I am in a quandary over how I should present the trial of James Tuck in this blog. The court proceedings as presented on the Oldbaileyonline website, plus numerous newspaper articles published at the time of the trial, run into many pages. For me to type them out for reproduction here would be incredibly time consuming, so for convenience I think I might just scan and publish the articles in question.
Looking back over the trial, it staggers me that James Tuck was allowed to walk free, totally acquitted of any guilt or involvement in the death of John Draper. Or why the involvement of the pugilists who were staying and training at the Bald-faced Stag was not investigated more vigorously. That John Draper was murdered is beyond all doubt. More modern inquests would have investigated whether or not he was dead before being thrown into the well, and determined whether his death was by drowning, or from a blow or blows delivered prior to being thrown in.
I wonder how John's family felt about the unfinished business of determining just how he had died, as well as who was responsible. His daughter Elizabeth Draper Wager died the following year, in 1817, aged only 32, and his second wife Frances Banks Draper in 1823. John's brother, David Draper, who questioned the first "accidental death" verdict and demanded a second examination of the body, lived for another 28 years after his brother's murder. He died in Enfield Town in 1844, aged 81 years.
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