George Joseph Smith was hanged at Maidstone Prison in Kent on August 13, 1915. A jury at the Central Criminal Court in London, the Old Bailey, had convicted him of murdering Bessie Mundy, who died in a bath in 1912 while married to him under a false name. He was tried for her death alone. At that trial the prosecution was also allowed to put before the jury the deaths of two later wives, Alice Burnham in 1913 and Margaret Elizabeth Lofty in 1914, each of whom had also drowned in a bath soon after marrying him. Those two deaths were admitted as similar-fact evidence, to show a pattern; Smith was never tried for them, and they are not convictions.
The case is remembered for two reasons. The pathologist Bernard Spilsbury gave evidence that the drownings were not accidents, and the case is closely tied to his name. And the dismissal of Smith's appeal became one of the best-known English authorities on when evidence of other similar events may be shown to a jury.
Smith was born in 1872 and died in 1915, according to Andrew Maunder's account for the University of Hertfordshire's Everyday Lives in War project, which describes him as a bigamist and a forger. History Today says he married at least eight times and that every marriage after the first was bigamous. He used a series of aliases, gained women's trust, took their money and moved on. To account for his long absences, History Today says, he told one wife in 1908 that he was an antiques dealer who had to travel on business.
A legal newsletter discussing the case in 2012 counted seven bigamous marriages and said he deserted each bride once he had her money. The Camden New Journal, writing in 2008, described him as a failed property speculator and estate agent who had defrauded seven other wives besides the three who died.
Bessie Mundy died in 1912. She had already been one of Smith's bigamous wives, according to the 2012 legal commentary by Kamraj Nayagam of the firm Skrine, and she met him again by chance. They began living together, he bought a bath, and she drowned in it. Nayagam, who gives her full name as Beatrice "Bessie" Munday, suggested that Smith may have killed her partly to cover his tracks. The Camden New Journal says Smith used the name Williams with her.
Her death was the only one for which Smith stood trial, and it is the only one for which he was convicted.
Alice Burnham married Smith in 1913, according to Maunder, and died the same year at a boarding house in Blackpool on the Lancashire coast. The Camden New Journal says she was on her honeymoon there. Her father had distrusted Smith from the start. Smith was never tried for her death; at his trial it was evidence of a pattern only.
Margaret Elizabeth Lofty was 38 and unmarried when she met Smith, the Camden New Journal reported. After a short courtship she married him, and he was using the name John Lloyd. In the autumn of 1914, Maunder writes, Smith took her to a boarding house in Highgate, north London, that had a bathroom. The Camden New Journal says the couple asked about renting rooms the day before her death and that Smith asked whether the house had a bath. He persuaded her to draw her savings out of the post office and to have a will drawn up with a solicitor. On December 18, 1914, Maunder says, she made a will in Smith's favor.
She drowned in the bath that evening. The paper says that around that time Smith played the hymn "Nearer My God to Thee" downstairs, on a harmonium according to the Camden New Journal and on a piano according to Maunder; then he said he was going out to buy tomatoes. When he came back about ten minutes later he raised the alarm.
An inquest followed. Maunder gives the verdict as death by misadventure; the Camden New Journal says the coroner recorded accidental death by drowning, probably after an epileptic seizure. The Camden New Journal says Smith cashed a life insurance policy worth 700 pounds within a week, while Maunder says he was arrested at the solicitor's office where he had gone to collect the 700 pounds. Smith was never tried for her death; like Alice Burnham's, it was put before the jury only as similar-fact evidence.
Writing for History Today, the magazine's account sets out the pattern the prosecution relied on. Each woman had made Smith her beneficiary, either in a will or through a life insurance policy. He moved each one to a town where she knew nobody, told a local doctor that she had a health problem, and then appeared distraught when she was found drowned in the bath. Nayagam's summary adds that he arranged for the rooms where each newly married couple stayed to have a bath.
The News of the World reported Margaret Lofty's death on January 3, 1915, according to Maunder. Alice Burnham's father read the report of the inquest, saw how closely it matched his daughter's death in Blackpool a year earlier, and went to the police. The Blackpool landlady's household also contacted the police: Maunder names the boarding house owner as Joseph Crossley, while the Camden New Journal credits a Mrs. Crossley.
Detective Inspector Neil of Scotland Yard took up the case, Maunder writes. Officers were waiting when Smith arrived at a solicitor's office over the insurance money on Margaret Lofty's life, and he was arrested there in 1915.
The Home Office pathologist Bernard Spilsbury examined the bodies of the three women and the three baths, according to the Camden New Journal, and concluded that none of the women could have drowned without foul play.
Smith's trial took place at the Old Bailey in June 1915. The formal charge was the murder of Bessie Mundy. Nayagam's account records that the jury also heard evidence about the deaths of Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty, who had each married Smith and whose money or insurance benefited him. Some later accounts, including the Camden New Journal's, say he was tried for all three murders; that is not what happened. He was tried and convicted on the one count.
The trial was large. Maunder writes that 112 witnesses were called and that the jury saw demonstrations of how easily a person could be drowned in a bath. J. M. S. Pearce, writing in Hektoen International in 2023, says the defense put forward accidental drowning or illness in the bath, that Spilsbury rejected those explanations, and that Spilsbury had a bath brought into court to show the jury. Pearce credits that demonstration with persuading the jury.
Smith was defended by Edward Marshall Hall. History Today says Marshall Hall privately suspected that Smith had used hypnotism. His junior counsel later recalled Smith's stare, saying, in a remark quoted by the historian Andrew Rose and repeated by Maunder, that he had a horrible way of looking at people. Smith remained unrepentant, according to the Camden New Journal, which quotes him as saying he was not a murderer, though he might be a bit peculiar.
The jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to death on July 1, 1915, History Today records.
Smith appealed against his conviction. Nayagam describes the reported appeal decision, R v Smith, [1914 to 1915] All ER Rep 262, as short and as largely adopting the principle already laid down in the earlier case of Makin on evidence of similar events. The appeal failed despite Marshall Hall's efforts, he writes, and the case remains, in his phrase, the most well known of the English cases on the point and a fixture in textbooks.
Smith was hanged at Maidstone Prison in Kent on August 13, 1915, according to both History Today and Maunder.
In the law of evidence, Smith's failed appeal is still cited in textbooks, as Nayagam notes. In forensic medicine, the case is tied to Spilsbury's name. Pearce lists the case among those in which Spilsbury's evidence was decisive.
The house in Highgate where Margaret Lofty died was still a family home in 2008, when the Camden New Journal visited it; the bathroom was still a bathroom, and the family living there said they rarely used it. The paper drew on Andrew Rose's book Lethal Witness, a biography of Spilsbury, for its account. Maunder's piece placed the case among the crimes that drew public attention in Britain during the First World War.
Legal scope: Smith was convicted of one murder, that of Bessie Mundy. The deaths of Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty were similar-fact evidence at that trial. Popular accounts that say he was convicted of three murders, or tried for all three, overstate the record.
Spelling: Mundy (History Today, Maunder, Camden New Journal) and Munday (Nayagam).
The Blackpool informant: Joseph Crossley (Maunder) or Mrs. Crossley (Camden New Journal).
The instrument he played on the night of Margaret Lofty's death: piano (Maunder) or harmonium (Camden New Journal).
The insurance money: cashed within a week (Camden New Journal) or still being collected at the time of his arrest (Maunder).
The inquest verdict on Margaret Lofty: misadventure (Maunder) or accidental death by drowning, probably after a seizure (Camden New Journal).
His age: History Today says he was 45 when he was hanged, and the Camden New Journal calls him 41 at the time of the Highgate death; the two figures do not agree with each other.
Marshall Hall's suspicion of hypnotism is reported as a private belief, not a finding.
1872: George Joseph Smith is born.
1908: Tells one of his wives he is a traveling antiques dealer.
1912: Bessie Mundy, his bigamous wife, drowns in a bath. This is the death for which he is later convicted.
1913: Alice Burnham marries Smith and drowns in a bath at a Blackpool boarding house.
Autumn 1914: Smith takes Margaret Lofty, married to him as John Lloyd, to rooms in Highgate, north London.
December 18, 1914: Margaret Lofty makes a will in his favor and drowns in the bath the same day; the inquest finds her death accidental.
January 3, 1915: The News of the World reports her death; Alice Burnham's father and the Blackpool landlady's household contact the police.
1915: Detective Inspector Neil takes up the case; Smith is arrested at a solicitor's office.
June 1915: Trial at the Old Bailey for the murder of Bessie Mundy, with the two later deaths admitted as similar-fact evidence; 112 witnesses are heard.
July 1, 1915: Convicted and sentenced to death.
1915: Appeal dismissed.
August 13, 1915: Hanged at Maidstone Prison, Kent.
2008: The Camden New Journal visits the Highgate house.