The human capacity for self-delusion is nowhere more evident than in this extraordinary court case from November 1915: in fact the plot reads like a Hollywood movie.
The Salford City Reporter told the unbelievable tale of a ‘Sergeant Dandy’, who wooed, wangled and lied his way into the life of a woman by convincing her that he was her husband, returning from war.
There’s more than a little of the classic French tale The Return of Martin Guerre in this story. It covers the impossibility of hope, equivocation, and inevitable retribution.
George Parkin Hall, 37, of Patricroft in Eccles, appeared before the Manchester Assizes Court charged with an offence against mother-of-nine Mrs Dandy, 35, who lived in a shop in West Gorton, Manchester.
One day, Hall turned up on Mrs Dandy’s doorstep with the outrageous claim that he was her husband – despite the fact that the man was at the time known to be serving with the British Army in Egypt.
An unsurprisingly suspicious Mrs Dandy questioned her ‘husband’s’ much-changed appearance: including a series of missing tattoos on his arms and a prominent abcess scar on the Sergeant’s neck, which had conveniently disappeared.
The flagrant Hall replied by saying the marks had “been burned out and filled in” during combat.
When introduced to four of Mrs Dandy’s children, he made a fuss of them but said he could not remember their names due to a convenient bout of battle-induced amnesia.
Lonely Mrs Dandy allowed the man into her shop, where he set up home for the next two weeks.
Hall’s campaign continued when he managed to talk round Mrs Dandy’s sister, brother, and several neighbours who knew the real Sergeant Dandy.
Some 15 days later, nagging suspicions were aroused when Hall seemed unable to recall any information about his life before the war.
Police arrested George Parkin Hall and charged him with impersonating Dandy’s husband.
The court case attracted lots of attention as you can imagine and a packed court house eagerly awaited what they hoped would be salicious details of this somewhat unusual case.
Mrs Dandy, who was described as being “a buxom woman”, took the stand dressed all in black and spoke in a subdued voice to the court.
Asked what she “observed” about the prisoner Mrs Dandy broke into tears and sobbed convulsively, stating: “I have had nine children in ten years, my husband and I always got on very well together.
“I thought too much of my husband to think of anybody else, it is a shame that this should have been put upon me.
“I have never known wrong in my life and I have never thought of another man, apart from my husband, and after all my poor husband is laid low.”
Did this indicate that she knew her husband Sergeant Dandy was dead? The Judge, Mr Justice Law, offered her “soothing words” and the case continued.
Next up in the dock was Ada Hall, the legal wife of George Parkin Hall, who identified the man in the dock as being her husband and that they had six children together.
She was asked the date of her marriage to him and she said she couldn’t remember and asked George if he knew! It’s reported that he just smiled and shook his head without saying a word.
Ada did know that he had enlisted with the Lancashire Fusiliers earlier that year, if that was any help.
George’s defence council addressed the jury and told them that no sensible business man could believe the story put forward by the prosecution in regard to the identity of the prisoner, adding that “one would have thought there could not have been five minutes’ private conversation between Mrs Dandy and the prisoner without disclosing if the lady were really anxious to know whether the man was Sergeant Dandy or not”.
I think we all have a good idea at what the lawyer was hinting at there.
The Judge commented on the remarkable nature of the case and said, in some way or other, the prisoner must have found out that he resembled Dandy.
The real question, he said, was whether Mrs Dandy had really been deceived by him or not. The jury, he noted, had all seen her and judging by her appearance, she would appear to be a respectable, industrious woman who worked hard to support her children.
The jury didn’t even leave the room and after a few minutes, found Hall of being guilty as charged.
George finally spoke up and asked the Judge to be lenient with him as he had a wife and had six children to support, then he added rather intriguingly that it was her who led him into the deception, and that she had known all along!
Justice Law was having none of it and called it a “most impudent crime” and sentenced him to three years in prison.
Reading between the lines, it would seem that somewhere along the line George had met Mrs Dandy and they had had a relationship together. It’s possible he knew her husband, or that George was a deserter from the Lancashire Fusiliers where he could have met the real Sergeant Dandy.
Is it so far fetched for a grieving mother of nine to believe that a complete stranger was her husband? Even if he may have grown a few inches and lost a few distinguishing marks?
On the prisoner’s side he would at least escape the possibility of having to be sent back to his unit to fight on the Western Front.
Although now with two “wives” to support one wonders if he would really prefer his freedom.
Main image: Manchester Assizes Court © Manchester Libraries
