The Fatal Cup: Thomas Griffiths Wainewright and the strange deaths of his relations. John Price Williams

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      and there an application was made for a policy on Helen’s life for £3,000

      Two days later Wainewright took her to the Pelican Office in Spring Gardens. This time the sum insured was £5,000. Next on March 26, it was the Eagle’s turn. By tradition the chief executive of a life insurance company was called the actuary and the Eagle’s actuary, Henry P Smith was to become Wainewright’s nemesis.

       The proposal was made for an insurance on her life for £3,000, acceptance subject to a medical report, which of course had already been procured. Dr Graham was able to certify that not only was she healthy when she was examined, he had never known her to have a day’s illness in her life.

      At life offices in several parts of London, clerks and officials were to deal with Miss Helen Frances Phoebe Abercromby’s applications for policies. There was one common factor, apart from the unusual number of them, they were all very short term, for only two years or, as in the case of the Palladium, three. An ideal prospect for the insurance companies - for why should a healthy young woman die within two or three years?

      On April 20th, Eliza took Helen to the Palladium office again. The actuary, Nicholas Grute, showed understandable curiosity. Why was the insurance for so short a period? Eliza had a ready answer. It was to raise money to enable the family to get possession of property which would fall in within three years. In other words the policy could be used as security to raise money; if Helen died in the meantime, the loan would be paid off with the insurance.

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      Helen, who had declared herself to be a year older than she really was, had the same question asked. She could not give any reason - apparently the business of property settlement was a bit over her head. The only answer she gave was that she had been told “it was proper” for her to do it.

      This procedure of insuring for a short term to raise money against a policy was not uncommon. In September 1834, for instance, the Eagle accepted a proposal for a loan of £12,000 to be raised against the life of John Cochrane - again just 21 - who was to become entitled to a large sum of money on attaining the age of 25; if he died before then the money would go to someone else. Several other life offices accepted the proposal. Alas, very shortly afterwards, as the Eagle minutes report, poor Cochrane took an open carriage from Boulogne to Calais in the teeth of a cold north-easterly wind and died in no time at all of inflammation of various organs.

      Nevertheless Grute of the Palladium was a trusting man for an insurance official. There seems to have been no attempt at this stage by him, or any of the other insurers who were to be gulled, to make any attempt to verify the truth of the property bequest; perhaps the pressure to bring in the premiums led to carelessness. So despite evasive and inconclusive explanations Grute accepted the risk. Helen signed the policy and paid the premium of £39 plus £4 stamp duty - money which had come from the slim pocket of her brother-in-law.

      Her life - or rather her death - had suddenly become worth a great deal of money. Ten days later it was worth double; she signed policy number 80230

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