When an actor was shot dead behind a London flat in 1910, it was believed that the culprit was a burglar seen fleeing the scene. But did the victim’s private life have anything to do with his demise?
Thomas Weldon Anderson was well known to the public as the actor Weldon Atherstone. Born in Liverpool in December 1861, his first mention in theatrical newspaper The Era was in 1886, when he was appearing at Liverpool’s Alexandra Theatre. Two years later, he married Irish actress Monica Kelly, and the couple had four children. He seemed to have a successful, happy life.
As is often the case, though, the reality was somewhat different. Weldon and Monica separated by 1899, and he then started a relationship with a younger American actress, Elizabeth Earle – known as Bessie – and was a regular visitor to her flat, in a terraced house in Battersea. Weldon was arguably obsessed with Bessie, and after a few years, she started to find his jealousies rather wearying. She had retired from acting and started teaching at what would become the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, but he didn’t like her tutoring young men. One evening, Weldon accused Bessie of having had another man staying with her, and then hit her. Later, in 1909, Weldon threatened to cut her throat. He moved out of her flat, but their relationship continued in fits and spurts.
On the evening of Weldon’s murder, his elder son, Thomas Frederick, 21, had gone to Bessie’s about 8.30pm for supper. The jealous Weldon may have suspected that something was going on between his son and his lover, for on that night, he had got into the empty flat below Bessie’s, armed with a cable or cosh, and changed his boots for ‘silent’ carpet slippers. He then made his way to the iron staircase that led from outside the house to Bessie’s first floor flat. It was at the foot of this staircase that he was shot twice at close range, after a “severe struggle”.
Tormented by jealousy
All this emerged at the inquest into Weldon’s death, where, although both Bessie and Thomas were questioned, and Bessie openly admitted to the couple’s issues, there seemed to be no doubts raised about the theory of the “burglar”. A witness denied that the man seen fleeing over Bessie’s garden wall was Thomas, but he was not rigorously challenged about the reliability of his sighting.
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One theory was that Weldon had gone to the flat that night to murder Bessie, tormented with jealousy, and convinced that she was seeing another man. Knowing that the man was possibly his own son would have undoubtedly made the torment worse. The press speculated that a neighbour may have seen Weldon lurking and thought he was a burglar, so attacked him and quickly fled the scene.
Yet there were still unanswered questions. One of the bullets used to kill Weldon was later found in Bessie’s scullery sink. There were fingernail scratches over his face and wrists, as though he had been fighting with a woman immediately before he was shot. It was an intriguing case, but there was little real effort to find the murderer, and the case remains unsolved to this day.
This article was first published in the May 2023 issue of BBC History Revealed