Julia Thomas - Blog Posts
The Crimes of Kate Webster & Murder of Julia Thomas
June 19, 2023
In a two-storey villa in Richmond, London, a former teacher named Julia Martha Thomas lived. Having been widowed twice, she had lived on her own at 2 Mayfield Cottages in Park Road since 1873, after her second husband died.
At the time, Julia was about 54 years old, and was described as well dressed and eccentric. She would often leave and travel around, and her friends would have no idea where she was for periods of time. These periods could last for a couple weeks or even months.
Though Julia was not extremely wealthy, it is said she would often wear jewellery to make people believe she had money. It was also said that Julia was not the nicest employer, often making it hard for her to keep a live-in domestic maid for long periods of time.
On January 29, 1879, a woman named Kate Webster was employed as Julia’s servant. Kate was born around 1849 in Killanne. There is not much information known about Kate’s life, but it was believed that she had claimed to have been married to a sea captain called Webster and had 4 children with him. Kate said that both her husband and all of her children had died.
Kate had also spent time in prison in Wexford in December 1864 for larceny (stealing) around the age of 15. Kate came to England in 1867, and was sentenced to 4 years of penal servitude for larceny in Liverpool in February 1868.
It is often hard to know much about Kate’s life because it appears her reputation is one full of deceit. Kate claimed to have been released from prison in January 1872, and later became friends with a family named Porter. On April 18,1874, Kate gave birth to a son, but the father is unknown as she named 3 possible men that it could be.
Kate moved around quite a bit and used a number of aliases, including Webb, Gibbs, Gibbons and Lawler. She was again convicted of larceny in May 1875, facing 36 charges. Again, in February 1877 she was convicted and sentenced to 12 months in prison for larceny. Her son was taken care of by her friend Sarah Crease during the times Kate was in prison. Sarah worked as a charwoman for a woman named Miss Loder.
In January 1879 Kate took over for Sarah when she became ill and while working, Miss Loder who knew Julia was looking for a servant, recommended Kate. It is believed that when Julia met Kate she did not ask any questions about her past.
It didn’t take long for the two women to begin despising one another. Julia would often complain that Kate’s work was not satisfactory, and it got to the point where Julia would try to get friends to stay in the house with her because she did not like being alone with Kate. About one month after beginning to work for her, on February 28, Kate was fired.
However, Kate had convinced Julia to allow her to work for a few more days until March 2.
On March 2, Julia and Kate got into a big argument as Kate had made Julia late for her service at the local church. When Julia returned home from church around 9pm, Kate later confessed that they had fought more and Kate ended up throwing Julia from the top of the stairs to the bottom. Kate then choked her.
Julia hitting the ground made a large thud, which neighbours did hear, but they ignored it as they believed it to only be a chair falling over. Kate then began to dismember and boil and burn Julia’s remains.
Within the next couple of days, Kate cleaned Julia’s house and clothes. She also began packing the remains into a black Gladstone bag and a corded wooden box. There was not enough room for the head or one of the feet, so Kate threw the foot into a garbage heap and buried the head under the stables, close to Julia’s house.
On March 4, Kate went to see her old neighbours, the Porter’s, who she had not seen in 6 years. She was wearing Julia’s clothes and was carrying the black bag that she had put some of Julia’s remains in. Kate called herself “Mrs. Thomas” and told the Porters she had married, had a child and was widowed. She also told them she had been left a house in Richmond.
Kate asked Porter and his son if they wanted to go to a pub, and while doing so she assumingly dropped the bag of remains into the River Thames, where it was never found. She also asked Robert, the son, if he would help her carry a heavy box to the station. Kate then dropped the box into the Thames.
The next day, on March 5, the box was washed up next to the river bank. The man who found it originally believed there to be items of a burglary and when opening the box he found what appeared to be body parts wrapped in brown paper. A doctor was called immediately to determine the remains appeared to be that of a woman.
Around this time, a foot and ankle were found in Twickenham, where Kate had thrown the foot that wouldn’t fit. The remains were all believed to be from the same person but there was no way to identify said person. The remains were burned on March 19 and there was speculation that the remains had been used for anatomical purposes.
Kate kept living at Julia’s house, posing as her, and on March 9, she made an agreement with a man named John Church to sell Julia’s furniture to him for his pub.
By March 18, neighbours suspicions kept raising as they realized they had not seen Julia around for almost 2 weeks. Julia’s neighbour asked who had Julia’s furniture removed from the property and they replied that it was Julia herself, indicating Kate. Kate, now knowing that her charade was up, fled back to Ireland.
Police were called to the property and found blood stains, burned bones and a letter left by Kate that had her home address on it. A wanted notice was put up and detectives soon found Kate and her son back in Ireland.
Kate was arrested on March 29, after the head constable in Wexford recognized her to be the same person they had arrested 14 years prior for larceny.
Kate’s trial began on July 2, 1879 at the Central Criminal Court. The case was huge – people from all over were very interested in Kate and her crimes, with the trial attendance being crowded. Kate had actually tried to implicate John Church and her friend Porter, though both men had solid alibis.
She pleaded not guilty, and the defence argued she could not be capable of murder due to her having a young son. After only an hour and 15 minutes of deliberation the jury decided that Kate was guilty of murder and it had been premeditated. Kate actually pleaded and said she was pregnant, trying to avoid the death penalty.
Kate was taken in for an examination to determine if she truly was pregnant, and it was said that she was not “quick with child” though that meant she could still be pregnant.
Right before she was executed, Kate made a statement stating that the father of her child was the one who participated in the murder of Julia and was the reason she had lived a life of crime to begin with. On July 28, the night before her execution, she recanted the statement, taking responsibility, and also stating that John Church, Porter and her child’s father were not to blame.
On July 29, 1879, Kate Webster was hanged at 9am at Wandsworth Prison. She was buried in an unmarked grave in one of the prison’s yards. The crowd waiting at her execution cheered when a black flag was raised over the prison, meaning the execution had gone through.
Julia’s property was auctioned off, the day after Kate had been executed. John Church managed to still get Julia’s furniture, as well as the knife that she had been dismembered with. Julia’s house was unoccupied until 1897, and even then, servants did not really want to work there given the history.
There have been folktales of a “ghostly nun” that has been seen over the place where Julia is buried.
In 1952, Sir David Attenborough and his wife Jane bought a house by the Mayfield Cottages and the Hole in the Wall pub. The pub had closed in 2007, but was going to be redeveloped. On October 22, 2010, workmen doing an excavation at the rear of the old pub uncovered a woman’s skull.
It had been buried underneath the foundations and was immediately believed to be the skull of Julia Thomas as her head was never found. Carbon dating estimated the skull to be from sometime between 1650 and 1880, though it was on top of a layer of Victorian tiles, suggesting it was from the end of this estimate.
The skull had fractures that matched with someone being thrown down stairs, and also had low collagen levels, possibly from being boiled. In July 2011, it was confirmed that it was the skull of Julia Thomas, 132 years after she had been murdered.