Sensation at Trusley

Extract from "Derbyshire Family History Society", September 2014, Issue 150.
Author: Helen Betteridge

It was 1915 and the world was at war. The papers were full of battles and the need for men to go abroad, and over in France opposing armies faced one another from deep trenches. In the midst of all this, in the paper of 16th November, headlines screamed of the lamentable affair at Trusley.

It appeared a young woman named Emily Harrison had attacked her lover with a razor. He lay in the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary in a dangerous condition, while Emily was arrested on a charge of attempted murder. But this wasn’t just another love affair, the background caused a good deal of gossip and excitement.

The story starts with a couple called Philip Foster and his wife Lucy. They had married and set up farming around the Longford, Trusley, Long Lane area. Among their many children were Fanny born around 1858 and her younger brother, Philip, born in 1876 and named after his father. Fanny married a road worker called William Harrison from Shirley and the pair set up home in Trusley, having several children including the said Emily in 1892. Philip married Agnes Ellen Bradshaw in 1900 and the pair originally settled in Burton on Trent, Philip working as a brewery labourer which no doubt gave him the taste for drink. By 1911 they had moved back to Trusley where Philip helped his mother on the farm. The couple had no children.

After her arrest Emily herself came up before the Derby magistrates twice, both times the hearing being delayed because Philip Foster—the man she attacked and also her uncle—was still in hospital and unable to talk. She was allowed bail, a move that argues she had found sympathy in court.Eventually in December the case was heard and though Emily was committed to the Assizes she was again allowed bail and the charge was reduced to unlawful wounding. Many people of Trusley came forward to offer sureties and when the facts came out it was no wonder.

It appeared Emily had had three children by Foster, the first one being Annie who had been born in 1910, when Emily was only 17. Annie had not lived long, but Emily had gone on to have two more children and in May 1915 had taken out a maintenance order against her own uncle, a fact that appeared to shock the judge, who argued the case was most unsavoury. By November 1915 intimacy between the parties appeared to have ceased but from that point onwards the two parties concerned told different stories.

Foster agreed he had been familiar with Harrison, but had since had nothing to do with her until they met one another in the Black Cow pub. He claimed she was annoyed because he hadn’t spoken to her and when he told her to go home she went for him with a bottle of beer, threatening to knock his brains out.

The next time they met was in the Three Horse Shoes. Emily had been looking after one of the landlady’s children and when she brought him home about 6 p.m., Foster was drinking in the taproom. The pair left together, Foster claiming she asked him to see her home, Emily claiming that he followed her and tried to force her to be intimate with him. At this point she struggled and he knocked her down—the girl had a black eye to prove it—and she grabbed a razor from the birdcage and hit out at him, cutting his throat. Foster at this point struggled back to the pub and when the police arrived he was sitting in the taproom with a serious gash in his throat. The doctor later said if he hadn’t had such a lot of flesh round his throat he would have died. This conjures up a very vivid picture of the man, and not a very nice one either. One also has to wonder what on earth the razor was doing being housed in a birdcage. Emily chucked the razor into the vicarage garden where it was later recovered by the police.

At the time of the assizes in February 1916 Emily was 22 and living at Hamilton Terrace, Willington. The charge was reduced to unlawful and malicious wounding and the paper made much of the fact that Foster was a married man and the young woman was his niece. It took the jury only a few minutes deliberation to totally acquit the prisoner.