Issue 129 – March 2017
ARSENIC HORROR By Stephen Guy, West Derby Society
THE family enjoyed comforting cups of tea, taking a break from daily routine at their substantial home on Town Row. Their 18th century house backed on to the family business, Gilton & Walker, colour manufacturers. It was February 1846 and Mrs Gilton had sadly lost her husband just 16 months earlier. Soon after drinking the refreshing tea, Mrs Gilton and four of her young children were suffering from raging thirsts, vomiting, fever and incessant coughing. Surgeon John Garton was called to treat the family but despite his best efforts, one by one they died. First to go was Mrs Gilton followed by her youngest child, a boy of seven. His 12-year-old brother John was the next to expire. Fifteen-year-old Jane died the same night along with her sister Margaret, aged 16. Just one child, Tom, survived.
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– page 11
At first it was not known what caused the tragedy. Investigators soon discovered that the manufacturing process at the works involved arsenic. A massive 28 lbs of the deadly poison was dissolved in 10 gallons of water to make verditer, a composition used in paper staining. The poisonous solution was in a cask which was rolled over the wooden cover of a well, used by the family for drinking water. Some of the arsenic may have oozed out of the cask or seeped from a sewer just two yards from the well.
An inquest was held at a public house, the Hare and Hounds in West Derby Village. Tom told the inquest: “The first process is to apply the arsenic and other materials in the boiler house. “The liquid is put into a tub to cool and then into a cask and rolled into another building called the colour house. “It is next combined with other colours and precipitated into the verditer which remains at the bottom. “The liquid part is run off by a syphon and goes through a grate into a sewer.
The verditer is then dried and is fit to use.” A news report in the Liverpool Times does not identify the house, which was on the right going towards Knotty Ash. It was probably demolished soon after the tragedy. In those days Town Row extended to Honeys Green Lane, before being partly renamed Leyfield Rd. n Join the West Derby Society at its next meeting 7.30 pm on Wednesday 15 March at Lowlands, 13 Haymans Green, Liverpool L12 7JG.
Don’t forget – the clocks go forward on Sunday, March 26th