Abstract
As Beatrice Pace arrived at the Gloucester Shire Hall on 2 July 1928, local and national newspaper reporters waited to cover ‘one of the most extraordinary murder trials within the annals of English Law’ (p. 5). Medical evidence and a Coroner’s verdict had pointed towards arsenic poisoning as the cause of Harry Pace’s death. The nine grains of arsenic in his stomach left room for little doubt. Yet the crucial questions remained: was Harry poisoned? Did he seek to end his own life? Or was his death a tragic accident, the result of dangerous and outdated agricultural practices?
John Carter Wood’s The Most Remarkable Woman in England may at first seem little more than historical coverage of a real-life whodunit mystery, but this impressive scholarly work quickly shows the trial of Beatrice Pace to be a landmark court case – socially, culturally, and legally. It was an event which not only showcased inter-war sensationalism in the media to its full extent, but also one which extended an invitation to comment on institutional and legal reform – the case called into question both the conduct of the police during interrogations, as well as the validity and legality of the coroner’s court – and incorporated fierce debate on social and gender inequality. In a fascinating display of meticulously collected evidence, Wood at first draws the reader in to ask ‘who killed Harry Pace?’, but the real triumph of this book is the seamless way in which the author unravels the social and cultural impact of the case as the evidence and hearsay surrounding the murder mounted. Quickly, The Most Remarkable Woman in England becomes not about the guilt or innocence of Beatrice Pace in the death of her husband, but a series of more complex questions for the reader to consider. These relate both to situating the case as a product of its time and in thus reading its significance, and also in evaluating the role which the media played in constructing well-defined personae for both Harry and Beatrice Pace, as well as the extent to which this influenced public reaction to the trial.
As previous historiography has explored, the female poisoner was an eternal site of social and cultural anxiety, as relevant in the inter-war period as in the Victorian. The figure of the female poisoner was particularly likely to cause legal and media agitation when the question of women’s shifting social roles and emancipation was awakened. The use of poison by women was decried in particular because it was the ultimate adulteration of a female’s traditional role: as caregiver, as domestic helpmeet, and as the individual responsible for the moral and physical nourishment of her family. These fears and anxieties centred particularly on a wife’s duty in the preparation of food, and the care of the incapacitated.
Wood clearly emphasises that the 1920s and the case of Beatrice Pace were no exception to this. Questions over the ‘Modern Woman’ and her younger sister ‘The Flapper’ saw the inter-war period battling with changing gender roles and evolving marital expectations. Full and equal female suffrage was achieved the very day that Beatrice Pace went on trial for her life. Wood reminds us that the post-war 1920s was also a time when men, masculinity and the future of domesticity were being seriously contemplated. Thus multiple images of acceptable femininity were being negotiated in this period, between the old and the new roles that society could offer women. Stories like that of Beatrice Pace were seized upon as a clear opportunity through which to enter the debate and convey a calculated set of moral messages.
The Pace case was used in this way as a vehicle for wider discussion about gender and morality, yet the relevance of these debates in actuality, we are reminded by Wood, may bear little relevance to the experience of anyone directly involved in the case. The Pace family were residents of a hamlet in the rural Forest of Dean. Both Beatrice and Harry were children of the Victorian age who lived (until Harry Pace’s death) in isolation from much of the modernisation occurring in the urban centres of England. Intense press speculation saw the idea, rather than the reality, of the Pace case go on trial. Wood’s narrative leads us to understand that, while Beatrice Pace was brought to trial on nothing stronger than suspicion, her winning defence too was based less on evidence than on the insistence that she was ‘too moral, too devoted, and too maternal to have killed’ (p. 195). There are perhaps many similarities to be drawn between Pace and the case of Mrs Florence Maybrick which had captivated the British public and press 50 years earlier (Hartman, 1977; Robb, 1999).
The media frenzy around this case and the huge popular entertainment aspect derived from the trial were not new. Melodrama had been a popular feature of crime reporting since the mid-nineteenth century. Yet the Pace case was unusual in its universally positive newspaper coverage. Two dominant representations of Beatrice Pace stood, even before the trial had begun, that of the devoted wife and the ‘tragic widow’ (pp. 89–110). From the outset of the Pace saga ‘astonishing scenes of passion and cruelty’ were reported from within the courtroom and outside it (p. 75). Beatrice was from the beginning presented as a victim rather than a perpetrator.
Wood is, as ever, conscientious to situate these events in the wider history of the era. He informs the reader: ‘The 1920s and 1930s were a golden age for press spectacles. Increasing literacy rates, advances in printing technologies and expanding consumer opportunities gave newspapers unprecedented social, political and economic influence’ (p. 68). This contributed to rising public hysteria over the case, indicated by the daily throng of people around the courthouse hoping to gain a glimpse of their favourite ‘characters’ from the trial: victims Beatrice Pace and her young children, or villains such as Harry Pace’s unsympathetic brother Elton.
Wood provides an invaluable insight as to how the popular media accounts and sensationalist reporting were able to infiltrate the courtroom and doubtlessly play a role in the outcome of the case – a difficulty that remains all too common in the present-day criminal justice system. The tell-all culture of newspaper sensation had the ability to trivialise crime and undermine the surety of the criminal justice system. Wood also locates the inter-war period as the era that saw the emergence of a culture of celebrity substantially fed by the criminal justice system, for which the Pace case provides a convincing example.
The aftermath of the Pace case provides equally fertile ground for discussion. After her acquittal, Beatrice was able to sell an account of her life to a newspaper, for a sum that would amount to over half a million pounds in today’s currency. Mrs Pace was created and sold as a cultural product, idealised as a woman with traditional values, an unrelentingly respectable wife and mother through good and bad. Her life story was published in national newspapers, and Beatrice Pace was held up as an ideal role model to young women considering marriage, despite common knowledge of her ‘eighteen years of hell’ trapped in a union with an abusive husband in grinding poverty (p. 132). Wood is able to clearly present this as one of the many contradictions which so typified the Pace case by revealing how the papers were able to simultaneously rejoice in both Beatrice’s traditional, almost Victorian, femininity alongside her post-trial emersion in modern life and all of its frivolities. Towards the close of the book, Wood also offers some thoughtful reflections on how intense media coverage of the case allowed many women (and some men) to imagine a deep and personal connection to both Beatrice and her experiences. However, for others, conviction of her guilt remained a triumph of press coverage over evidence and legal judgment.
John Carter Wood’s The Most Remarkable Woman in England skilfully examines how the trial of Beatrice Pace, its aftermath and the media representations surrounding the affair became a site of cultural projection. Onto the characters and particulars of this case, women and men were able to examine their own experiences, expectations and prejudices in relation to a complex range of topics from gender relations, to domestic abuse, or adultery. In analysing the Pace case, John Carter Wood offers an in-depth exploration of attitudes towards inter-war crime, gender, media sensation and criminal justice, and at the same time delivers a comprehensive overview of a murder mystery that captivated the nation.