There have long been rumours of a ghost at The Grey Coat Hospital...
In I remember Madam – some Old Greys look back into the past Mahala Dorman recalled Elsie Day herself telling the tale to the girls at Halloween:
"Madam would tell the story connected to the school, involving a nurse and a doctor. One of them was murdered in the Hospital and supposed to haunt a certain staircase."
And in Lessons from the past the sad tale of the murder of Mrs Martin, the infirmary nurse, by Henry Lockington the son of her friend is recounted. The rumour is that she haunts the long passage at the top of the main staricase - her room was off the corridor to the right. Vera Burrell reports that:
"after working late one evening, she came to the top of the stairs before leaving for home. She experienced the feeling of a cold breeze on the back of her neck and thought that someone was standing behind her. When she turned there was no-one there and, although she put the whole episode down to imagination, she was never happy to be in the building alone at night."
But what really happened?
We can read the original reports in the British Newspaper Archive. It was a particularly brutal murder, apparently provoked by greed. Henry Lockington was an alumnus of Christ's Hospital and a cabinet maker's apprentice. His victim was his mother's friend, and she had lent him a guinea only the day before.
Tuesday the coroner’s inquest sat on the body of the nurse that was murdered in the Grey-Coat hospital, and brought in their verdict wilful murder against the young lad who went to see her on Sunday night last, and borrowed a guinea from her, and then came again on the Monday night, when he did the murder.[Kentish Gazette - Saturday 13 March 1773]
The murder was very widely reported - the papers available in the archive are from Birmingham, Derby, Kent, Ipswich, Cambridge, Newcastle, Reading, Bath and Gloucester. The accounts are mostly very similar, mentioning his apprenticeship, that he knew his victim, and that he left his knife and hat behind. They also tend to dwell on the detail, which I will spare you. He was quickly found and taken to Bow Street, and thence to Newgate.
The Newcastle Chronicle was a little more reflective, wondering how it was that such a young man - he was in his teens - should do this, apparently without motive:
There has not, of late years, occurred so shocking a circumstance as the murder of Alice Martin, the Grey-coat hospital, in Tothill-street, Westminster. Henry Lockington, a mere child, happy in his situation, wanting nothing (as he himself declared) deliberately takes a knife, goes almost in the face of day to the hospital, without the least attempt to screen from public notice, enquires for the wretched victim, finds her in her apartment, and instantly butchers her; and tho' from the moment he escaped, it does not appear that he afterwards took the least precaution to screen himself from justice. It may truly be said in the words of the indictment, that this lad was “instigated by the devil,” to effect so hellish a purpose in so very unaccountable a manner. [Newcastle Chronicle - Saturday 20 March 1773]
And the Gloucester Journal offers the interesting detail that he pretended to borrow the money on behalf of his mother, and that he did not seem to understand himself why he had done it.
The hat and bloody knife, and great coat likewise bloody, were produced. The evidence was extremely full, clear and circumstantial. The prisoner at last acknowledged the fact, saying he did not know what his intentions were other than to get money; yet he owned that that he was in no distress, and that he had plenty of every thing. When he was taken he had twenty-two guineas in purse, which he stole from Mrs Martin’s room. He is committed for trial at the Old Baily. A pair of loaded pistols were produced, which were found in the prisoner’s room.
This confusion seems especially significant when we learn that he attempted suicide the day after his committal (prevented by the other prisoners), and that less than a month later he had starved himself to death in prison. He was obviously very disturbed in mind.
Once all the details are known it is impossible to view this thoroughly miserable tale as fitting source for a creepy ghost story; the human story is uncovered, it isn't entertainment, it's just sad.
Renault, Vanessa A (1974) I remember Madam – some Old Greys look back into the past. Life at school between 1898-1917. Typescript held in Westminster Archives.Burrell, Vera (1998) Lessons from the past: a history of The Grey Coat Hospital 1698-1998, Gresham Books, Henley on Thames
