Category Archives: History

Emily visits her brother in prison

In late May 1888 Emily crossed the Irish Sea, made her way to Leeds, Yorkshire to visit her half brother, William. Earlier that week he received a telegram from the home office re-spiting the death sentence. He expressed his gratitude, but was far from happy, not only had he the death of his daughter to morn and regret but that was not all he had to contend with.

Emily visit with her brother carried the news that their brother Richard was on his death bed. He had been suffering from chronic Brights Disease, an serious kidney ailment. At the time it wasn’t treatable and at the age of only twenty three it had all but consumed him. At the time of Emily’s visit he did not have long to live. At that time Emily was only nineteen, not fully an adult, but she was by no means a stranger to the hardships of life. In her short lifetime she had lost both parents and a niece, had stones thrown at her, had to flee her home and take refuge in a church vestry. Her half brother  suffered the same trials, in his early life too.

Sources
https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie
Leeds Times 26 May 1888

 

The petition comes to Ireland

The petition for the reprieve came of Emily’s brother was signed in Ireland as well as the UK. It was signed mostly by other doctors and delivered to the Home office.

 

Sources
Dublin Daily Express 22 May 1888
Belfast Telegraph 19 May 1888

Rev. Kennedy, Brother of Dr. Burke Intervenes

Emily was the half sister of Dr. William Henry Emeris Burke, they shared a father. Long before the birth of Emily and her three full siblings, her father Rev. William John Burke was married to the Widow Kennedy, who had seven children from her first marriage. The Kennedy’s were originally Catholic, but Mrs. Kennedy converted, when she met Emily’s father and after the death of her first husband. All but one of her children converted with her and at least two of her sons became clergymen. One such stepson was Rev H. M. Kennedy, who was vicar of Plumpton in the diocese of Carlisle, wrote to the Home Secretary making a case for his half brother.

Sources
Sheffield Independent 06 December 1870
Sheffield Independent 18 May 1888

Petitions

The petitions against his sentence to death by hanging began to trickle in first a few from people in his locality, then other doctors until a large deluge of petitions came in from far and wide. According to different reports there were one thousand, five thousand or ten thousand signatures on the petition. No matter how many, the petition found it’s way to the home office.

Sources
Sheffield Independent 18 May 1888

Intemperance

The case of Dr. Burke began to be upheld as as model of intemperance. Details of his heavy drinking was beginning to be made public. It was not so much a case that he hid his regular intoxication from anyone as that would have been impossible. He even hired a locum doctor to treat his patients, while his drinking was at his heaviest.

His wife also fled with their two children when he was at his worst and would return again when he stopped for a time. It seemed to have been a regular cycle in their world in a time when it was rare a wife left her husband.

While sober he was a kind and affable man, good with his patients and was well liked by the local population in general. But he was powerless in the face of alcohol. In the medical directory of the time he cited that he was a member of the Good Templars, an organization that promoted abstinence from alcohol and other drugs. This was possibly a despreate bid to overcome his drinking.

IOGT was not the first group advocating a lifestyle free from alcohol and other drugs. There was a sporadic growth of such organizations in the early decades of the 19th century, particularly in North America, the United Kingdom and in several other parts of Europe.

Alcohol problems had become endemic in these parts of the world and were severely affecting the fabric of society by blighting families and causing poverty, misery and distress to children. Alcohol use was also seen as detrimental to the growth of commercialism and industrialization at the time.
The first seeds for what would become the global IOGT movement were sown in 1840 in Baltimore, USA, when six men decided to sign together a sobriety pledge. The movement that emerged from this act and their subsequent impact is best illustrated by no one less than Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States spoke to the movement’s meeting at Springfield, Illinois in 1842:

Sources

Tenby Observer 17 May 1888

19th Century Barnsley Murders (Wharncliffe True Crime) Paperback – Margaret Drinkall,1 Jul 2015

http://iogt.org/about-iogt/the-iogt-way/who-we-are/the-history/