked as number 2 on the floor plan. From room 2 there was access to room 3 and from room 3 to room 4, but one could only get into room 3 and 4 through room 2.

Whilst the woman was there she said that she heard a child cry in room 3 and it seemed that George Bailey had gone to attend to it.

The woman then went downstairs and had supper alone with George Bailey and then walked about in the garden for three quarters of an hour afterwards.

George Bailey then told her that the two ladies from Scotland had arrived and had retired to bed.

The woman then retired to her room at about 9pm and later George Bailey entered her room on a pretence that he had to look after the child next door.

Eventually he proposed to have connection with her and, according to her story, wrestled with her for that purpose until 8am the following morning.

After breakfast she left the house and made a complaint to a friend, a reverend, and also her parents. She was found to have been bruised about the arms, chest and legs, but her doctor stated that she had not been actually violated.

The reverend then taxed George Bailey over his conduct and informed the police.

However, George Bailey appeared to have then taken fright and left at 4.15pm that afternoon for Swindon where he told his sister that Kate Bailey had gone to hospital as she had been threatened with a premature birth. It was noted that she had in fact been six months pregnant.

However, the next day he told his sister that Kate Bailey was dead.

The police didn't enter Barn Cottage until 2 October 1920, when they found Kate Bailey's body wrapped in a sheet under a camp bed in room 4. Her body was dressed in a nightgown.

It was thought that her death had taken place on the afternoon of 29 September 1920, and it was clear that it was due to prussic acid poisoning.

George Bailey was arrested that evening, 2 October 1920, in Reading. He was found to have had a bottle half full of prussic acid and also opium, stramonium and chloroform.

When he was arrested, he said:

The police also found on him a statement addressed to the Coroner in which he apparently contemplated suicide and the murder of his little girl. As regards to Kate Bailey, he said:

The statement ended:

At his trial, George Bailey's defence was that Kate Bailey independently of him committed suicide. He said that he first found that she had taken stramonium, but never thought to send for the doctor, and instead walked about with her for a long time in the garden to keep her moving. He said that he then persuaded her to go to bed, but left her and wrote some letters which he posted.

He said that when he came back that he found her with a dose of prussic acid in her hand and that she swallowed it before he could stop her. He said that he then applied chloroform on cotton wool to her nostrils to ease her pain and that she then died.

He denied having tried to rape the other woman, and claimed that all he had wanted to do was prevent her from getting out of bed and going into the next room where she would find his wife lying dead on the bed with his little girl beside her.

He said that he only moved Kate Bailey's body to room 4 and put it under the bed the following morning after the woman had gone downstairs.

However, it was noted that his story was full of contradictions and inconsistencies that were easily shown up in cross-examination and the judge said that he was satisfied that George Bailey did administer poison to Kate Bailey and that he had told her that he would then commit suicide so that he might follow her to death.

However, the police report stated that they didn't think that there had been any talk of suicide and that in fact, George Bailey had administered the stramonium in tea or otherwise and that when she was semi-conscious that he had administered the prussic acid, traces of which were afterwards found in her body.

The police report further noted that they felt that the woman's story itself was true and that George Bailey had attempted to have connection with her and had possibly succeeded.

However, the police report noted that whether George Bailey gave his wife the poison surreptitiously, or under an agreement that they should both commit suicide, he was guilty of her murder in either case, and that under the circumstances should clearly be hanged.

It was further noted that Kate Bailey had been six months pregnant and that she appeared to have realised that George Bailey was tired of her and had written in a notebook what seemed to have been a draft or copy of a letter to his mother, which was found in a box in a drawer covered by clothes. However, George Bailey said that he had seen the letter before and that since that they had both cleared it all up and made friends again. However, the police report stated that they didn't think that he had seen the letter. However, it was stated that whether or not the letter was sent to his mother, the letter represented Kate Bailey's genuine feelings with regards to George Bailey.