Broadmoor Revealed_ Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum - Mark Stevens [26]
This was quite an unusual decision, overturning as it did the verdict of a jury. It was not uncommon to have the death sentence commuted to life imprisonment, and there were other Broadmoor murderers who had been transferred with such a tariff. Their guilt, however, remained. Christiana had been absolved from hers by two professionals, contrary to the result in the courtroom. The Times bemoaned this unsatisfactory situation in a leader piece on 25th January, even if it did agree that the outcome had been the right one. It wondered aloud on the wisdom of politicians permitting a jury to give ‘a solemn verdict which they know will be afterwards reversed’. The decision was unpopular back in Brighton too: the Home Secretary had effectively saddled the ratepayers with Christiana’s upkeep from now on, creating another large bill to pay. Certainly her case had been a big ticket item, making full use of venues, discourse and precedent. Perhaps the attention was thrilling, though the fact that a verdict could be legally correct yet medically unsound was a conclusion of little importance to Christiana. She had achieved a more basic ambition. Gull and Orange had given her back her life, and she was therefore transferred to Broadmoor as a pleasure patient on 5th July 1872.
On her arrival at the Asylum, she was forty-three years-old. She was wearing make up on her rouged cheeks, a wig (‘a large amount of false hair’) and had false teeth. ‘She is very vain’, wrote Dr Orange at the time. The surgeon at Lewes Prison who signed her transfer documents had obviously done so reluctantly. He was most unimpressed with the diagnosis of insanity, writing that after ten months of supervision he could not be satisfied either that Edmunds was insane, or that she was not responsible for her actions. He did, however, say that she was of a delicate constitution, and prone to being hysterical.
Dr Orange was nevertheless convinced that he had made the correct diagnosis. Edmunds’s behaviour in his charge did not conform to social norms. When her surviving brother died shortly after her admission, she showed no grief, and appeared to be completely unmoved by the loss. She was also deceitful. As soon as she was transferred, she immediately began to try and smuggle in clothes or beauty aids. Her younger sister, Mary, was complicit in this. One letter asked for clothing; another talked about ways to find and apply make-up while in the Asylum. Orange attempted to reason with Mary, insisting that Christiana was able to partake of any comfort that she required. It was to no avail. Mary began to send Christiana gifts too, and it was the gifts that caused great irritation to the matron of Broadmoor’s female wing. Inside every parcel was some sort of contraband, hidden within another item. Each one needed time and attention to search. It appeared to be attention-seeking on the part of both of the Edmunds women, and it was more than the matron could bear. The final straw was the receipt of a cushion stuffed with false hair during 1874. The matron complained to Orange that Edmunds was amassing and hoarding hair in her room, and that no further gifts should be allowed. The Superintendent was initially reluctant to interfere with behaviour which he saw as self-indulgent, but largely harmless. The matron, however, put her foot down.
Also in 1874, Broadmoor intercepted clandestine correspondence sent to the chaplain at Lewes Prison, with whom Christiana had struck up a bond during her time in custody. Dr Orange noted that he had no objection at all to Edmunds corresponding with the chaplain, but her decision to do so secretly was ‘in conformity with her state of