"I'll take you down to Dale Street"

Liverpool detective William Campbell was embroiled in a complicated case where he was accused of threatening a housekeeper

This week, I'm looking at a case from 1878 involving the relationship between an estate agent and his housekeeper, a rumoured illegitimate child, and stolen furniture. It was a case where a private detective was hired on what he thought was a simple case - but he ended up in court himself. It may well have put him off the career he had had for twenty years.

Francis Cheers, a Liverpool estate agent and auctioneer, commissioned private detective William Campbell in 1878 (image from Wellcome Collection)

The private detective in question was 62-year-old William Campbell. Campbell, a soldier's son who had been born in Ireland but brought up in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, had established himself as a detective in 1859. He had an office at 6 Canning Chambers on South John Street, Liverpool, where he worked from 9am to 5pm every day. He must have been good at his job, for in a world where many private detectives only lasted a short time, he was still in business 19 years later, operating from his central Liverpool office, and with a wealth of professional business cards to offer to potential clients.

In 1878, he was approached by a local estate agent and auctioneer to do a bit of work for him. This was a man by the great name of Francis Cheers. Francis was 55 at the time and had separated from his wife, Jane, who he had married in 1857. He was living with his two young sons, Frank and Alfred (his youngest son, Arthur, appears to have stayed with his wife), and to help him with the needs of his household, by 1871, he had employed a housekeeper - Jane Jennings.

Jane had worked in service since her teens. Originally from Cambridgeshire, she had been housemaid in a surgeon's home in Hertford, but she then moved to work for Francis Cheers at his home, which was then on Islington Row. She was 11 years Francis's junior.

There were rumours about Francis's relationship with Jane, with it being speculated that she had given birth to his child. She would not have been the first housekeeper to get pregnant with her employer's child. Whether this was true or not, their professional relationship eventually fractured, and by 1878, Francis wanted Jane to leave his employ. That their relationship may have been more than just work might be seen in the fact that their situation was regarded as complicated, and involved Francis needing to 'pay off' Jane. He promised her money, and gave her two £50 bills of exchange. She promptly took the money to her new landlady, Mrs Bond, at Falkner Street, asking her to store it safely.

Jane later said that she believed Francis had told her she could take a few items of furniture from his house and keep them. Cheers, though, was furious when he found out how much she had taken to Falkner Street, and visited William Campbell at his Liverpool office to see if he would take on a commission to get his money and his furniture back.

Posing as a police detective, Campbell and Cheers visited Jane at her lodgings with Mr and Mrs Bond. He told her that if she did not return the items to Francis, he would 'take her down to Dale Street' (where the magistrates' court was based). Thomas Stamford Ruffles, the stipendiary magistrate, would put her on trial and she would get six months' imprisonment for theft.

Jane was, understandably, scared by this threat. Although she insisted that she and Cheers had arranged that she could take the furniture and the money, she agreed to hand the money back to Mrs Bond. While Mrs Bond was holding the bills, William Campbell grabbed one out of her hand, handed her his business card and a receipt, and walked out.

Dale Street Magistrates’ Court (photo by Rodhullandemu)

Jane Jennings then prosecuted the private detective for theft, with both attending the Dale Street court. The case was, as Campbell had ‘threatened’, presided over by Thomas Raffles, the 59-year-old Liverpudlian magistrate. Jane's counsel was Maurice Nordon, a solicitor based at the Central Chambers on South Castle Street. He argued that Campbell had committed theft and should be committed for trial - he painted Campbell in a bad light as a man who had impersonated a member of the police in order to take money that was not his. Campbell, however, believed that the Bonds had created a story with the aim of exposing Francis Cheers as the father of Jane Jennings' child, and extorting money from him.

He said Cheers had come to him telling him that he had reached a settlement with Jane to give her money, but had not agreed to give her the 'large quantity of furniture, wine and other things' that she had taken from his house. Cheers had asked Campbell to come with him to witness a conversation between Cheers and Jane regarding this, and had asked Campbell to take the money. Campbell was clear that it was not theft, as he had provided a receipt for the money and his genuine business card so that the matter could be settled. He had merely been an agent for Francis Cheers.

The case was adjourned twice, as the magistrate was unclear as to how to deal with the case. Campbell was released on bail. Mr Raffles eventually decided that now the case had been detailed in the local newspapers, he was clear that it was not a felony charge, and although the prosecution wanted a jury trial, Raffles disagreed. Knowing that his case was slipping from him, Mr Nordon now tried to argue that Campbell had made threats to take Jane to Dale Street and to the Bridewell, so should be convicted of obtaining the bill of exchange by menaces. He added that the allegation that Jane had given birth to Cheers' child was 'an unfounded one and he wished to have it corrected'.

After the case was adjourned the second time, Norden wrote to Raffles saying that he didn't intend to proceed with the case. After all, Mr Raffles had made clear that he didn't think Campbell had committed any crime. The case was dismissed, but when Campbell asked if he could say a few words, Mr Raffles refused to let him, as 'he knew he had his remedy if he felt that any injustice had been done to him'. Campbell then left the dock.

In 1881, Francis Cheers divorced his wife, Jane, on the grounds of her adultery with her lodger, John Leeming. His divorced was granted the following year, and Francis promptly remarried, his second wife being Elizabeth Taggett, who was 25 years his junior. Their daughter Jessie was born in 1885. Francis died in Liverpool in 1904. Jane Jennings disappears from the record after the court case, and it's not clear whether or not she did have a child by Francis Cheers.

The case appears to have been the end of William Campbell as a private detective. The 1881 census states that he is of no occupation, while his second wife Mary Ann had started work as a laundress. After being widowed, he moved in with his younger sister Catherine. She had been widowed by her early 30s, and had never remarried; she worked letting out apartments in her house on Islington Row. William did not work again, and died in 1891.

It is possible that Jane's positing of Campbell as a man who falsely claimed to be a police detective, and who threatened women to get them to do what he want, had long-term repercussions despite the case ultimately being dismissed.