Miserable Kate: Femininity, Space and Literary Conventions in Representations of a Late‐Victorian Murder

• Published in: Gender & history 2020-03, Vol.32 (1), p.149-167
• Main Author: Michael‐Berger, Lee
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Capital punishment; Conventions; Death & dying; Femininity; Husbands; Innocence; Justice; Murders & murder attempts; Punishment; Siblings; Stabbings
• ISSN: 0953-5233; 1468-0424
• DOI: 10.1111/1468-0424.12448

Kate Marshall was sentenced to death and sent to Newgate to await her execution, which was due on Tuesday, 31 January 1899. Only a few days earlier, the forty‐four‐year‐old whip maker from Spitalfields, in London's East End, was convicted of the willful murder of her young sister, Elizabeth (Eliza) Roberts, who was stabbed to death in her Dorset Street room on 26 November 1898. Kate protested her innocence, claiming that it was her sister's husband who delivered the fatal blow. Nobody seemed to believe her. She, by then, had a long history of violence, and was already labelled, in the justice system as well as in the press, as a ‘dangerous woman’. The fatal incident took place in the room where the sisters had been residing with Elizabeth's husband, David Roberts, a painter and decorator, and their three‐year‐old son. The sisters, who earned their living by making and selling whips, supposedly argued about their day's revenue whilst Roberts and the child were present in the room. Ultimately, Elizabeth was stabbed in the chest and died shortly afterwards. After standing trial at the Old Bailey, Kate was found guilty. Three days before the carrying out of the execution, the Home Secretary advised the queen to respite the capital punishment with a view to its commutation to penal servitude.