Walter Graham Rowland was convicted of murder at Manchester in 1946 and executed in 1947. He protested his innocence to the end, and a confession to the same murder by a second man, made while Rowland was under sentence of death, kept his case before Parliament for years. The Home Secretary of the day had that confession examined by a King's Counsel, whose report rejected it. Members of Parliament were still raising the case in 1951, 1954, 1957 and again in the House of Lords in 1966.
Rowland's birth date, family, upbringing and occupation are not on record.
On March 6, 1947, the House of Commons printed a written question from the Labour member Will Nally. Nally asked under what circumstances "Walter Graham Rowland, then serving a life sentence, was released from prison in 1943." He asked whether it had been a condition of release that Rowland join the Army, and what had been done to inform the military authorities of his criminal record.
The Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, did not discuss the earlier case. He answered in general terms. Cases of prisoners serving sentences of penal servitude for life, he said, were reviewed from time to time, and the date on which a particular prisoner could be released on license was set in the light of all the circumstances of the case. His predecessor had followed that procedure with Rowland. It was not the practice to make release conditional on joining the Army, nor to pass a released prisoner's criminal record to the military authorities, although steps were taken to inform the appropriate authorities of the release of men liable for service.
The offense for which Rowland received that life sentence, the court, the date of conviction and any earlier sentence of death or reprieve are not on record.
Lord Russell of Liverpool told the House of Lords on August 4, 1966, that Walter Graham Rowland was convicted in 1946 of murdering a woman called Olive Balchin. Her age, family and background are not on record.
Sydney Silverman, the Labour member who pressed the case for more than a decade, described the trial in the Commons in January 1957. Rowland, he said, was convicted in Manchester, and the conviction rested largely on the evidence of three people who each saw a man at different times. Silverman called the case doubtful even on the trial record. The jury's verdict, in Lord Russell's words in 1966, was reached "on the evidence which was given at his trial," though he added that there would always remain a doubt about it. The trial date, the presiding judge and the exact form of the sentence are not on record, but Silverman said that Rowland was awaiting execution when the confession came.
While Rowland was under sentence of death, a man named David Ware went to the governor of the prison at Walton, Liverpool, and said he had committed the murder. Silverman added in 1957 that Ware said Rowland was innocent, then gave a longer statement to Rowland's solicitor and a further detailed statement to the Manchester police.
Rowland's advisers asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to hear the new evidence. Silverman told the Commons that the court did not dispute that the evidence was new or material, but declined to take it, and pointed instead to the Home Secretary's powers. In 1951 Silverman also said that a statement from a woman witness supporting Rowland's alibi had come to light only after the trial, that the Court of Criminal Appeal had considered it, and that it had held it came too late.
The Home Secretary appointed John Catterall Jolly, K.C., to inquire into the confession. According to Silverman, a police officer, later named as Hannam, assisted him, and the inquiry was held in private, with Rowland's counsel having no real right to attend. Jolly's report, which was presented to Parliament in February 1947, rejected the confession as false and found no grounds for thinking that there had been any miscarriage of justice in Rowland's conviction. It records of Ware: "At first he persisted in his confession, but then withdrew it and made a new statement." In the course of the inquiry Ware retracted the confession, and a signed statement said it was "absolutely untrue."
Silverman criticized the inquiry on several points in 1957. He argued that Ware's final statement could not be true, because it ran together a Saturday, a night and a "Sunday morning" that it then called "Saturday morning." He also told the Commons that he had tried to persuade the Law Officers to grant the permission needed for an appeal to the House of Lords, and that they refused. Ede, he said, had told him that he would grant a reprieve only if he was told of doubt. Rowland was executed. In 1948 another member, Mr. Nally, referred in the Commons to "the man Rowland, who was executed last year for the murder of Olive Balchin."
On December 6, 1951, two members, Charles Hale and Sydney Silverman, asked the Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, whether David Ware, recently found guilty but insane of attempted murder, was the man who had confessed to the earlier murder for which Rowland was executed. Maxwell Fyfe answered: "The two men are the same." He said that Jolly's report had been presented to Parliament in February 1947, that Jolly had rejected the confession as false, and that he saw no reason for a further inquiry. He called Jolly a careful and conscientious barrister and said it would be wrong to retry the case in the Commons.
Hale said that Ware had said earlier that he could not help doing such things. Silverman said that the police had held evidence favorable to Rowland that was never made available to the defense. Sir Hartley Shawcross asked whether that was so and stressed the prosecution's duty to disclose all relevant evidence. Maxwell Fyfe agreed that prosecuting counsel must disclose relevant evidence, said he had no knowledge of the alleged withholding, did not accept that it had happened, and promised inquiries.
Ware died by suicide on April 1, 1954. Asked whether Ware had referred to Rowland or to Olive Balchin before he died, the Home Office minister, Sir Hugh Lucas-Tooth, answered "No, Sir." Silverman renewed his call for an inquiry.
Parliament never settled the matter. Lord Russell of Liverpool put it in 1966: "Who killed Olive Balchin? No one will ever know. Did Rowland or Ware murder her? No one will ever learn." He added his own view that it was "inconceivable that to-day a reasonable jury would convict upon the evidence as it is now known." That is one peer's opinion, offered in a debate on another case. Rowland was convicted by a jury and executed. No trial of Ware for the murder of Olive Balchin is on record, and no pardon or posthumous review of Rowland's conviction is on record.
1943: Rowland, then serving a life sentence, is released from prison.
1946: Rowland is convicted at Manchester of the murder of Olive Balchin.
1946 to 1947: David Ware tells the prison governor at Walton, Liverpool, that he committed the murder; the Court of Criminal Appeal does not take the new evidence; John Catterall Jolly, K.C., inquires.
February 1947: Jolly's report is presented to Parliament and rejects the confession.
1947: Rowland is executed.
March 6, 1947: written question in the Commons on his release in 1943.
May 13, 1948: a member refers in the Commons to Rowland as executed the previous year for the murder of Olive Balchin.
December 6, 1951: Ware, found guilty but insane of attempted murder, is the subject of a Commons exchange; the Home Secretary refuses a new inquiry.
April 1, 1954: Ware dies by suicide.
January 29, 1957: Silverman describes the Rowland case in the Commons.
August 4, 1966: Lord Russell of Liverpool discusses the case in the House of Lords.