Here is a case I have been researching for a great many years. The appalling although not uncommon activity of women who would ‘look after’ children for a fee (and we are not talking about nannies here).
Now a lot of archive (including news reports) relating to the case of Mrs Winsor is transcribed and on-line. You might know I have been doing a similar exercise with John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee.
There is, despite a few historians arguing against this, several historically proven links between Lee and Winsor (I can never understand why some historians argue against and refuse to accept truth or a fact when public records can reinforce the fact!).
Anyway, before I head into a rant – back to the plot. There is a very real chance that Winsor and Lee were relatively closely related. The very real possibility that Mary Jane Harris (mother of the murdered child) was also a blood relative of John Lee, The Man They Couldn’t Hang. Also that Charlotte Winsor’s third husband, James Winsor, could also be related to Lee as well.
Then there’s the involvement of the South Devon lawyer, Isodore Carter in both cases and many other local factors (legal and otherwise) that draw these two together. The fact that Winsor, although a convicted killer, narrowly escaped the gallows just as Lee survived three executions.
You can see my work on Winsor – all based on transcribed archive, here.
Ian Waugh
Old British News
