James Atkinson’s Prison Letters.
- Mark Anthony
- Aug 14
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 11
Writer: Mark Anthony
Aug 14 · 3 min read · Updated: 1 minute ago
York Castle Prison
On the cold stone floors of York Castle, a condemned man dips his pen into ink. His words are clumsy, his grammar fractured, but his purpose is clear: to explain, to justify, and—most chillingly—to be heard.
In April 1859, the Journal of Mental Science published the prison letters of James Atkinson—the man acquitted of Mary-Jane Skaife’s murder on grounds of insanity and sent instead to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. These letters, written while he awaited trial in York, have rarely been seen since. They promise a raw and unsettling glimpse into his mind—part of a case that shocked Victorian Yorkshire and still raises questions about justice, truth, and mental health in the 19th century.
A Murder Remembered
James Atkinson, the man who strangled and slit the throat of twenty-one-year-old Mary-Jane Skaife on the night of August 1, 1858, did not vanish into silence after his arrest. While awaiting trial, he poured his thoughts into letters to Mary-Jane’s family—letters omitted from contemporary newspaper accounts and later published in the Journal of Mental Science.
The official story told at York’s Winter Assizes was one of “imbecility.” His defence painted him as simple-minded, incapable of forming intent. The jury agreed, acquitting him on the grounds of insanity. But the letters themselves reveal a tangled mixture of jealousy, wounded pride, religious language, and possessive certainty.
Suspicion and Bitterness
“I thought she wanted some one else… I should not think of her having any one else, we had been so much connected together…”
J. Atkinson, 3 Sept. 1858 (Letter No. 1).
From the opening lines, the words drip with suspicion and bitterness. Atkinson returns again and again to perceived slights: how she behaved “quel” after a harmless exchange with another man, how her mother had turned against him. In his mind, these moments stack like tinder until the spark comes.
Sin and Sermon
Between recriminations are constant appeals to scripture and forgiveness. He frames the tragedy in biblical terms, pleading for spiritual reconciliation even as he rationalises the actions that led to Mary-Jane’s death.
“The Lord says he can forgive the vilest of the vile… I hope you will all turn to him and repent of your sins…”
J. Atkinson, Nov. 17, 1858 (Letter No. 3).
There is no clean, modern confession—no simple “I did it because.” Instead we read a mixture of self-pity and sermonising, the voice of a man who is both accused and preacher, addressing a congregation that, in his eyes, has wronged him.
Possession Masquerading as Love
The letters reveal the intimate tragedy at the heart of the crime: a relationship that, in Atkinson’s mind, was destined for marriage. He writes wistfully of how they “always was before” family intervention. That tenderness curdles into possession—if he could not have her, he could not bear anyone else to.
It is the small, domestic details that chill: the memory of tea at home, the white bonnet found in the ditch, the momentary thought of taking his own life—brought to the surface and then abandoned.
Verdict and Aftermath
Atkinson left the court that December not to freedom, but to confinement at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he would spend decades replaying the summer evening that bound his life to Mary-Jane’s forever. The letters—sincere or manipulative—do not resolve the question of his sanity; if anything, they deepen it.
Closing Reflection
These prison letters are more than relics. They are windows into a mind that could quote Isaiah one moment and plunge a knife the next. They force us to ask uncomfortable questions about culpability, compassion, and the ways Victorian law and psychiatry tried to make sense of the most terrible human behaviour.
Source: https://www.cambridge.org
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