Walter Marsh – who preferred death.

At 8.00 a.m. on Thursday the 27th of December 1906, 39 year old Walter Marsh was hanged within the coach house of Derby’s Vernon Street Gaol by Henry Pierrepoint, assisted by John Ellis. Marsh had asked that no petitions for a reprieve be collected as he feared life in prison far more than death on the gallows. It was reported that a pathway to the coach house had to be cleared of the six inches of snow that had fallen, for the procession to the gallows. As usual for this time, death was “instantaneous”.

Marsh had been a soldier for 17 years before leaving the army in August 1903, having fought in the Boer War in South Africa and later serving in India, as a sergeant in the North Staffordshire Regiment. At the age of 35 he had married the then 18 year old Eliza Gascoyne in 1901. When he left the military, the couple tried running a pub in Sheffield for a year, but this was not a successful venture. Marsh and Eliza had two children aged one year and three years respectively. The family moved to a rented house at 6 Goyt Terrace in Chesterfield where Marsh worked as a rent collector and agent for his landlord, Edward Silcock.

There were frequent quarrels between the couple and in June 1906 Eliza tried to obtain a restraining order against Marsh on the grounds of his cruelty towards her. He persuaded her to return and on July 4th, while he was out, Edward Silcock called to pick up some papers. He gave Eliza a shilling to buy beer for his tenants. Eliza told Marsh about this but he concluded that she had been given the money in exchange for sexual favours. Marsh confronted Silcock over this and was immediately fired. Marsh became extremely jealous of what he perceived as Eliza’s unfaithfulness. There did not seem to be any evidence showing that Eliza was unfaithful.

On Monday the 9th of July Eliza asked Marsh for a small amount of money, which he gave her and then she went to lie down for a rest. Around 5 p.m. he came out of the house and told his neighbours “I’ve done for her this time” and was seen to be wiping blood from his razor. Somebody went for the police and he was arrested at the scene.

Marsh was tried at Derby on the 5th of December 1906 before Mr. Justice Ridley.
He put forward a story of the killing being in self-defence and claimed that Eliza was “idle and intemperate”. He said that they had got into an argument while he was shaving and that she had thrown an ornament at him and attacked him with a sash weight. He defended himself with the razor. However, evidence showed that Eliza was murdered in her sleep. The jury took just 20 minutes to find him guilty.
In the condemned cell, Marsh’s concern was for his two children and he set aside £120 and some other property for their maintenance. He was ministered to by the prison chaplain, the Rev. H. R. Rolfe.