Trial of Steinie Morrison ; Notable British Trials ; Edited by H. Fletcher Moulton, B.A. (Cantab.) of the Middle Temple Barrister-At-Law ; Butterworth, Sydney, Wellington, 1922, hard cover, blue cloth, gilt lettering to spine, a very good copy (light foxing on edges and some leaves), xxxi + 282pp with frontispiece and 9 plates.

The killing of Leon Beron EastLondonHistory.com When the battered body of Leon Beron was discovered on Clapham Common on New Year’s Day 1911, it was to set in motion the most notorious murder trial of the day. And it was to provide a day in court for some of the East End’s most colourful characters… and least reliable witnesses. The case also dragged in the Home Secretary, Winston Churchill, allegations of spying and sinister implications with the recent Sidney Street siege and the Houndsditch Murders. Slum landlord Beron wasn’t universally loved – as a slum landlord he was unlikely to be. He owned nine decaying houses in Russell Court, Stepney, which provided him with 10 shillings (50p) a week, enough to pay his own two shillings rent on 133 Jubilee Street, Stepney, and provide the one and sixpence a day for his meals at the Warsaw Kosher Restaurant at 32 Osborn Street, Whitechapel. It was at the Warsaw that Beron began to be seen in the company of Steinie Morrison, in December 1910. Morrison was another Russian Jew, who had arrived in England in 1898. Where he arrived from wasn’t certain – he claimed to be Australian and also used the pseudonyms Alexander Petro-pavloff, Morris Stein and Moses Tagger. What was certain was that he was a professional thief, who had already served five sentences for burglary.

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