The Playhouse, Weston Super Mare, Somerset
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| Playhouse Theatre Frontage (Source: Weston Mercury) |
If you have been watching our investigation at The Playhouse at Weston-super-Mare, you will know that throughout the nights investigation, we were being followed and contacted by the spirit of Mary Hyatt. She initially revealed herself to our medium, but she also made contact with James, through knocking in response to questions and finally through the Ouija experiment.
Below we have listed the historical facts that we have unearthed regarding Mary Hyatt and her ill fated marriage to Joel Fisher
Here are the facts that we have dug up about Joel and his wife.
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| An Example of a Waterloo Medal (Source: British Medals.co.uk) |
Joel Fisher was born in wick St Lawrence, near Worle, Weston-super-Mare on 10th June 1792, his parents were John and Susannah Fisher. Joel Fisher served with the 7th Hussars in 1811, fought in Orthes and Vittoria and other battles his regiment engaged in until 1814. At that point his regiment fought at Waterloo, as did Joel which won him the Waterloo Campaign Medal. He was in the army for a total of 23 years, without a single black mark upon his service record.
When his Commanding Officer retired in 1836, Fisher also retired to become the Colonel's "Batman", a kind of man-servant. He served with the Colonel for a period of around 9 months. He married his first wife around 1834, but in 1837 his first wife died leaving him with two small children. Not long after the first wife's passing, Joel met Mary Hyatt, whom he ended up marrying in St Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol, then they moved to Backwell.
Within a few months of the marriage, Joel and Mary were arguing. Mary rekindled her romance with her first husband, a Mr Hill and ran off with him. Mary had told Joel that Mr Hill was a cripple and diseased and could hardly function so she said she needed to be with him during his final months, which was a real shock to Joel as only a month afterwards, Mr Hill turned up, in full health and strength demanding furniture that Mary and Joel had received as part of their wedding gifts. Joel told Mr Hill where to go as it were and Mr Hill was never heard of again. Within two months of this, Mary was back with Joel, Joel having forgiven her and allowed her back home.
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| Present Day London Inn (Old Devonshire Inn) (Source: JonnyEdgar.com) |
In 1841 the couple bought the Devonshire Inn on the High Street in Weston Super Mare (now called The London Inn) and moved there, but things were far from happy for the couple. Mary would quite often leave Joel, usually taking some valuable items with her to sell, but Joel would always take her back, which we believe was in part due to the fact that Joel was illiterate and needed Mary to be able to help him run his business.
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| Map of the Area (Source: Gina Suzuki) |
In 1840, Mary made off with a quantity of fine linen and £20 cash from the pub. She ran as far as Bath however, Joel employed the use of a policeman to track her down and bring her back.
In the end, the couple had one too many arguments and Joel became very violent towards Mary. The final argument was about Mary kicking out a lodger, Peter Baker, and then turning on the other lodger, William Upshall. This cut the inn's income down immensely and made Joel very angry. She ran up the stairs into one of the servants (Ann Evans) quarters and pleaded to stay with the servant over night as she would feel safer. Joel was having none of this and broke the door down. She made for the bedroom window. She was part way out of the window when Joel grabbed her and dragged her back in.
Things calmed down for a bit and Mary managed to get to sleep, however at 5am the next morning, Joel was stood at the foot of the bed and jumped onto Mary, pinning her to the bed with his feet. He then produced a long carving knife and drew it across her throat, cutting so deep that he actually went down to the bone. The wound was only 4 inches across, however, it had "severed her carotid artery, divided her wind pipe and gullet and the bones of the spine were laid bare" according to Charles Bernard, a surgeon of Weston who performed the autopsy.
He stood over her corpse, and refuse to leave. He told the serving girl Ann, that he had done a great sin, but in doing so had removed an even bigger sin from the world. He asked Ann to go and get a policeman, he would wait. Once the constable arrived he was immediately arrested to await trial. The trial was held in September with Mr Justice Patteson presiding, and Joel was sentenced to Death. Joel stated then that the sentence as a just one.
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| Rev. John Forsyth (Source: Gina Suzuki) |
Weston's curate, Rev John Hamilton Forsyth visited Joel many times during his brief prison time, as the case deeply troubled the Reverend. In the time Joel had left, he became deeply religious.
The sentence was carried out at Taunton Jail. Moments before he died he said to his son "Oh, John, would that I had died at Waterloo; you then would never have been born to this disgrace, and I never should have committed this dreadful crime"
At the execution some 5000 people came to watch. Joel walked to the gallows calmly and offered not a sign of fear. He prayed to God and resigned himself to his fate. It is said when he swung from the gallows, he did not struggle and he died very quickly. After hanging for the regulation 1 hour, he was cut down and buried in the grounds of Wilton Prison, Taunton
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| St John The Baptist Church. WSM (Source: WSM Family History Society) |
The Bristol Mercury, dated 17th August 1844 ran an article on the murder to inform its readers of the sordid goings on.
Mary Hyatt is buried in an unmarked grave in St John the Baptist Cemetery, and was interred on the 8th June 1844, register reference number 498, but it is worth making a note that she is referred to as Mary FISHER (Joel's married name) aged 54. St Johns stopped receiving burials in 1850 after the parliamentary act was passed allowing Weston Council to create a new burial ground at Milton.
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