Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/317

 ii s. iv. OCT. M, 1911.1 NOTES AND QUERIES.

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The arms of the Jersey family are Azure, seven chevronels or, in base a stag argent. Crest, a hand with oaksprig, sleeved gules, cuff argent. Was^the Butler family entitled to both shields, viz., three covered cups (pre- sumably adopted from their ancient office), and was this privilege carried with them from Normandy to England and Ireland ?

T. W. CAREY.

MADELEINE HAMILTON SMITH.

(US. iv. 247.)

MADELEINE HAMILTON SMITH, whose trial began in Edinburgh on Tuesday, 30 June, 1857, and lasted till Thursday, 9 July, and is one of the most notorious cases of the last century, died at Melbourne as Mrs. George Wardle 29 September, 1 893. The St. James's Gazette of 20 November, 1893, p. 5, had an article upon the case, arising from the announcement of the death of this famous lady :

" A strange and romantic and once famous tale of mystery is brought to mind by the news that Madeleine Hamilton Smith, at one time Mrs. Hora, and more lately Mrs. Wardle, has just died at Melbourne .... The family went to Australia, where she married a Dr. Hora, but was afterwards separated from him. Then she returned to Eng- land, married again, but was again unfortunate, for she and her husband agreed to live apart. Some years ago she went back to Australia, where, it seems, her chequered and stormy career came to a close at the age of 57."

In the printed accounts of the trial the curtain naturally drops when the trial is over, and nothing more is said of the move- ments of Miss Smith. I am able to give the following facts.

Madeleine Hamilton Smith was the eldest child of James Smith, architect, of 7, Blys- wood Square, Glasgow, and of Rowaleyn, near Row, on the Gareloch. She was born in Glasgow, 1835 ; educated at Clapton (Mr. Boase by a slip says Clapham) ; and seduced by Pierre Emile L'Angelier in May, 1856 : he died from arsenic poisoning 23 March, 1857. The trial ended on Thursday, 9 July, 1857, the jury at half-past one finding a verdict in the various indictments of either " not guilty " or " not proven." Madeleine on being dismissed from the bar descended by a trapdoor to a room where she changed her clothes, and then remained in the pre- cincts of the court till five minutes past four in the afternoon, when she went outside, accompanied by her brother " and another

young gentleman," and walked as far as St. Giles's Church, where a cab was waiting, in which she drove to the Slateford Station of the Caledonian Railway. There she took the five-o'clock train to Stepps Station, near Glasgow, and then took a conveyance and drove to Rowaleyn, her father's country house. There she probably remained for some time, though there were rumours soon after that she had gone to Australia.

A paragraph appeared in The Times, 6 March, 1858, in which it was said that the statements circulated that Miss Smith had arrived in Australia were not true: "Miss Smith has never, it appears, changed her place of residence since she left Glasgow." This paragraph may have been a "blind." At any rate, in 1857, the year of the trial, she appears to have married Tudor Hora, afterwards a surgeon, and both went to live at Melbourne. Four years after her marriage with Hora she married her second husband in London. This was in 1861. Although she selected a fashionable London church in which to be married, the wedding was kept very secret. In The Chelsea and Pimlico Advertiser, 6 July, 1861, there appears a paragraph as follows :

" Miss Madeleine Smith, who, it will be re- membered, was tried a few years ago at Glasgow [error for Edinburgh] for poisoning her sweetheart, and was discharged, the verdict being ' not proven,' has turned up in the neighbourhood of Plymouth. A contemporary says she is about to be married."

She had, in fact, been married two days before the date of the issue of this paragraph. Her second husband was George Wardle, an artist, then living at 5, Bloomfield Terrace, Pimlico. His father was Hugh Wardle, a druggist. She herself was at the time of the wedding living at 72, Sloane Street, a house occupied by Mrs. Grace Maxon. The wedding took place at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, 4 July, 1861, and was performed by the Rev. Robert Liddell (d. 29 June, 1888, and associated with the famous Westerton and Beale case). The witnesses were Madeleine's father James Smith and H. Hoverlock. Mr. Wardle afterwards became connected with a well-known firm of decorators.

In case fuller information is required by your New York correspondent I append a few bibliographical notes. By far the fullest and best account is found in " Trial of Madeleine Smith. Edited by A. Duncan Smith, F.S.A.(Scot.), Advocate. London, Sweet & Maxwell. Glasgow and Edinburgh, William Hodge," n.d. [1905]. This is a book of great value, but is marred by one serious defect no index. There are seven