We hear from Library and Digital Assistant Becky Bavill this week, who brings us a fantastic piece that is combines genealogy with a true crime twist…

Arthur Morris, son of Samuel and Harriet was born in 1859.  He had 5 siblings.  Although the 1881 census had him working alongside his father in the family boot and shoe making business, he is described on the certificate of his 1889 marriage to Elizabeth Leggott as a musician.  By the 1891 census he styled himself as a pianist to her teacher of dancing.  They lived at Rider Road (O/S map 203.13.20).

By the 1901 census they had made the move to a larger home at Carlton Mount off Dorrington Road (O/S 218.2.11).

At this point he had become the teacher of music and dancing and was working for himself at home.  According to the Kelly’s directory, in 1908 he was running a separate dancing school at 16 St Ann’s Street (O/S 218.2.16). This was right in the centre of town, in the shadow of the old Catholic Cathedral. 

Elizabeth died in 1911.  On the 1911 census Arthur described himself as a self-employed teacher of dancing and his widowed brother, Frank (a musician), was living with him.  He bought a property in Scarcroft and moved there to semi-retire in 1928, although he was still very active on the Yorkshire dance scene.  Arthur died in 1938, and his death and funeral were both reported in the local papers. So why are we interested in Arthur? Well, we aren’t really, but this background is important to understanding what happened in the next generation of the family. Arthur had no children and when he died, he left something to his younger brother, Harry in his will. Harry was a witness at Arthur and Elizabeth’s wedding; and had given his son Arthur’s name so it seems that they were particularly close. What did Arthur give to his brother? According to the YEP:

‘About the beginning of the (twentieth) century, Mr Morris decided there was a need for a new waltz.  He not only invented it, but also composed special music in three-four waltz time which was published together with a description of the steps . . . Mr Morris sold the original Veleta outright to the publishers . . . later compositions were published on a royalty basis.’(1)

The Veleta became a very popular dance, with dance halls across the country holding Veleta nights, and variations being created left, right and centre.  As late as 1962, there was a National Veleta Trophy! The royalties for the Veleta went to Harry.  He and his wife Agnes had had 2 children, Alex Arthur (born 1906) and Daisy Somerset (born 1892).  Alex became an electrical engineer, married; and moved out to Castleford with his family.  Harry and Agnes moved to the Mount in 1929, at the same time as Arthur started living at Veleta Cottage.  After Agnes’s death in 1930, Daisy moved in.  The 1939 register identified her as a retired schoolteacher.  She would have been 47 at the time.

Harry died in 1947.  According to the electoral registers, Daisy stayed at the Mount until 1952 when she first appeared as resident of Veleta Cottage.  She had probably sold The Mount by this stage.  This should be the end of a fairly ordinary story, but Daisy was murdered in Veleta Cottage on 14 April 1974 where she had been living a very reclusive life.  Newspaper reports of the time describe her as senile, and as living in very poor surroundings.

The man convicted of her murder was Thomas Anderson, known as ‘The Harehills Rat Catcher’.  Daisy’s body was discovered by the milkman who summoned the police.  Whilst the police were onsite, Anderson appeared at the cottage and made comments about the circumstances – comments that prosecutor Sir Harry Ognall, QC contended that he could not have made unless he had direct knowledge of what had happened (3).  Anderson was jailed for life.

It transpired that Daisy had made a rather unwise decision to sell Veleta Cottage to Anderson but had backed out.  Anderson had made some unwise decisions of his own based on his being able to develop Daisy’s land and the collapse of the sale left him in severe financial difficulties.

Daisy is buried with her parents at Lawnswood Cemetery.  Veleta Cottage, by the time of her death in a pretty poor state of repair, was inherited by her brother, Alex, who in 1975 submitted plans to demolish it and replace it with a new house.

What made us investigate this rather sad story?  A customer visited who had hazy memories of a derelict cottage in Scarcroft with a lurid story attached that got demolished and wanted us to find it for them.  We had one indexed newspaper article that gave us the bare bones of the story.  A few weeks later, in a slightly spooky coincidence a copy of the music was donated by a member of the public and the name just jumped out at us. We pieced the story together via census data, birth marriage and death records, burial records, electoral registers, maps and newspaper reports, all things that can be easily accessed at Local and Family History.  It’s amazing where you can end up from the smallest of starting places!

If you would like to look at the piece of music that started us on this on this journey, you can find it in the Local and Family History Library, SRQP 781.556 MOR (item 34996893).  Here’s some more information about the Veleta, including a video of one of the variations.

Library of Dance – The Veleta

• YEP 6/8/1938, P7
• YEP 6/8/1938, P7
• Tribute to Sir Harry Ognall QC, 9th January 1934 -13th April 2021, by Robert Smith QC – New Park Court – Barristers Chambers