The Murder Of Dennis Finnessey

Knife crime was a real and ever present problem on the streets and in the pubs of Victorian London.

People carried knives for all manner of reasons, most of them for the legitimate and necessary pursuance of work.

However, it didn’t take much for a knife to be pulled in a drunken exchange, and then the consequences could prove fatal.

Such a case was reported by The Illustrated Police News in its edition of Saturday the 21st of January 1893:-

MURDER IN KENSINGTON

Walter Hosler, thirty-eight, labourer, was indicted, at the Central Criminal Court, on Wednesday, for the wilful murder of Dennis Finnessey.

The prisoner and the deceased had. been on very friendly terms, but seemed to have had words as to the payment for a pot of beer.

On the night of the 24th ult. they were playing draughts in the Bedford beer house, Bedford Gardens, Kensington.

An illustration showing the exterior of the Bedford beer house.
From The Illustrated Police News, Saturday 21st January, 1893. Copyright, The British Library Board.

CHALLENGED TO A FIGHT

Reference was made to the outstanding difference about the pot of beer, and deceased, prisoner said, challenged him to a fight.

They went out, and appeared to have commenced fighting.

STABBED IN THE NECK

A bystander noticed the prisoner produce something from his pocket and strike the deceased.

Blood commenced to flow from deceased’s neck, and, at the same moment, the deceased exclaimed, “I am stabbed; stop him.”

HE WAS WALKING AWAY

The prisoner was walking away, but was followed and brought back.

He dropped a knife from his pocket, and someone picked it up.

The prisoner said, “That is my knife. I told him that if he hit me again I’d stick him; this is the third time he has set upon me”.

The Deceased was removed to the hospital, but he died on the way from loss of blood.

MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES

For the defence, the great provocation which the prisoner had received from the deceased was urged as a reason for the reduction of’ the crime from murder to manslaughter.

The prisoner had over and over, again avoided the deceased, who was a violent, troublesome man.

GUILTY AND SENTECED TO DEATH

The jury, after a few minutes’ deliberation, found the prisoner guilty of murder.

Justice Grantham said that the prisoner had been most properly convicted of the capital offence. If men would only look to their fists to defend themselves, so many people would not be he hanged.

Nothing could be more fatal than the use of knives and such-like dangerous weapons, and if people would resort to them they could expect but vey little mercy.

He sentenced prisoner, who did not betray the slightest emotion, to death in the usual form.

LIFE IN PRISON INSTEAD

However, in February 1893, Hosler’s death sentence was commuted to one of penal servitude for life.