Higher Lane Murder

This incident has been referred to on numerous occasions over the years so this one  account of a gripping but tragic Victorian tale.

It was a typical, cool April morning, 1868 on Higher Lane when the peace was broken by the sound of a pistol shot. It was not unusual to hear farmers taking pot shots at sparrows or pigeons but this sounded slightly different, strangely muffled.

In Foxley Hall, Elizabeth Brigham slumped forward in her chair, never to get up again. There was a neat, bloody hole in her forehead where a bullet had emerged having entered the back of her head. It was the first visible piece in the jigsaw that was to become the infamous Perreau case.

When the cook came running into the room to see what had happened, Mrs Brigham’s son-in-law, Henri Perreau was stood by the body holding the revolver. “There’s been a terrible accident” he said dramatically.

It was just three years earlier that surgeon’s widow Elizabeth Brigham and her daughter Henrietta, then just 19 met Henri at the Langham Hotel in London. The Langham had only recently opened and was considered to be the first of Europe’s “grand hotels”.  Anyone staying there was sure to be very well-heeled, though it is not completely clear where Henri’s wealth originated. Henri attached himself to the two women, impressing Elizabeth who was no doubt seeking a suitable husband for her daughter.

Wedding bells inevitably followed and Henri moved into the family home in Lymm. Elizabeth and Henrietta were full of praise for the new man in their life who had led them on a tour of Spain for their honeymoon, and, yes, mother came too. Others were less impressed and were apparently sceptical about Henri’s credentials.

So when news emerged of the “accidental” shooting, tongues inevitably began to wag. There was an inquest, held at the house, with a jury. Henri explained how he been cleaning the gun. Mrs Brigham asked to see it and it somehow fired as she was handing it back. A firearms expert explained that there was no logical reason why the pistol should have gone off in the manner described and he found it difficult to imagine how the bullet had travelled as it did based on Perreau’s account. He conceded though that it was not impossible.

In summing up the coroner remarked upon how he had been scrutinising Perreau throughout and had been impressed by his sincerity! He also pointed out that Perreau had no financial motive as it was her daughter who would be the sole beneficiary of her will. This was enough to persuade the jury to return a verdict of death by accident though they did add a rider, criticising Perreau for his carelessness!

Shortly afterwards, Henri and Henrietta moved to London where Henrietta gave birth to a son. Her health deteriorated rapidly and by 1871 she was dead at the age of just 25. Henri of course inherited everything.

Roll the clock forward to 1876 and to a remote mountain pass in the Tirol.in Austria. One Henri de Tourville, a French Count apparently, and his recent bride the wealthy Madeleine Miller are taking a stroll close to a famous precipice. The carriage driver has been sent on his way and the couple are alone when, according to the Count, Madeleine has a dizzy spell and tumbles into the abyss.

I trust you are ahead of me by now ... Count Henri de Tourville, to give him his full name was none other than Henri Perreau de Tourville as he now described himself . But by the time the Austrian police had had their suspicions raised, Henri was safely back in London, or so he thought. The Austrian police applied for extradition. By now Henri had qualified as a barrister and he hired the finest of the profession to resist the extradition. But it was in vain. He was put on trial in Austria and apparently sentenced to 18 years hard labour. How his life ended is a mystery too though. In one account he died in in jail but Ancestry website points to one Henri Perreau de Tourville of his age dying in Australia in 1915 . Did he slip the net one last time ?

Research Alan Williams