Herbert Edward Rawson Salisbury

Herbert Edward Rawson Salisbury was convicted of the murder of his girlfriend 38-year-old Alice Pearson and sentenced to death.

He shot her on the embankment of the River Alt at Formby on 21 March 1920.

Herbert Salisbury had been a hotel waiter and a native of Liverpool.

He went to America at the age of 16 and married there about 12 years earlier but left his wife and child in Rhode Island in 1916 and returned to England to join the Army and had since heard nothing from them.

He joined the Machine Gun Corp in November 1916 and was invalided home from France in November 1917, having been wounded in the wrist.

He had also had trench fever and said that he had been gassed.

He spent some time in a hospital in Leeds and whilst there he seemed to have made the acquaintance of Alice Pearson who was the wife of a railway clerk who had joined up in 1917 and was at the time serving in France.

It was noted that Alice Pearson had about £600 of her own.

Herbert Salisbury was discharged from the army in February 1919 and Alice Pearson then left her home in Leeds and went to live with him at various places as his wife. Her husband was informed of that when he returned to England and every endeavour was made by him and his relatives to induce Alice Pearson to come back, but she refused.

Herbert Salisbury informed Alice Pearson's brother-in-law that his intentions were entirely honourable and that as soon as Alice Pearson was divorced that he would marry her, it being noted that that was in spite of the fact that he already had a wife and child in Rhode Island. However, he did obtain a decree nisi in July 1919 which was made obsolete in January 1920.

On 20 February 1920 Herbert Salisbury and Alice Pearson took rooms at Southport where they lived for a month. They were described by the landlady as a very temperate and affectionate couple with it being noted that neither of them had been seen under the influence of drink. It was later stated that Herbert Salisbury seemed to have only two bottles of whisky in the house during the month.

About 21 March 1920 they told their landlady that they were going to Liverpool en-route for America. They had dinner on Sunday 21 March 1920 and left.

They were next seen by a witness in the street at Formby about 6.30pm at which time they seemed quite friendly and they went off in the direction of the beauty spot where Alice Pearson's body was later found about half a mile away.

About 7.45pm Herbert Salisbury entered the bar of the Blundells Arms in Formby and had a whisky and soda. He was described by the barmaid as being quite sober and to have stayed in the bar. Then about 8pm he swore at the barman for staring at him and the barman refused him more drink on account of his bad language and asked him to leave the house. He then became quite quiet and started talking with the other customers.

One of the customers said that they saw him pull a revolver out of his pocket, look at it, and put it back.

It was noted that there had been about six other men in the bar and that it was fairly certain that if Herbert Salisbury had been in a really drunken condition that they would not have quietly allowed him to handle his revolver in the way described.

At about 8.55pm Herbert Salisbury left the Blundells Arms with one of the men and about ten yards from the door he fell down. The man picked him up and Herbert Salisbury pulled out the revolver and said, 'I have put four bullets into my wife'. The man however then seized the revolver and Herbert Salisbury ran away, but after going a short distance he fell over again. The other man then ran over to him and overtook him and held him down until the police arrived who took him into custody on a charge of being drunk and disorderly.

However, he had been able to walk to the police station which was a distance of about a quarter of a mile away. The police inspector who arrested him said that he had been drunk but perfectly rational. When the inspector counted his money out, £2-10-5, Herbert Salisbury checked it.

At 7am the following morning a police constable asked Herbert Salisbury, 'Where does your wife live?' and Herbert Salisbury replied, 'My wife is lying dead on the river bank past Tommy Rimmers on the main road. I shot her last night'.

The police constable then went and searched and found Alice Pearson's body lying at the bottom of an embankment beside the river, as Herbert Salisbury described. She had been shot through the head at very close quarters, the skin being singed and two bullets were found in her brain. It was noted that there were four holes in her right temple and thought that two bullets might have passed through the skull. There was no sign of a struggle having taken place.

At 10am Herbert Salisbury asked, 'Have you found the lady? Is she dead?', and on being told that she had been found dead, he said, 'Thank God for that. We agreed to end our lives together when the money was done. We had £700 and the amount found in my possession is all we had left'. It was noted that at that time he had been quite sober and rational.

He continued quite rational during that day and the next, but on 24 March he began to wander and showed what appeared to be genuine symptoms of delirium tremens and thought that strangers were in his cell and that a squirrel was being put up his trouser leg and biting him.

The police thought that his delusions were genuine and the medical officer at Walton Prison, who saw him first on 25 March confirmed their opinions.

However, by 29 March all the delusions passed off gradually and by 3 April he was quite rational and recognised that he had been suffering from hallucinations. The medical officer attributed his state to delirium tremens due to alcoholic poisoning.

At the trial at the Liverpool Assizes on Thursday 22 April 1920 Herbert Salisbury pleaded guilty, but the judge refused to accept his plea and a defence of insanity was set up.

However, the jury found him guilty without any recommendation to mercy.

The judge stated that he thought that it was clear that Herbert Salisbury had suffered from serious delusions and was of unsound mind on 25 March, that being four days after the murder, and that the jury were right in rejecting the plea of insanity inasmuch as Herbert Salisbury had appeared to be quite rational just before the murder and also just after the murder and the delusions did not appear until 24 March.

The police report stated that they didn't believe that there had been any definite agreement between Herbert Salisbury and Alice Pearson to die together on the evening, and that even if there were, in view of Herbert Salisbury's act in shooting Alice Pearson and then failing to turn the revolver on himself, he would not be entitled to a reprieve. The police report noted that Herbert Salisbury merely described an agreement to end their lives together when the money was done and there was nothing to show that Alice Pearson willingly submitted to being shot in that way.

Herbert Salisbury made no appeal and no representation on his behalf was received and he was executed at Liverpool on 11 May 1920.