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Shamming?


Pall Mall Gazette, 22nd May 1874

In this post I am returning to the account of William Wheelock's threatening behaviour towards Mr Lummins of the Leopard Inn in May 1874. I have found another account of William's appearance at the Birmingham Public Office, and interestingly it seems to use William as a case study in the tricky business of pronouncing who is and who is not accountable for his actions. Insanity is an attractive plea when the outcome is immunity for the offenses commited. This column was published in the Pall Mall Gazette on 22nd May 1874 and the author provides us with some interesting further details about William's behaviour. 

Firstly, it states that William was of 'eccentric and violent habits'. We knew about the violent habits, but this is the first to state outright he was a known eccentric. It adds that William played pranks in court (besides imitating a cuckoo). More interestingly, it states Mr Lummins believed William wasn't mad at all, but was 'shamming'. Finally the article speculates that were William to murder Mr Lummins he could then expect to be 'provided for for life'. Well, we know how the rest of William's life played out. Homelessness and begging; spells in the workhouse and in prison; all leading to his admission to the City Asylum as a pauper lunatic. Perhaps he was considering commiting a murder and 'shamming' insanity to avoid such a miserable existence. 

All this took place one month before William's son John got married, and just a few months before William's grandson and namesake was born. As John stood in St Stephen's Church and married Sarah Goode, his father, who should have been there with him, was in prison for willfully breaking property and using obscene language towards a man whose life he had repeatedly threatened. It is perhaps small wonder I have found no evidence of any continued relationship between father and son, in fact given William's later homelessness he was almost certainly an estranged father. The fact that John calls him a gun maker in his marriage record, when in fact by this time William was a street hawker, may indicate that John had already cut William off long ago.

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