The suspicious death of the millionaire heiress of West Layton

The heiress to a mining fortune was the reclusive 37-year-old Emma Easton – who was worth about £19m in today’s values – and died in 1880 in a locked room, surrounded by poisonous medicine, at least partly because of her brother’s “shameful neglect”.

The West Layton Manor, near Ravensworth, is currently the subject of a planning dispute

READ MORE: COUNCIL TRIES TO GET PLANNING CONTROL OVER MANOR

She died in the Victorian mansion of West Layton Manor, which today is on the opposite side of the A66 to the Mainsgill farm shop where the camels live. Last week, the manor was back in the headlines as the district council sought to work out whether or not it should be allowed to continue as a boutique hotel, as it has operated for the last seven years.

The Echo's story said the villa had been “built in the 1870s by North East coal mining tycoon John Easton”.

And it was he who got the strongest censure possible from the jury and the coroner which investigated the death of his sister, Emma.

Mr Easton and his father owned substantial mines in Ryton-on-Tyne and in 1872, Mr Easton bought land at West Layton so that he owned all but 27 of the 726 acres of the ancient township. He demolished an old hall, which had once been the home of the lords of Rokeby, and on its spot had a Newcastle architect, John Johnston, build an impressive mansion.

Mr Easton regarded West Layton as his country retreat from Tyneside, but his sister, Emma, who was 40 years younger than him, hid herself away there, suffering from “indigestion and nervous debility”. When she wasn’t travelling to see doctors in balmier parts of the country, she was treated by the local doctor, George Walker, who prescribed chloral, a sedative and painkiller. The other doctors agreed with his prescription, and Emma knew that if chloral was taken in large quantities, it might prove poisonous.

In early January 1880, Emma and Mr Easton, 75, were heard arguing after which Emma retreated to her bedroom, locked the door and refused to come out. All meals were passed into her by her maid, Elizabeth Pettler.

The inscription on Emma Easton's grave

At 9.30am, on January 18, Elizabeth was unable to raise her mistress at her usual time for breakfast. At 10.30am, Mr Easton was informed, and he left his breakfast table and banged and shouted at the door to no avail.

But, rather than break down the door, or call one of his servants to help in such an operation, he called for his coachman whom he sent to Caldwell, two-and-a-half miles away, to get Mr Hardy, the joiner.

When Mr Hardy arrived, Mr Easton was having dinner, so he had to wait a further 10 minutes before Mr Easton took him to the door. Once Mr Hardy had broken through the bolt, the body of Emma was discovered, with bottles of chloral nearby.

“The foreman of the jury expressed his disgust,” said the Echo. “If they had opened the door sooner, the life of the young woman might have been saved. If it had taken place in an uncivilised country amongst a lot of savages, they might have been excused.

“It was one of the most perplexing things he ever knew and he hoped it would never occur again.

“Here they had a young lady worth some £200,000 when she might have been saved to live a happy life, but instead she was hurried off to Kirby Hill (the graveyard) like a dog.”

Emma Easton's grave with ivy and nettles growing on it in Kirby Hill churchyard, near Richmond

In its coverage of the case, the Darlington & Stockton Times then added a rhyming couplet as if the foreman had said it:

“Rattle her bones over the stones,
She's only a pauper whom nobody owns.”

The Echo didn't include the couplet in its coverage of the case.

After the unnamed juror had finished his angry intervention, the North Yorkshire coroner, Dr Walton, summed up. “He said as head of the household, Mr Easton was responsible for the management of that household. As such, they might have expected some steps instantly being taken to open the door, but instead matters were allowed to rest as long as possible, as if there was some desire to keep the door closed,” said the Echo.

“Such conduct could not go unreferred to. Surely it must have gone through his mind that that woman might be only in a state of insensibility or in a dying condition, and might want something. So far as he was concerned, she might want.

“It was not a pleasant duty for him to address words of censure to one so old as Mr Easton, but his disregard showed shameful neglect, and the inhuman and unnatural manner in which he had behaved could not be allowed to pass unnoticed and without being commented upon. His position and wealth could no more absolve him than anyone else, and in expressing himself in words of the strongest and severest censure, he believed he was expressing thoroughly the feelings of the jury (hear, hear and applause).”

The jury then returned a verdict “that deceased died from suffocation but whether it was accidental or intentional there was not sufficient evidence to show”.

Emma Easton was buried in the churchyard of Kirby Hill, near Richmond

Quite amazingly by modern standards, there the case was allowed to rest, even though there was a suspicion of a murderous crime having been committed.

Mr Easton himself died eight months later, at the age of 76, and the manor passed to another sister, Emily, who seems to have inherited the entire family fortune. She paid for a stained glass window to be placed in Hutton Magna church in memory of her unhappy siblings, and for a marble memorial to Emma to be situated near the altar.

Hutton Magna church, where Emily Easton paid for a stained glass window in memory of her siblings, Emma and John

Emily lived mostly on Tyneside, but when she holidayed at West Layton, she worshipped at Hutton Magna. She gave the church its organ and its bells, and paid for a vicarage to be built in Wycliffe. She showed similar generosity to her local church at Ryton.

She died on Christmas Eve 1913, aged 95, leaving more than £1m (that’d be worth £95m today, according to the Bank of England Inflation Calculator). Much of it went to Newcastle cathedral and so West Layton slipped out of the headlines.

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