Thomas Smethurst

Thomas Smethurst (c.1810¹ - ?) was an apothecary, with a medical degree from a non-British university. Born in Budworth, Cheshire,¹ by the 1850s he ran the Farnham Hydropathic Establishment in Surrey and in the 1851 census was living in Badshot with his wife Mary.¹

He is most notable for being convicted then pardoned of the murder by poisoning of Isabella Bankes, who had been living with Smethurst and his wife at 4 Rifle Terrace, Bayswater. He was sometimes known as "the Richmond Poisoner", as he and Bankes had lodged in Richmond (with Bankes going by "Mrs Smethurst") from 4 February until 3 May that year, when she died there.²

The coroner's inquest into the death indicted Smethurst for murder and his trial at the Central Criminal Court began on 7-8 July 1859,³ with Serjeant-at-law John Humffreys Parry and George Markham Giffard as counsels for the defence, Sergeant-at-law William Ballantine, William Bodkin, Mr. Clark and Mr Merewether (a son of Henry Alworth Merewether) as counsels for the prosecution and Sir Frederick Pollock presiding⁴ - Smethurst pleaded Not Guilty.⁴ It was then interrupted by juror Thomas Instone³ suddenly being taken ill⁴³ but resumed from 15 to 18 August.⁵

The chief toxicology witness was Alfred Swaine Taylor, though in his testimony he admitted contamination to one of his arsenic tests.⁶ The trial ended in a Guilty verdict⁴ but Queen Victoria accepted Benjamin Brodie and Home Secretary George Cornewall Lewis's advice to grant Smethurst a royal pardon for the murder conviction,⁷ though he still had to serve a year in Wandsworth Prison for the bigamous marriage with Bankes.⁶⁸ After his sentence he successfully defended the validity of Bankes' will (leaving him all her property) against a challenge from her relatives.⁹