From the South Yorkshire Times, 24 November 1899 (via British Newspaper Archive)
George Harrington was, at least according to the man himself, a former engineer who had 'learned the detective business himself.' He established his private detective bureau in April 1897, being based at Rodgers' Chambers, 63 Norfolk Street, in Sheffield. With the usual private detective's hyperbole, he claimed to be 'the only acknowledged Private Detective out[side] of London', which was clearly untrue, although he certainly seems to have been one of Sheffield's few.
He operated for around three years, and certainly seems to have had no shortage of work - in his early days, he employed a sawyer named William Swindell part-time to help him on cases (Swindell claimed to do his day job, then work for Harrington at night - the men had known each other since around 1890). Throughout 1899, he called for someone to join him in a partnership, hoping to extend his business, but when nobody came forward, he seems to have given up his bureau instead.
Harrington made the pages of the Sheffield press within months of starting his business, when he was employed by a Manchester publican to monitor his estranged wife. John Johnson had married Rose Ellen in 1885, but the couple separated in 1894, and Rose returned to her native Sheffield, renting a single room in a house that had to serve as both living room and bedroom. She afforded this thanks to her weekly maintenance from John, agreed under the terms of their separation - however, this maintenance was dependent on her remaining 'chaste'.
Suddenly, in the spring of 1897, Rose's maintenance stopped. For eight weeks, she did not receive the money. She therefore took her husband to court to get the monies paid to her - only to find that Johnson had stopped paying her because he believed she was having an affair with a local cutlery grinder named George Cutts.
Evidence came from George Harrington, who had been commissioned by Johnson to find proof of adultery - he was promised £25 if he could do so. Harrington and Swindell therefore started to watch Rose's house at night, to monitor her activities. The saw her come out of the house one evening with Cutts, and go into a pub on the road for a drink. Later, she returned with him; and the two private detectives climbed up onto a windowsill to peek into her room - duly claiming to have seen Rose and Cutts in bed together.
Although Rose's landlord had also seen her with Cutts several times, and squiffy into the bargain, he didn't think she had actually been having an affair. However, the judge in the case found that although Harrington came across as honest, Johnson shouldn't have based payment of Harrington on him finding evidence - there was clearly a motive for him to create that evidence. The judge also said that the onus was on Johnson to prove adultery, not for Rose to disprove it. He therefore found in favour of Rose, and ordered Johnson to pay the money he owed her. Johnson immediately filed for divorce, on the grounds of Rose committing adultery with Cutts (misnamed on the petition as Walter) and another man. His petition was dismissed.
It seems that nobody believed that Rose could have been having an affair with George Cutts; yet Harrington may well have seen her in bed with him, for the 1901 census records George Cutts living with his 'wife' Rose - and the couple having two young children. It seems that Rose was able to get away with her adultery, because her husband simply couldn't prove it.
Rose remained 'Mrs Cutts' until her premature death in 1906. Despite having separated from her over a decade earlier, John Frederick Johnson waited until he was widowed, and then promptly married the beautifully named Louisa Emmeline Lavender Brabin, who had been widowed twice herself. John continued to run a pub - now with his second wife - until his own death in 1919.
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Although John and Rose Johnson's lives can be traced, there is less evidence of George Harrington. Because he only operated between 1897 and 1899, the 1891 and 1901 censuses would have no private detective of this name listed. The few engineers of this name in the 1891 census are not the private detective, and so, for now at least, he remains more enigmatic than his former client.
