The Bow Cinema Murder (1934)

This is the first in a 11-part investigation into the 1934 ‘Bow Cinema Murder’. You can read all entries in the series here.

This blog is no stranger to interwar murder stories. Over the next ten weeks, posts will investigate one 1934 murder case in depth. Unlike some of the other cases covered previously, this murder is no longer well known – it has not been adapted in any novels, plays or films (to the best of my knowledge) and did not become a byword for evil. At the time it was committed, however, it caused a media storm and thrust a group of working-class East Enders into the limelight. It was the Bow Cinema Murder.

The murder took place on Tuesday morning, 7 August 1934, at the Eastern Palace Cinema in Bromley-by-Bow, in the East End of London. The Eastern Palace cinema was a neighbourhood cinema, co-owned by two local Jewish professionals. It was located on the busy Bow Road, in between a café and a general store. It could seat around 1000 patrons in its auditorium and balcony, where audiences could enjoy the ornate (if somewhat shabby) ‘Oriental’ decorations on the walls.

The day-to-day management of the cinema fell to 41-year-old Dudley Henry Hoard. As part of his role, Dudley and his wife Maisie were required to live in a flat adjacent to the auditorium – the lease of the building required that it was partially used for domestic occupancy. Dudley got the cinema manager job in March 1934, and he and Maisie moved in a few weeks later. It was the first time since their wedding in spring 1933 that they had their own flat; they had previously been staying with Dudley’s parents in Croydon.

On the morning of 7 August, Dudley and Maisie were sleeping in after a busy Bank Holiday weekend. Ordinarily, one of Dudley’s first tasks every day was to deposit the cinema’s previous day’s takings at the Midland Bank on Mile End Road. Due to the banks having been shut on the Bank holiday Monday, there were now three days’ worth of ticket earnings in the safe in Dudley’s office, one floor below the flat. For the Eastern Palace, the Bank holiday weekend had resulted in total takings of 89 pounds, 5 shillings, and tuppence. By comparison, Dudley earned about £5 a week as cinema manager, and he was the best-paid member of staff in the cinema. Even for him, the nearly £90 in the safe represented around 10 months’ worth of wages.

Around quarter to eight, someone rang the door of the flat – not the doorbell at the cinema’s entrance, but the door of the flat specifically. Dudley quickly put on some trousers over his nightshirt and went to open the door. Maisie had only half woken and was about to doze off, when she heard Dudley shout out. When Maisie walked into the living room, she saw a man standing over her husband, wielding a hatchet. Dudley had a head wound and was trying to fend off the other man. Maisie shouted out to the attacker, a young man. He then turned to her and hit her over the head with the hatchet – she blacked out immediately.

About thirty minutes later, the cinema’s regular team of cleaning women arrived for their morning shift. These three women came in six days a week to clean and tidy the cinema before the first screenings started. Because they arrived hours before any of the other staff, the head cleaner, Mrs Emily Brinklow, had her own set of keys. She let herself and her colleagues in, and they started to get their cleaning materials out. Emily noticed that the post and milk, dropped by the milkman, had not yet been taken upstairs by either Dudley or Maisie. This did not worry her unduly; she would bring them up herself in a minute. Before she could do so, a scream ripped through the building. Nellie Earrey, one of the other cleaners and sister to one of the cinema’s projectionists, had found a heavily injured Dudley Hoard on the staircase leading to the auditorium balcony. He was covered in blood, as were the walls and the staircase he was on. Emily rushed to the flat and banged on the door; after a short while, Maisie opened it. She, too, was covered in blood, and seemed completely dazed.

Nellie ran out onto the street, where a passerby quickly alerted the local Bobby who was patrolling the area. PC Mackay swiftly went over to the cinema and tried to provide emergency aid, as well as alerting his local police station by telephone. The divisional surgeon (the police doctor) is on the scene quickly, as he was still at his home further down Bow Road when the station officer rang him. He too provides emergency aid, and arranges for both Dudley and Maisie to be transported to the nearby St Andrews hospital. They arrive shortly after 10am. Although Dudley is immediately examined and treated by multiple surgeons, the fractures to his skull are too severe. He dies at 3.07pm, without regaining consciousness.

The police know that they now have a murder case on their hands. Maisie is less severely injured, but unable to give more than a brief, confused statement before she needs to rest. Detectives attached to the local police department, known as ‘H’ Division, start questioning all the cinema’s staff as they arrive for their shifts. Most of them live very close to the cinema, and they are aware very quickly that something has happened. The police realise that the cinema’s safe has been opened by the keys which would normally be carried around by Dudley, and that the full weekend’s takings have been stolen. They have a victim and a motive, but not yet a clue as to the killer’s identity.