Kitty Byron
Timorey's Court dressmaking establishment in Old Burlington Street, but she was sacked because of her poor time keeping.
[1] At the time of the murder Byron was unemployed and had lived for several weeks in lodgings with her lover Arthur Reginald Baker, a stockbroker, in the home of Madam Adrienne Liard (born 1841 in France), a widowed mantle maker at 18 Duke Street, Portland Place in London.
Baker had not lived with his wife since January 1902, and on 4 November 1902 he was served with a divorce petition from her in which Byron was named as co-respondent.
[1] The divorce papers were served on Baker by former Detective Chief Inspector John Littlechild, at that time working as a private investigator.
Byron was described as "a young woman of attractive appearance - slight of figure, with dark eyebrows, black hair and handsome features.
Madam Liard reported at the subsequent trial that at that time Baker was drunk and Byron sober.
Initially Madam Liard refused, but after some persuasion she agreed to allow Baker to stay for another week provided Byron left.
[3] On the morning of 10 November 1902, the day of the Lord Mayor's Show, Byron bought a strong-bladed spring knife from a shop at 211, Oxford Street.
The messenger, 16-year old William Robert Coleman,[4] returned stating he had been unable to deliver the letter, so Byron sent him back again.
[4] Witnesses related that Byron then pulled out the knife she had concealed in her muff and leapt off the steps of the post office at Baker, stabbing him three times.
[3] Byron was overpowered by several men who witnessed the attack, and Baker was taken in an ambulance to St Bartholomew's Hospital but died before reaching it.
"As the gaoler called "Kitty Byron", a slender, dark-eyed girl came timidly up the stairs, shrinking a little when she saw the dense throng about her.
After sitting down she gazed steadily, oblivious of the curious spectators, at Inspector Fox, who entered the witness box to relate the story of her arrest.
She wore a dark skirt and jacket, with a high linen collar, and a sailor hat of white straw.
"[1] Byron was prosecuted by Charles Willie Mathews and Archibald Bodkin, and was defended by Henry Fielding Dickens KC, Travers Humphreys and Mr Boyd.
[8] Despite the fact that the murder was premeditated in that Byron had bought a knife earlier in the day of the stabbing, and she was of a lower class than her married lover, she gained the sympathy of the press and the public because of the brutal and unfeeling treatment she had received at the hands of Baker, and so did not give evidence in her own defence.
[8] At the trial Madam Liard stated of that evening: I am the landlady of 18, Duke Street, Portland Place.
On Monday, November 10th, he came to me and had some conversation with me, and later in the morning the prisoner came and said she wished to apologise for the noise they had made in the night; she said, "You have given us notice and we have got to go".
On 17 December 1902 the jury returned a guilty verdict on the charge of murder with a strong recommendation to mercy.
The case was dramatised by BBC Radio in the 1957 series Secrets of Scotland Yard in the episode "A Lesson in Love" .
