It was the city’s most sensational court case in decades: Marion Morrell was accused of murdering her lover, the famous local sportsman James Rule, shooting him in the head on Pilgrim Street on March 2nd, 1899. Her trial at Newcastle’s Moot Hall in July of that year was almost as dramatic as the crime, and had equally tragic consequences. There was never any doubt that Marion killed James that evening, there were several witnesses including a police officer, and she didn’t deny it. The jury had to decide whether it was murder or manslaughter, with one of these options carrying the death penalty.
Marion Edith Morrell, known as ‘Nellie’ to her friends, was born in 1876 and raised in Gateshead by her grandparents after her mother died when she was a child and her father left town, and was by contemporary accounts an attractive and well-educated young woman. She began her working life as a domestic servant and then found employment in a variety of pubs as a barmaid. Marion was pulling pints at the Collingwood on Clayton Street when she first met James Rule, eighteen months before her final encounter with him.
Marion lost her job at the Collingwood a week before the fateful night, she was said to be an energetic person who liked to keep busy, and being jobless had caused her a considerable amount of anxiety. She was living with a friend, a dressmaker called Alice Robertson, sharing a flat on Hardwick Terrace in Gateshead. Alice would later tell the court that James Rule was a regular visitor at the flat, taking her out to the theatre and sometimes staying the night. She believed from what she saw that it was an “honourable courtship”.
James was a decade older than Marion, he was born at Gateshead in 1866 into a respectable family, his uncle was the Turkish Consul and another uncle was a Justice of the Peace. His father was a slater and plasterer and the family moved to Stanhope Street in Newcastle, where James followed him into the same line of employment. But he was a very talented swimmer and quit the building trade to take up the sport professionally, becoming the Champion of the North in 1890. He was also a very useful boxer.
Competitive swimming would have become difficult by the time he reached his thirties, but he clearly loved the sporting life and used his fame to establish himself as a bookmaker. His family would have taken a dim view of this career change, it was regarded as a disreputable profession in late-Victorian Newcastle. But it was lucrative work with plenty opportunity for travel, and he took Marion on trips to racecourses around the country as their romance gathered pace. They talked of emigrating to Australia where James’ brother lived, and he bought her a gold ring on a week-long stay in Edinburgh.
The wheels began to come off the romance when an anonymous person sent a series of letters to Maud Wray, who was living with James as his wife, informing her that he was carrying on with another woman. Maud and James had shared their home on Snowdon Street, near New Bridge Street, for eight years, so she took these allegations seriously. Maud confronted James with the letters and he confessed to the affair and agreed to end things with Marion.
Marion had been unaware of James’ domestic situation until he broached the subject of splitting up on the Sunday before she killed him. At 6pm on the fateful night of March 2nd, Marion paid a visit to Pape’s gun shop on Collingwood Street where she bought a revolver and several rounds of ammunition, haggling the price down to eleven shillings by telling the assistant she was hard-up. Concerns were raised about the purchase, but she reassured the assistant that the weapon was to be used “for the stage”.
She had the revolver in her pocket when she joined James and a friend of his, a jockey called Nicholas Byrne, for a drink at the Plough in the Bigg Market at around 10.30pm that evening. She had four small gins while James drank a glass of soda. They left the Plough and headed in the direction of Pilgrim Street, Byrne walking behind Marion and James, and he would later tell the court that the couple appeared to be perfectly friendly. By the time they reached Hood Street, Byrne said that Marion and James were in “earnest conversation”, and James asked his friend to wait a few minutes for him by the electric lamp at the top of Pilgrim Street. James had chosen this moment to tell Marion she was dumped.
Police Constable Thomas Armstrong was on duty at the top of Pilgrim Street at 11.25pm when he heard a gunshot. He ran in the direction it came from, about fifty yards away outside a shop at 16 Pilgrim Street occupied by a cabinet maker called Forster. The constable saw the couple standing face to face in the middle of the road, with Marion pointing the revolver at James. The constable then saw a flash from the muzzle as a second shot rang out and James fell to the ground with a bullet in his head. Marion fainted into the arms of the constable.
James was carried to the Central Police Station a few yards further down Pilgrim Street by the constable, and Marion was arrested by another officer and taken there too. She asked if James was dead and was told he almost certainly was, to which she replied, “Thank God for that”. In fact, James was transferred to the Infirmary where he died of his wound at ten minutes to five the following morning, with his sister Jane by his side.
Marion was searched at the police station and a letter was found in her pocket which appeared to be a suicide note that would be pivotal in her trial. It was addressed to Alice Robertson, who was allowed to visit Marion in the waiting room the following day. They kissed each other and Alice said, “I cannot believe that you have done this”. To which Marion replied, “Yes, I did it, Alice. I was forced to do it”. Marion was remanded in custody until her trial on July 12th 1899.
The shooting in March had been reported in newspapers across the country and several thousand people gathered outside Newcastle’s Moot Hall, hoping to gain access to the court and witness the spectacle. The few who got in would not be disappointed, as the intimate details of James and his spurned lover’s relationship were revealed to the jury. They would hear of the couple sharing a bed on their regular trips away and at Alice Robertson’s flat in Gateshead and it was revealed that James had fathered a child with a third woman while living in sin with Maud Wray, although details of the unspecified disease that Marion had caught from him were prudishly skirted over.
The judge, Mr Commissioner Bosanquet QC, took his seat at 10.35am and Marion was placed in the dock. She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and veil and kept her head bowed while leaning heavily on the female warder next to her throughout the trial. She began to sob uncontrollably when asked how she’d plead, and when asked a second time, she said, “Guilty”. It was evident she’d suffered extreme mental distress during her confinement before the trial, she was looking distraught and very weary.
The court heard evidence from a variety of witnesses, including the assistant at the shop where she’d bought the revolver. Numerous people had been nearby on Pilgrim Street when the shots were fired, who also gave evidence, as well as PC Thomas Armstrong. The surgeon who’d attended to James Rule gave details of his fatal wound, and the bullet was said to match others found in a box at the flat she shared with Alice Robertson. There was no doubt at all that Marion Morrell had killed him.
Maud Wray made a brief appearance in the witness box and said she’d been with James for thirteen years and was unaware of his other relationship until she’d received the anonymous letters. They had no children but she knew he’d fathered a child with a third woman. She said he was often away from their home for up to a fortnight at a time due to the nature of his work as a bookmaker, and the last time she’d seen him was at 6.45pm on the night he died.
Marion was up next in the witness box, where she was questioned by the prosecution. She told the court that James had said goodbye to her on Pilgrim Street after telling her of the letters Maud had received. He’d said they’d have a proper goodbye tea the following day, which would be the last time they could meet. She sobbed throughout her evidence and at one point called out to the public gallery, “cheer up daddy”, at which an elderly gentleman with a white beard got up and left the building. Marion slumped back in her seat and the trial was paused until she’d composed herself.
She said she’d asked James to think about the condition he was leaving her in – alluding to a disease she’d contracted from him – at which point he’d flown into a rage and said it wasn’t his fault. The judge asked for James’ precise words, Marion began to sob more loudly and said she’d written them down as they were too shocking to say in court. They were read out on her behalf but the language was too filthy to be repeated in newspaper reports of the trial. She was asked if she’d had any intention to shoot him until he’d said those words, to which she replied, “No, I had not”.
Her defence’s case was that she had bought the revolver with the intention of killing herself when she realised that James was going to dump her. The letter to Alice hinted heavily at her intending only to take her own life, although this was undermined somewhat by her saying she wanted to be buried with James. She listed the belongings that she intended to leave to Alice in return for the kindness she’d shown her over the years, so it was clear that at least one half of the couple wasn’t expected to survive their final meeting.
The jury took just twenty-two minutes to find her guilty of manslaughter, but the judge only heard the word “guilty”, and to everyone’s horror he donned the black cap and began to sentence Marion to death.
His error was quickly pointed out by both the defence and the prosecution. The jury also made a recommendation of mercy because of the great provocation she’d received at the hands of the deceased, and the judge ordered her to be sent to prison for five years. Marion warmly embraced one of the female warders and according to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle she smiled for the first time in the trial, “and probably for the first time since the night of March 2nd”.
Marion was sent to Aylesbury Female Convict Prison, where this troubled young woman committed suicide three years into her sentence, hanging herself from a ventilator attached to a window. The coroner was told she had made several threats to take her own life, and on this occasion, she knew that her evening cup of cocoa would be delivered to her cell at ten-minutes to five. It was said that she’d chosen this moment to hang herself in the expectation she’d be quickly discovered and cut down from the ventilator.