The young mother murdered by 'the Blackpool Ripper' - but had he killed before?

It should have been the happiest year of her life for young Blackpool bride Mary Hannah Starr. Married in March 1903, she gave birth to her first child, a daughter she named Lilian, in August the same year.

Mary had everything to live for - but just eight months after tying the knot to Henry Bertram Starr, thousands of people flooded the streets to see the young mother laid to rest. The man she had promised her life to had killed her in an attack so frenzied he became known as 'the Blackpool Ripper.'

Could Mary's death have been avoided? Many who have studied the case have linked Mary's death to the mysterious death of a young woman, Eleanor Coulthard, whose body was found in the River Ribble at Brungerley Bridge, near Clitheroe, eight years earlier.

The common factor in both these women's deaths: Henry Bertram Starr.

On November 23, 1903, Mary Starr successfully secured a separation order from her drunk and abusive husband. What started as a happy union had soon turned to misery as Starr sought solace in the bottom of a bottle.

The tempestuous marriage saw arguments and break-ups as Starr continued to hurt his young wife with drunkenness and infidelities. When she gave birth to Lilian in August 1903, Starr saw the baby as just another burden and stepped further away from his growing family.

As Starr squandered the housekeeping on drink, Mary and Lilian were forced to live off scraps. When Mary tired of the pattern of abuse, she moved in with her mother in Lord Street, but Starr threatened to take custody of their infant.

On November 23, Starr was brought before Blackpool Police Court and ordered to pay six shillings a week towards the upkeep of his wife and child. Mary was to have sole custody of baby Lilian, the court said.

It was a chance for Mary to draw a line under the terrible marriage and start a new life with her child - but the following day, with a body full of drink and a mind full of revenge, Starr stalked the house before creeping in through the back door. As Mary prepared breakfast, Starr picked up a bread knife from the kitchen table and lunged at her breast and neck. When the blade of the knife broke inside Mary's body, he picked up another and continued with his merciless attack.

Just after 8am, Mary’s mother, Jane Blagg, heard her daughter’s screams. “MURDER, MOTHER, MURDER, MURDER”. Mrs Blagg ran to the kitchen and threw herself over her daughter’s body as Starr cut holes in Mary’s flesh.

Mrs Blagg chased the killer from the house, shouting “he’s murdered my wench!” as Starr made his way to a local hostelry, looking for drink and a place to wash his bloodied clothes. Unsuccessful, he took shelter in an underground lavatory in Talbot Road, where he was found by a constable. When the officer collared him, the killer asked, “is my wife dead?”

Starr was bang to rights. Around midnight, a cab driver had seen him prowling round Lord Street, muttering ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it.’ Mrs Blagg witnessed the attack, and two hoteliers told how in the aftermath of the killing Starr had entered the premises and asked for a glass of beer and use of the facilities to have a wash. Starr's only explanation was: ‘I was drunk’.

Dr Johnson, who examined Mary’s body, told an inquest he found no fewer than 20 gaping wounds in the young woman’s body. Some were so big he could fit his fist inside them. The jury inquest took less than an hour to return a verdict of wilful murder and Starr was charged with the crime.

Despite the evidence, Starr denied the charge when he appeared for trial at Liverpool Assizes. Pale and haggard, he pleaded not guilty, with his defence counsel Mr Madden saying his mind was so addled with drink he was unable to form a rational intent.

It didn't was with the jury and Starr was found guilty. The judge sentenced Starr to death, telling him: “You must make the most of the time you have left to you to appeal to Almighty God for the pardon you cannot expect here. You will be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Awaiting his fate, Starr called for a meeting with Dr Johnson, where he confessed he went to Mary's mother's house in Lord Street with the intention of saying goodbye to his daughter, before leaving Blackpool for good. But at the house he was met with opposition from Mary, matters became heated, and he picked up a knife and killed her. He said drink was at the root of all that he had done and expressed sorrow for the pain he had caused Mary's family.

Was this true remorse? As Mary’s body was laid to rest at Layton Cemetery, mourners' minds turned to a dark discovery, eight years earlier, when the body of 16-year-old, Eleanor Coulthard was found floating in the River Ribble near Clitheroe.

The teenager was known to be ‘stepping out’ with Starr while he stayed in the Ribble Valley as a travelling salesman. Despite his boozing and debauched lifestyle, the young woman became infatuated with Starr, who was eight years her senior.

On the day Eleanor’s drowned body was found, Starr was twice seen by a local constable dripping wet and clearly drunk. He told the officer he had spent the day drinking away the proceeds of a coat he had pawned and denied any involvement in Eleanor’s death. The finger of suspicion pointed squarely at Starr, but with only circumstantial evidence to go by, the drunk and lairy lover was acquitted.

On December 28, 1903, Starr was hanged in the grounds of Walton Prison, Liverpool, for the murder of Mary Hannah Starr. He never admitted killing Eleanor Coulthard, and took his knowledge of what happened to her, if he had any, to the grave.

Before his death, he wrote an open letter ‘for the benefit of young men’, excerpts of which were published in the Burnley Express the week after he was sentenced to death. In it, Starr urged all men to “look upon a wine shop as the first milestone on the road to Hades.” “Every mistake, every error in life’s journey has been in my own case through drink”, he wrote.

Starr claimed Eleanor’s drowning at Brungerley Bridge, Clitheroe, was a tragic suicide, but his arrest - and subsequent acquittal for murder - cast a dark shadow upon him. “Very often melancholy had such a weight over my brain that suicide was my familiar word, with slight homicidal tendencies,” he wrote

Following Eleanor’s death he said he travelled England and Scotland in a life full of ups and downs before settling in Blackpool “married, a happy, brief life.” “Again drink, delirium, madness, murder, trial, condemnation to death. The end of a wild, changeful, sad career”, he wrote.

No-one can ever be sure whether Starr was behind the tragic demise of Eleanor Coulthard, but Starr's reputation and savage killing of Mary was to mark him forever in Fylde history as “The Blackpool Ripper.”

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