This mystery began with a newspaper account of a double murder in a Victorian family home but became a deeper investigation into epilepsy, domestic violence, conflicting witness testimony, a disputed claim of self-defence, and a woman whose mental condition prevented her from standing trial and led to nine years in an asylum.
THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE
Ormskirk Advertiser, 19 April 1860
| DOUBLE MURDER AT PENDLEBURY – On Thursday night, William Scholes, aged seventy-five, and William Edward Scholes, aged forty-one, were murdered in the house in which they lived in Irlams-o-th’-Height, about a mile from the Pendleton toll-bar. In the same house lived two children of the former – Joseph, aged thirty-four, and Sarah, aged thirty, the latter a strongly-built woman, said to be subject to fits, and at times very violent. The former states that when proceeding home through Salford, about seven o’clock on Thursday night, he was seized with a fit and taken to the police-office. On arriving at home there was no one below but he heard a noise like someone knocking in his sister’s bedroom. Before going to bed he went to his sister’s room door, but could not get in. During the night he was awakened several times by a noise in his sister’s bedroom, and went to the door but still found it fast. About six o’clock in the morning he went out to get some water and met a young woman, whom he told about the noise, and induced her to accompany him into the house. Having broken open the door of his sister’s room with a hatchet, he beheld a horrible spectacle. On one side of the bed was his father murdered, the upper portion of his body resting upon that of his son William, who had also been murdered. His sister lay upon the bed in the same room with her clothes on. Joseph Scholes and his sister were afterwards apprehended. It was a general opinion that the daughter was in one of her violent moods on Thursday night, before Joseph returned home; that the father and brother went into her bedroom to endeavour to keep her quiet; and whilst there during the night she had attacked and strangled them both. The neighbours, and those who live in the house adjourning, say that quarrels were of frequent occurrence in the family, and on the night referred to the people next door were awakened in consequence of the noise which was heard, and the wife suggested to her husband that they might be killing one another. The most remarkable part of the affair is that Joseph Scholes should have been in the house whilst the murders were being committed, and should have not heard sufficient noise to cause him to give an alarm. Sarah Eliza Scholes was taken before the magistrates on Friday, and it appeared that when arrested she alleged that, having been seized with one of her fits, her father and brother, who were annoyed by her cries, had come upstairs and commenced to beat her, and that, in self-defence, she took a stick, struck her brother, and throttled him, and then served her father in the same way. Her story is partially corroborated by marks on her body. |
THE FACTS
This newspaper article told an extraordinary story, and its reconstruction of the event was that Sarah Eliza Scholes had gone into one of her violent states and that her father and brother had gone into her bedroom to restrain or quiet her, and she had attacked them. But there was immediately a major mystery, Joseph was apparently in the house during the murders. During the night he heard noises from Sarah’s locked bedroom but did not enter, and it wasn’t until the next day that he broke down Sarah’s bedroom door and discovered the two bodies. That was the starting mystery – how could Joseph have been in the house, heard noises and yet apparently not realise that his father and brother were being killed?
We first reconstructed the Scholes family The census evidence turned out to be remarkably good. In 1841 the family was together at Irlams of the Height: William Scholes aged 55, a farmer, was with his wife, Sarah, aged 55 and their children William Edward, aged 20, a letterpress printer. George aged 15, a mechanic, Thomas, aged 15, Joseph, aged 14, Sarah, aged 11 and Jane aged 2. In 1851, living at Scholes Corner, Pendlebury, we found: Sarah Scholes, aged 64, provisions dealer’s wife, Joseph, aged 24, a printer/compositor pressman, Sarah E, aged 21 and Mary Griffiths. William senior and William Edward were absent from this household.
Then we found the burial of Sarah Scholes in December 1856, the wife of William Scholes, who had died aged 69 in Pendlebury. So Sarah Eliza’s mother had died about three years before the murders.
Subsequent newspaper reports gave us much more detail about the murder scene: There had clearly been a violent struggle. The evidence included: scratches and injuries on Sarah, bruising to her arms and legs, scratches around her neck as well as a walking stick, penknives, blood, and injuries to both men.
William senior was found with a closed clasp knife in his hand. William Edward was found on the bed, with serious injuries. The medical evidence reported at the time said that William senior died from suffocation/strangulation, while the early report described William Edward as having suffered a fatal stab wound involving the eye and brain. However, a later September 1860 newspaper retrospectively described William Edward’s injury differently, as a stab wound to the throat. That discrepancy remains unresolved.
Joseph’s story became increasingly interesting. His evidence was one of the most intriguing aspects of the case. He said he had suffered a fit while returning home and had been taken to the police station because initially the police thought he was drunk. Later, when he returned home, he heard Sarah moving about upstairs. During the night he heard noises from her room. At one point he apparently heard Sarah calling “Help, help!”, and another account records something resembling “I’m choking.” Yet he did not enter the room. This was one of the things that made the original newspaper report so suspicious of the circumstances.
But we subsequently discovered something important about Joseph himself. He was admitted to Prestwich Lunatic Asylum on 11 February 1865 and died there on 6 May 1873. So Joseph too had a significant history of mental disturbance/fits – probably epilepsy. That doesn’t prove anything about what he knew or did on the night of the murders, but it certainly makes his behaviour in April 1860 more understandable as a subject for further investigation.
Maria Turner was the mysterious “young woman” who helped Joseph break into his sister’s In fact the Manchester Guardian account of the incident identified her as aged only nine. She had seen Sarah and her brother, William Edward, sitting quietly together by the fire at about 9 p.m. That is a surprisingly important little detail because it gives us an approximate last-known peaceful moment between Sarah and her brother. But it also makes the original description of the witness as a “young woman” rather misleading!
Sarah eventually gave an extraordinary account. This was perhaps the biggest development from the original clipping. While being held at the Salford workhouse on Thursday afternoon, she gave a voluntary statement to Police Constable Dixon. Her account was broadly: she went upstairs to her bedroom; her father and brother came into the room; they got onto her bed and began to beat her; she took up the stick in self-defence; she struck William Edward; she throttled him; she then did the same to her father; and then her father fell on top of her brother. This was not simply a denial. It was effectively an admission that she had killed both men, coupled with a claim of self-defence and lack of control during a fit. There was some corroboration for the allegation that she had been assaulted: witnesses observed numerous bruises and other marks on Sarah’s body.
But Sarah then claimed she remembered nothing This is where the case became considerably more complicated. When brought before the magistrates, Sarah repeatedly said: “I don’t remember anything at all about it.” She appeared to accept some of the evidence by nodding, but continued to say she had no memory of the events. Later she said: “I have no remembrance whatever until they spoke to me the following morning, when they were dead.” So we have three things existing simultaneously: 1: She admitted killing them. 2: She claimed she had acted in self-defence, and 3: She claimed she could not remember doing it. That is one of the central mysteries of the case.
The medical evidence was crucial. The prison surgeon, Frederick Merton, examined Sarah. He considered her to show signs of insanity and epilepsy. He described her as powerful and muscular and said that when under the influence of a fit she could be extremely difficult and dangerous to interfere with. He also observed bruising, scratches and other injuries.
Joseph confirmed that their father sometimes struck Sarah with his walking stick, although he said this was intended to frighten or control her rather than seriously injure her. Joseph also said their father normally entered Sarah’s bedroom only when she was having a fit. That provides an important possible context for the fatal encounter: Father and brother may genuinely have gone into Sarah’s room because she was having a fit — exactly as Sarah herself claimed. What happened once they were in the room is much less certain.
The legal position became extremely unusual. Sarah was committed for trial, but the charges were not reported consistently. The April 1860 newspaper evidence says she was committed for the murder of her father and the manslaughter of her brother. A later newspaper report in September 1860 stated that she had been committed for the murders of both.
Then came the crucial discovery. A September 1860 newspaper report explained why Sarah had disappeared from the Liverpool trial reports. When her case reached the Liverpool Grand Jury, it was determined that her mental condition was such that she was unable to plead. Consequently, the case was not taken into court – it was remanded until the next assizes, and Sarah was sent to Prestwich Lunatic Asylum meanwhile. This finally explained why we could find no conventional trial.
Then we found Sarah’s Prestwich record. Findmypast’s transcription gives:
| Sarah Eliza Scholes. Admitted: 27 April 1860 Patient no. 1139. Death: 6 October 1869. |
It also contains the intriguing note: “Manslaughter charge father.” That doesn’t agree neatly with the April 1860 newspaper evidence, which described the charge as murder of the father and manslaughter of the brother. So we have deliberately left that discrepancy unresolved.
It now appears that the Lancashire Archives catalogue actually has an individual casebook record for Sarah. Most importantly, the catalogue says the material is open and available to view at their Archives room. So we now know that Sarah’s actual asylum casebook record survives. Obtaining a copy of this will help us to understand the circumstances of her admission, her epilepsy/fits, and whether she remained under any form of criminal detention.
There was apparently no subsequent trial in the newspapers in 1860 or 1861 nor in the Liverpool Assize records. Sarah remained at Prestwich Asylum, and as we have seen, she eventually died on 6 October 1869, aged 39. She was buried at St Mary the Virgin, Prestwich, 3 days later, on 9 October 1869, and recorded as
| Sarah Eliza Scholes, daughter of William Scholes, aged 39, abode Prestwich Asylum, formerly of Pendlebury. |
So, as far as we can currently establish, she spent approximately nine years in Prestwich Asylum after the murders.
Epilepsy, Violence and the Victorian Understanding of Mental Illness
This case provides a striking glimpse into the Victorian understanding of epilepsy and its relationship with insanity. In the 1860s epilepsy was still poorly understood, and the boundaries between a physical seizure disorder, mental illness and supposed moral or behavioural abnormality were far less clearly drawn than they are today. Modern historical research describes the period from about 1860 onwards as the beginning of the “modern” era of epilepsy, but also notes that epilepsy was widely associated with mental deficiency, abnormality and even particular personality traits. It carried considerable social stigma and was often concealed rather than openly discussed.
The Scholes case illustrates this attitude particularly vividly. Sarah was described as being subject to fits, and the newspapers portrayed her as becoming extremely violent when affected by them. The prison surgeon, Frederick Merton, believed that she was epileptic and that during a fit she could be “very fearful to be interfered with”. Her family evidently regarded her fits as sufficiently serious that her father and brother would enter her bedroom to assist her. Yet the same behaviour could also be interpreted as dangerous insanity. The distinction between an involuntary manifestation of illness and deliberate violence was therefore blurred. This helps explain the extraordinary situation in which Sarah could apparently admit killing both men, yet the authorities subsequently concluded that her mental state was such that she was unable to plead.
Her eventual confinement at Prestwich also demonstrates how epilepsy could become entangled with the Victorian asylum system. People suffering from epilepsy were not necessarily treated separately from those regarded as mentally ill: nineteenth-century institutions frequently grouped epileptic patients with people described as lunatics, idiots or otherwise of unsound mind. Sarah’s nine years at Prestwich therefore tell us something about the way Victorian society dealt with people whose behaviour was considered both medically abnormal and potentially dangerous. The tragedy at Irlams-o’-th’-Height was not simply a story about a woman who killed two members of her family; it was also a case in which Victorian medicine, law and society struggled to decide where epilepsy ended and insanity, responsibility and dangerousness began. That uncertainty is perhaps the most revealing social-history aspect of the whole case.
CONCLUSION
What began as a newspaper clipping about a rather bizarre double murder has turned into a remarkably well-documented story.
We can now follow Sarah from her family home
through epileptic/violent episodes to the terrible night of 12 April 1860, which resulted in two deaths. Then her extraordinary admission
and claims of self-defence and amnesia, and the medical evidence of epilepsy and unsoundness of mind, which meant that although she was committed
to the next Assizes, she went into the Prestwich Asylum on 27 April 1860, which resulted in her inability to plead. Then nine years late she died in the asylum in 1869, aged 39.
THE SUMMARY IMAGE
THE IMAGINED STORY
The Locked Room at Irlams-o’-th’-Height
A fictional story, created by ChatGPT, inspired by the Scholes family tragedy of April 1860.
The rain had been falling since noon, turning the lanes around Pendlebury into ribbons of black mud. By the time dusk settled over Irlams-o’-th’-Height, the windows of the Scholes house shone yellow against the darkening fields.
Inside, William Scholes sat beside the fire, his walking stick resting against his chair. At seventy-five, he had grown accustomed to the small discomforts of age: the stiffness in his fingers, the ache in his knees, the way his breath sometimes caught when he climbed the stairs. But there was one trouble in his household that he had never learned to manage.
His daughter Sarah was upstairs.
He could hear her moving about her room, opening drawers and closing them again, walking from the bed to the window and back. Occasionally she spoke to someone who was not there, or called out in a voice that made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
William Edward, his eldest surviving son, looked up from the newspaper.
“She has been unsettled all day,” he said.
“She has been unsettled for years,” William replied. “And every time we speak of it, we are told to be patient.”
His son folded the paper. “The doctor says she cannot help herself when the fits take her.”
“The doctor says many things. It is we who must live with them.”
William Edward did not answer. He had returned to the family home after years of living elsewhere, and he had hoped that his presence might make things easier. Instead, he found himself caught between a father whose authority had hardened into habit and a sister whose suffering had become the centre of every household quarrel.
Downstairs, Joseph sat with his hands clasped between his knees. He had been quiet all afternoon. The family knew that Joseph, too, suffered from fits, though his were different from Sarah’s. At times he would become confused, lose his strength, and remember little of what had passed. His father regarded these spells as an inconvenience. Joseph regarded them as a private humiliation.
“Perhaps we should leave her alone tonight,” Joseph said.
William turned sharply. “And let her break the furniture? Or put herself through the window?”
“She may only need rest.”
“She needs discipline.”
William Edward rose. “Father, she is not a child.”
“No,” William said, “and she has never behaved like a woman.”
The words hung in the room. From upstairs came the sound of something falling, followed by a cry.
All three men looked towards the ceiling.
William reached for his stick.
“Stay here,” he told Joseph.
But Joseph was already standing.
“I shall come with you.”
By nine o’clock, the rain had eased. A little girl named Maria Turner, sent on an errand by her mother, passed the house and saw light through the kitchen window. She paused, curious, and glimpsed Sarah sitting beside her brother near the fire.
Sarah’s hands were folded in her lap. William Edward was speaking quietly to her. For a moment, she looked like any other young woman in a family home, tired perhaps, but composed.
Maria hurried on.
She would remember that sight for the rest of her life, though at the time she thought nothing of it.
Inside, Sarah was listening to her brother tell a story about Manchester, where he had worked in the printing trade. He described the presses, the smell of ink, the men who worked through the night to put newspapers into the hands of strangers.
“You always liked stories,” he said.
“I liked books,” Sarah replied. “Stories are not always true.”
“No. But they can be kinder than the truth.”
She smiled at that, and for a little while they were at peace.
Then the upstairs door opened.
Their father stood at the foot of the stairs.
“Sarah. It is time you went to bed.”
She stiffened.
“I am not tired.”
“You have troubled this house enough for one day.”
William Edward stood. “Father, let me take her up.”
“I can manage my own daughter.”
He climbed the stairs, the stick striking each tread. Sarah rose so abruptly that her chair scraped across the floor.
“Don’t come near me,” she said.
William Edward followed their father. He had seen this before: the sudden fear, the confusion, the way Sarah seemed to become another person, caught in a storm inside her own mind. He wanted to help her, but he had never discovered how.
Joseph remained below, listening.
The voices grew louder overhead. He heard his father order Sarah to sit down. He heard her protest. Then came a heavy thud, followed by a cry that might have been anger or pain.
Joseph climbed three steps, then stopped.
His head had begun to swim. A strange pressure gathered behind his eyes. He gripped the banister.
Not now, he thought. Please, not now.
The room seemed to tilt. He heard his father’s voice as if from a great distance, then a sharp sound, and then nothing he could later recall with certainty.
When he came to himself, he was outside in the wet street, walking without knowing where he was going. A constable found him wandering near Salford and took him to the police station, where he was questioned and eventually released.
By the time he returned to Irlams-o’-th’-Height, it was late.
The house was silent.
He called for his father. No answer.
He called for William Edward. Again, silence.
From behind Sarah’s locked bedroom door came a faint scraping sound.
“Sarah?”
No reply.
He tried the handle. It would not turn.
He stood there a long time, unable to decide whether to knock again or flee from the house. At last he went downstairs and sat by the cold hearth.
During the night, he heard noises from upstairs. Once, he thought he heard Sarah call for help. He rose, took two steps towards the staircase, and felt the familiar dizziness return.
He sat down again.
He told himself that his father and brother were with her. He told himself that if there had been real danger, someone would have come to the door.
Near dawn, he fell into a troubled sleep.
At six o’clock, Joseph woke with a start. The house was cold, and his mouth was dry. He went outside to fetch water and met Maria Turner, who was walking with her mother’s errand basket.
“There is something wrong in our house,” he told her.
The child looked frightened.
“I heard knocking all night,” he continued. “And Sarah will not open her door.”
Maria hesitated, then followed him.
They entered the house. Joseph called again. There was no answer.
He fetched a hatchet from the yard and struck the bedroom door until the lock gave way.
The room was dim. The curtains were drawn, and the air smelled of smoke, damp clothes and something metallic.
His father lay near the bed, his face darkened, one hand closed around a small knife. William Edward was partly beneath him, his body twisted at an unnatural angle. There was blood on the bedding and a dark mark upon the floor.
Sarah sat on the bed, fully dressed.
She looked at Joseph as though she did not recognise him.
“Where is Father?” she asked.
Joseph stared at the bodies.
Sarah followed his gaze. Her expression changed, but not into horror. Rather, she looked bewildered, as if someone had brought strangers into her room and expected her to explain their presence.
“Sarah,” he whispered. “What have you done?”
She looked down at her hands.
“I don’t know.”
By midday, the house had filled with policemen, neighbours and men who wished to see what had happened. Sarah was restrained when she became violent and taken away under guard. Her arms and neck bore bruises and scratches. Some said the marks proved she had fought with the men; others said they showed that she had been beaten.
The newspapers would later make a story of her strength, her fits and her strange behaviour. They would describe her as dangerous, violent, perhaps even monstrous.
But the surgeon who examined her saw something less easily explained. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her body was bruised. She appeared exhausted and confused. He had seen epilepsy before, though he could not say precisely what had occurred in Sarah’s room that night.
At the workhouse, a constable sat near the fire while Sarah stared into the flames.
After a long silence, she began to speak.
“My father came into my room,” she said. “My brother was with him. They were angry. They struck me.”
The constable did not interrupt.
“I took the stick. I struck William Edward. Then he was on the bed, and I was afraid. I put my hands around his throat.”
She covered her face.
“My father came towards me. I thought he would kill me. I did the same to him.”
Her voice broke.
“Then I remember nothing.”
The constable called for the superintendent. Sarah repeated the account, insisting that she had acted to defend herself, yet saying that the events seemed to belong to someone else. At one moment she wept; at another she stared blankly at the wall.
When questioned formally, she denied remembering anything at all.
The authorities had a terrible problem. Two men were dead. Sarah had described killing them, but she appeared incapable of giving a consistent account of what had happened. There was evidence of violence against her as well as against them. The doctor believed her mind had been disturbed by epilepsy, though no one could explain how much of the night she remembered.
The law demanded answers that medicine could not provide.
By autumn, Sarah’s name had almost disappeared from the newspapers. A short report explained that when her case reached Liverpool, she was considered unable to plead. The proceedings were postponed, and she was sent to Prestwich Lunatic Asylum.
On the day of her admission, a clerk entered her name in the register.
Sarah Eliza Scholes.
He recorded her age as best he could, noted her former home in Pendlebury, and wrote a brief description of the circumstances that had brought her there. The phrase was short and imperfect, like so many official records: a charge, a family tragedy, a woman whose mind was said to be unsound.
Then the clerk closed the book.
Sarah was given a room and examined by the asylum physician. In the weeks that followed, she sometimes spoke of her father and brother, but she could never tell the same story twice. Some days she insisted that they had beaten her. On others, she asked when they would return from Manchester. Occasionally she seemed to remember the bedroom, the stick and the blood; then she would fall silent and refuse to speak again.
The physician wrote his observations in the casebook. He recorded her fits, her periods of agitation, her quieter intervals. He tried to understand whether her confusion arose from epilepsy, grief, insanity, or some combination of all three.
There was no simple answer.
In time, the world outside moved on. The family home changed hands. The newspapers found new tragedies. Joseph, who had remained haunted by that night, was eventually admitted to the same asylum. He died there years later, having never publicly resolved the questions that surrounded his return to the house.
Sarah remained at Prestwich until October 1869.
When she died, aged thirty-nine, the burial register recorded her as the daughter of William Scholes, formerly of Pendlebury. There was no mention of the two men whose deaths had brought her to the asylum, nor of the trial that never took place.
Her life had been reduced to a name, a date, and a line in a book.
Many years later, a researcher turning the pages of old newspapers would discover the story again. The reports contradicted one another. One described a wound to the eye, another a wound to the throat. One spoke of murder; another of manslaughter. Sarah had confessed, yet claimed not to remember. She had been accused, yet had never stood trial.
The records offered fragments, not a verdict.
Perhaps Sarah had killed her father and brother in a terrifying seizure of confusion and fear. Perhaps the violence had begun with an attempt to restrain her. Perhaps all three had struggled, each believing himself or herself to be in danger.
The dead could not speak. Sarah’s memory, if she ever recovered it, had left no reliable account behind. And the casebook, still held in an archive, waited to be read.
The mystery was not simply who had killed William Scholes and his son.
It was whether anyone in that house had truly understood what was happening — and whether a society that knew so little about epilepsy could ever have judged Sarah fairly.
In the end, the locked room had kept its secret.
And the woman inside it had spent the rest of her life paying for it.