Murderer forgiven by victim’s family in touching letter

Then the home secretary Henry Matthews dramatically intervened.

Following a heavily backed petition, he sent a telegram to the governor of Winchester Prison ordering an adjournment.

Days later, the sentence, with the approval of Queen Victoria, was commuted to life imprisonment.

That in turn sparked the most extra-ordinary letter of forgiveness from the victim’s parents.

The engraver had shot dead his sweetheart Isabella Fleming – who he had been courting for four years – at point blank range with an inscribed revolver.

It was was never revealed why, though there are suggestions she might have grown tired of him.

Often morose and sullen, the 18-year-old had once worked for a Southampton firm of corn merchants but was sacked for gross misconduct in deliberately sabotaging letters intended for some customers but having them re-directed to others.

Unable to find employment in the town, he set off for America where he held down a decent job with his uncle and wrote a series of affectionate letters to Isabella, a talented pianist.

As a souvenir of his time in the States, he fatally brought home a five-chambered pistol, which he always carried in a coat pocket, using a jug on a garden well for practice.

Its presence worried both mother and daughter who pleaded with him to surrender it but he refused. Mrs Fleming did on one occasion manage to seize the pistol and hid it for several days but he eventually found it.

The day before the tragedy, April, 18, 1887, Early – in a drunken loss of temper – had flung the revolver down on top of a pack of cards he had thrown on the floor. “They have always been the ruin of me,” he yelled.

The gun went off, the bullet disappearing under the carpet, and Early went into their back yard to discharge the remainder.

Strangely, he had never told his parents, who lived in Cambridge Road, Southampton, of his repatriation and instead went to live with Isabella's family, occupiers of a two-storey house with a cellar in St Mary’s Road.

Both sets of parents however approved of the couple’s relationship, but Isabella constantly rebuffed his marriage proposals until he could prove himself by getting a job so that he could properly maintain her.

That fatal evening, Isabella's father, a boilermaker with the Royal Mail Line, was working and her mother had just retired to bed when she heard Isabella shout: “What are you doing with that revolver?”

Mrs Early was later to tell Hampshire Assizes: “I got to the top of the stairs. Next I heard a shot and she cried out: “Mamma, I’m shot.”

Then came a second shot.

Mrs Fleming found the kitchen door blocked but forcing it open, she discovered Early lying on the floor bleeding heavily. He had shot himself in the left lung.

“My daughter rushed across the room and said, “Mamma, George has shot me.”

Mrs Fleming carried her to a chair where she noticed a hole over the right breast, burning. Isabella’s moaned: “I am dying, I am dying” – and within a few moments she did.

PC White was just yards from the house when he heard someone call out a woman had been shot. He found Early lying on his left side, trying to get up, and the officer took possession of the gun that contained three undischarged and two spent cartridges.

Early was treated at the infirmary but after being arrested, gave no interview on legal advice.

He appeared before Mr Justice Cave at Hampshire Assizes on August, 1 where he pleaded not guilty to murder.

Mr Giles, defending, urged the jury to remember the two parties had been on the most affectionate of terms.

“You must be convinced the prisoner had the pistol in his hands and fired it deliberately before you can convict him of murder. Why did he shoot himself? Is it not an improbable that a man of courage, seeing that he had accidentally shot the woman he loved, would turn the gun on himself?

“Are you satisfied of the malice aforethought he there and then deliberately endeavoured to shoot, and did shoot, the deceased. It is for you to be convinced that the prosecution have made out their case.”

Mr Giles then suggested: “If the prisoner had intended to take his own life and she had pulled his hand away, and the pistol had gone off, that would not be murder. The pistol, as has been shown, exploded easily when it was flung on the floor.”

He finally submitted: “If here had been any threat, she would have had time to turn away and would not have been shot in the breast.”

Following the judge’s summing-up, the jurors asked for permission to retire. After 15 minutes, they announced they had reached the verdict, anxiously awaited by a packed public gallery.

Once the foreman had said guilty, the judge ordered his execution, telling Early: “The motive which led you to take her life you alone know – we can only guess at it. Let me exhort you to make full use of the short time which remains to you to prepare for the awful change which you must shortly come over you. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”

Early, who had been breathing heavily, simply uttered “Amen.” Then he was removed to the cells looking much overcome and solemn.

Within hours, his solicitor mounted a petition calling for the Home Secretary to exercise clemency because of his age and that no motive had been established.

Endorsed by hundreds of local people, it was principally championed by Sir John Commerell MP, Admiral of the Fleet, who readers of the Hampshire Advertisers learnt had left no stone unturned for Early’s case to be placed before the relevant authorities.

Sir John Commerell backed the clemency call

All but one of the jury had also sent a letter in similar terms to the Home Office The first news of a postponement in the execution came by a telegram Charles West-Hill, governor of Winchester Prison, sent to the teenager’s father about to make last visit to see his son, it said: “Son respited for one week. Do not come today. Will write.”

Within days, a letter was handed to a representative of the Advertiser’s sister paper, the Hampshire Independent, at the House of Commons confirming the Home Secretary had advised Queen Victoria to order a reprieve, which she had granted.

Many considered the decision had been made by the co-incidental visit to Winchester of the Queen's fourth daughter, Princess Louise, (pictured below) to unveil a statue of her mother.

It says much for their forgiving nature that none was more delighted with the outcome than Isabella’s parents, encapsulated in a letter Mrs Fleming wrote to him.

It read: “Dear George,“Mr Fleming and I do freely forgive you this great and dreadful blow you have given us, and you have our greatest sympathy in your dreadful trial." It went against me to even speak the truth about you but oh! George, you know how passionately fond we were of her. The light in my home is gone.

“Dear George, may God give you the grace we all so much need to make us do what is right in this world, and I hope my prayers will be answered, that you receive full and free forgiveness, and that our poor darling has the same grace allowed her.

“Now, my dear boy, you had have time to prepare yourself. May God bless you is the earnest prayer and wish of the afflicted and sorrowing parents of your Bella.”

In reply, J A Ladbrook, the prison chaplain, said: “I gave your letter to George Early and have to convey to you his thanks for writing to him in such a kind and forgiving spirit. It was, I am sure, a consolation for him.

“I am certain from remarks at different times made to me that there is not the slightest foundation for any tale of scandal connected with your daughter.”