A Grim Almanac of Essex - Neil R Storey - E-Book

A Grim Almanac of Essex E-Book

Neil R Storey

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Beschreibung

Neil R. Storey's macabre calendar chronicles the darker side of life in Essex. Murderers and footpads, pimps and prostitutes, riots, rebels, bizarre funerals, disaster and peculiar medicine all feature. The book is illustrated with engravings, newspaper reports, photographs and original documents. It is horrible, if it is ghastly, if it is strange, then it is here! If you have the stomach for it, then read on.

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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

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A GRIM ALMANACOF

ESSEX

Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder-General

Borley Church.

A GRIM ALMANACOF

ESSEX

NEIL R. STOREY

Death mask of Frederick Guy Browne, the murderer of PC Gutteridge. (Essex Police Museum)

The Grim Almanacs are from an original idea by Neil R. Storey

This book is dedicated to all who have trod the beat in Essex.

Police officers and men at Southminster Police Station, c. 1902

First published 2005 by Sutton Publishing

This edition published 2011 by

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Neil R. Storey, 2005, 2010, 2013

The right of Neil R. Storey to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5426 6

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

ESSEX EXECUTIONS1865–1953

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Memorial gravestone to a Roman centurion of Camulodunum.

INTRODUCTION

Truth is always strange,

Stranger than fiction.

Lord Byron, Don Juan (1823)

Essex is a county with a long and fascinating past, but for the connoisseur of grim tales it soon becomes apparent that with so much history, so much life and so many people passing through or settling in the county over the years it is also endowed with a darker history through centuries of bloodshed, crime, dark deeds and witchcraft. Colchester can proudly claim to be one of the country’s oldest continuously inhabited towns. Archaeological investigation has revealed a Bronze Age settlement on the site, while the Romans chose to found their first major English town, Camulodunum, here. Abundant evidence of their presence can still be seen in the ancient bricks and masonry incorporated in later buildings and churches in the town, and in the rich seam of archaeology that is revealed almost every time a building or factory site in the town is cleared. Here in the modern town it is easy to forget the bloodshed on the streets of the Roman town when Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni, and her force of thousands swept down to assault the garrison in the first century AD. Taking the city on the second day of battle, they slaughtered every man, woman and child in the town.

Every invader since the Romans has espied the navigable rivers and beaches of Essex and marked them as potential routes for raids or invasion. After the Romans came the Saxons and Danes, who fought violently for the territory in battles such as those at Maldon in 991 and Assandune (Ashingdon) in 1016, which have become the subject of epic poems and folklore. In 1348 the Black Death raged through Essex, scything down thousands in a harvest of death. A number of villages in the county suffered so many deaths they became depopulated and were abandoned. In 1381 it was an Essex priest named Jack Straw who led the county’s rising in the Peasants’ Revolt; marching on London, the men of Essex merged with Wat Tyler’s Kentishmen and stormed the capital.

After the accession of Mary Tudor to the throne in 1553 the horrific purging of Protestants did not pass the county by. Seventy-two men and women were burnt at the stake for their faith in Essex, chiefly at Stratford, Brentwood and Colchester (where no fewer than twenty-two people were sent to the flames in just three years for their beliefs). In 1588 the peace of the county was shattered again with fears of a Spanish invasion. On 27 July the Armada reached Calais and a false alarm was spread that Spanish soldiers had landed and were marching on London. On hearing this, Queen Elizabeth went to her garrison at Tilbury and delivered her defiant speech, including the immortal lines, ‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that any prince of Europe should dare to invade my realm.’

Dancing with the Devils.

The summer Assizes of Essex in 1566 saw the first notable trial for witchcraft in England after such practices were outlawed in 1563. Three women, Elizabeth Francis, Agnes Waterhouse and her daughter Joan, all of Hatfield Peverel, stood charged with witchcraft. All the elements that were to become common features of the seventeenth-century witch persecution – such as selling of souls or pacts with the devil, animal familiars (in this case a cat called Satan or Sathan) rewarded or ‘bought’ with drops of blood from the witch, bewitchment of children, magical appearances and killing of animals, infliction of bodily afflictions and death by curse – were brought up at this trial. Agnes Waterhouse was the only one of the three accused to be executed, thus gaining the dubious honour of having been the first ‘witch’ to be subject to full judicial trial and execution in early modern Britain.

The Devil presents a witch with a familiar.

In 1582 came the infamous trial of the witches of St Osyth. Thirteen women stood accused, ten of them on charges of ‘bewitching to death’. Six were found guilty and sentenced to death but only two actually went to the gallows: Elizabeth Bennett, who had confessed to killing a man and his wife by witchcraft, and Ursula Kemp, who was indicted for three deaths by bewitchment between October 1580 and February 1582. She eventually confessed and was found guilty on all three counts. In 1921 the skeleton of a woman was found in a garden in Mill Street, St Osyth. Careful excavation and examination revealed she had been ‘pinned’ to the ground with iron spikes through the joints – an ancient practice said to prevent a witch’s spirit ‘walking abroad and causing mischief’. The skeleton was believed to be that of Ursula Kemp, and coachloads of tourists came to gaze into the open grave.

In 1589 the third major trial of witches was staged at Chelmsford. One man and nine women were brought to trial, most of them on charges of bewitching persons and livestock to death or of spoiling livestock and goods. Joan Cony, Joan Upney and Joan Prentice were all found guilty and executed within two hours of sentencing, all of them ‘confessing their crimes on the scaffold’. The active persecution of witches by judicial process in Essex then quietened down until the fears and uncertainties generated by the English Civil War manifested themselves in a number of witch scares where poor, elderly people, often widows, who made a few coins by offering charms and natural remedies, were accused of turning their supposed magical skills against their neighbours or those they disagreed with. The pressures exerted on society by the war exaggerated suspicions into certainties and led to a frenzy of witch-hunting. Ports and coastal areas are always more susceptible to new ideas from abroad so it is no surprise that the mass persecutions of witches’ covens in Germany (which allegedly indulged in diabolical pacts, used familiars and regularly communed with the Devil himself) rubbed off on East Anglia.

One name comes to the fore at this time: Matthew Hopkins. A man with a spurious legal background, he was the keeper of the Thorn Inn in the dockside town of Mistley and no doubt heard every tale about witches on the continent. He was soon styling himself the ‘Witchfinder-General’ and claimed to have in his possession ‘the Devil’s list of all English witches’. Hopkins encouraged such methods as ‘swimming’ witches, and his small team of ‘searchers’ would prick the bodies of suspected witches to find ‘the Devil’s tit’ – an area insensible to pain from which, he alleged, the witch’s familiar would suckle her blood. Physical torture was officially not allowed but Hopkins was not deterred: severe sleep deprivation, forced walking until the feet blistered, solitary confinement and tying up those accused cross-legged for days on end were some of the methods he used to extract confessions of witchcraft. At one of the witchcraft trials manufactured by Hopkins in July 1645 he presented no fewer than thirty-two ‘finds’ at the County Sessions held at Chelmsford. Four of his ‘finds’, aged 80, 65, 60 and 40, had already died in prison before the Sessions opened. Hardly surprisingly, Hopkins and his team had extracted confessions from most of the ‘finds’. Most of these confessions saw the accused admit to committing malevolent acts and keeping familiars like moles, a squirrel, a yellow cat and even a mouse named ‘Prick-ears’. Twenty-eight were sentenced to be ‘hanged by the neck until they be dead’. Nineteen of them were ‘swung’ right away, five were reprieved and the rest remanded to the next Sessions. Most of those who were left were still in gaol in March 1648.

Despite the efforts of the Witchfinder-General, a strong belief in witchcraft lingered on in the villages and hamlets of rural Essex. Throughout the nineteenth century and even into the early twentieth century it was common practice in the county to turn to local ‘cunning folk’, those well versed in cures, philtres and ‘natural magic’, to assist in medical matters, social problems and even matters of the heart. If you suffered with the likes of warts, had a cut that would not heal, wanted assistance in the birthing of a child or animal, desired an insurance for healthy livestock and good harvests or feared that a malevolent witch had cursed or overlooked you or a member of your family, then a quiet trip up the lane to the ramshackle cottage of an old cunning man or woman was the answer.

James ‘Cunning’ Murrell and George Pickingill of Canewdon were just two characters who stand out in more recent times. James Murrell, known to most as ‘Cunning’ Murrell, stood no more than 5ft tall but was arguably one of the most powerful witches ever seen in Essex. He was born in Rayleigh but settled in Hadleigh, and it was said he could ‘do anything, cure anything and know anything, past, present and future’. Locals said he possessed the evil eye and that once in a magical duel he summoned up all his powers and ordered his opponent to die – and die he did! George Pickingill, the last Witchmaster of Canewdon, took over the position when ‘Cunning’ Murrell died. Known to most locals as ‘Old George’, he came from a long line of Romany sorcerers; it was believed he had sold his soul to the Devil and had a parchment to prove it! If you dared creep up to his cottage at night it was said you might see ‘Old George’ dancing by the flickering flames of his fire, with his white mouse familiars and furniture joining in the dance with him! Local folklore tells that ‘Old George’ met his end in 1909 when he was thought to be about 100 years old. On a dull and windy day he was strolling by the churchyard wall when his hat was blown over among the gravestones. As he climbed over to retrieve it, the sun broke momentarily through the clouds, casting the shadow of a headstone in the shape of a cross over George’s face. It killed him instantly.

The Colchester ‘Mad Lizzies’, thought by many, especially youngsters, to be witches.

Even in the nineteenth century witchcraft prosecutions were still being brought before local magistrates but were luckily treated with the contempt such actions had long deserved. However, if the magistrates did not take action the locals sometimes took matters into their own hands which resulted in elderly or marginal folk being ‘swum’ in dirty local ponds and dykes; in one case in 1857 the rector of East Thorpe had to physically stand guard at the door of a supposed witch to prevent her suffering this treatment. In another case at Sible Hedingham in 1863 the man accused was swum – and died as a result.

Invaders, slaughter, warfare, plague, the burning of heretics and witchcraft are only a few of the grim offerings from Essex. I have found that once one scratches the surface of any county’s history you soon come across darker tales, and Essex is no exception. In a county which produced William Calcraft, the country’s longest-serving hangman, and can boast one of the earliest police forces, it is hardly surprising to find numerous accounts of public executions, murders, crimes and criminals. In this cornucopia of the macabre, these jostle for position with grim tales of dragons and mysterious beasts, visitations of the Devil, a flayed Dane, ghosts, freaks, strange deaths, disasters, horrific old punishments and repulsive prisons. This book has been made possible by generations of collectors, historians, authors and reporters who included strange stories and detailed accounts in their publications; I have simply noted them down and followed their lead, planning to do something one day with the file marked ‘Strange Essex’. Having enjoyed generous and privileged access to police archives, coroners’ reports, inquest accounts, assize records, private collections and public libraries, I have plumbed the depths of many of the grimmest long-forgotten records of the past. Join me on a journey along the darker paths of Essex’s history – if you dare!

JANUARY

Governor and staff of Springfield Gaol, Chelmsford, 1905.

1 JANUARY1961 Lorry driver Sidney Ambrose pulled his truck into a lay-by near the village of Ridgewell to answer a call of nature. Walking a few yards off the road he stumbled across the half-naked body of a young woman lying under a blackberry bush. Within twelve hours the body was identified as that of Jean Sylvia Constable (20) of Halstead, who had left home the previous day to go to a New Year’s Eve party in London. She had been seen in a couple of Braintree pubs drinking with two men, David Salt (20) and USAAF Staff Sergeant Wills Eugene Boshears (29). Somewhat the worse for drink, all three went back to Boshears’s flat at Great Dunmow. Salt and Jean Constable soon went into the bedroom while Boshears remained in the lounge, drinking. Later the couple reappeared, and continued drinking until they fell asleep in the lounge. Salt woke up at about 12.45am and woke Boshears to ask where the nearest taxi rank was. When he left, Salt believed Boshears and Constable were both asleep. At his trial for the girl’s murder, Boshears claimed he only awoke when he ‘felt something pulling at my mouth. I was not awake but this woke me up, and I found I had my hands around her throat. Jean was dead.’ In panic Boshears disposed of the body in the lay-by where Ambrose found it. Despite the doubts expressed by the eminent pathologist Professor Francis Camps on the possibility of whether he could have carried out the strangling while he was asleep, the jury, after almost two hours’ deliberation, found Boshears not guilty.

2 JANUARY1943 William Henry Turner was a deserter from the army; playing on the goodwill of the British populace in wartime he deceived his way into people’s homes purporting to be a corporal on leave who was unable to find accommodation. After he left, those who had shown him such generosity soon found he had forced the locks on wardrobes and drawers and stolen clothes and loose cash. On this day he received no response to his knock at the door of 19 Audley Road, Colchester. Assuming the house was empty he opened the door with a wire. Entering the house Turner discovered the occupant, 82-year-old Ann Wade, bending over a chair. Turner claimed he rushed up from behind and put his arm around her neck and she ‘just went limp’. He carried her to another room. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and a man asked for Ann Wade. Turner, giving nothing away by his demeanour, said she had gone out. Returning to the body Turner callously pushed it under a bed, then he stole some money and left. He was soon apprehended and put on trial for Wade’s murder. Turner then changed his story, claiming he had been working in Ann’s garden and had placed his arm around her neck while larking around. The first jury failed to agree on a verdict but at the second trial there was no hesitation and a guilty verdict was returned. Turner was executed on Wednesday 24 March 1943.

3 JANUARY1873 Rettendon windmill mysteriously caught fire and was burnt down. As the hose of the horse-drawn pump fire engine extinguished the last of the flames a few locals breathed a sigh of relief, not only because the fire was out but also because they knew this event would put paid to what some believed was the curse of Rettendon mill. Over the last few hundred years a number of mills had stood on the site. One was erected in 1797 to replace its seventeenth-century counterpart, but it was said that the deal concerning the purchase of the old mill and the surrounding land had gone ’sour’ and the aggrieved party had literally cursed the site. The first major tragedy occurred just a short time after the new mill began work: a little girl named Elizabeth Jeffries toddled into the path of the turning sails and was fatally wounded. In 1853 George Borrodell (24), the miller’s son, tried to push a wheelbarrow through the gap in the sails as they turned. He was caught square on and died of his wounds five hours later. Peace then descended on the mill for the next twenty years until 3 January 1873, when the mill was found on fire.

4 JANUARY1894In suspicious circumstances? Police Sergeant John Harvey and his colleagues were making routine enquiries in the Ardleigh area. Harvey was seen by one of his constables at about 7.30pm, but he was never seen alive again. The following morning his body was discovered in a snow-covered well in the garden of one of the cottages. His watch had stopped at 8.21 and he had suffered injuries to his face, but exactly how they were caused was never proved with any certainty. He left behind a pregnant wife and three children. Exactly how his death came about remains a mystery.

Police Sergeant John Harvey. (Essex Police Museum)

5 JANUARY1918Boy Racers. Frank Chambers (17), Edward Tahon (17), Michael Flaherty (17) and William Beasley (age unrecorded) were remanded on a charge of stealing a motor cab and accessories, the property of Frank Love of Pancras Road, north-west London. Mr Love had left his cab in Museum Street; returning after about ten minutes he found it was missing. The following day he saw Chambers and Tahon on the street and asked if they knew anything about his cab. Amazingly they confessed they had stolen the cab and driven it hell for leather towards Southend – until the petrol ran out. They had then abandoned it at a side turning near Leigh Church. Essex police found the cab and the four boys involved were tracked down and arrested. During questioning, Flaherty said, ‘We saw the cab and jumped into it. Chambers drove it away. I wish I could drive like Chambers.’

6 JANUARY1873 The head and under gamekeepers were out watching for poachers on Sir Thomas Western’s estate at Rivenhall when in the early hours of the morning, they spotted a band of six poachers armed with guns and sticks. Their leader was recognised as one of the estate grooms, Alexander ‘Racer’ Cowell. The gamekeepers leapt out and surprised the poachers who fought back fiercely, hitting out with their sticks to get away. One of the keepers heard a voice say ‘Shoot them!’, and after receiving a severe blow to his head from a shotgun stock he heard another say ‘Out with your knife and finish him.’ Although blinded for a few seconds and bleeding profusely from his head wound, the head keeper ran off and the other keepers retired with him. They quickly called the police. The keepers were able to identify Cowell both by sight and by the sound of his voice, and he was arrested the following day at Braintree. Brought before the Spring Assizes at Chelmsford, Cowell was found guilty of poaching with violence and the judge declared that he would ‘make an example of him’ in his punishment. Cowell was sent down for five years’ penal servitude.

A nasty exchange between poachers and gamekeepers.

7 JANUARY1872 Constable John Street of Foxearth observed three men making off from a local farm with some sacks. Street grabbed the thief with the largest sack but was immediately set upon by the two accomplices. Street grimly held on to the sack until the men ran off, then he gave chase and captured one of the men. The sacks turned out to contain seventeen fowls that the men had stolen and killed. Constable Street was the first member of Essex Constabulary to be awarded the merit star and was ordered to display it on a new uniform jacket when the case came to court.

8 JANUARY1918 Official acknowledgement was given by Essex Constabulary to the valuable work of the voluntary patrols, led by Mrs Cantill and Miss Newton, in policing the young girls who were coming to the area and ‘loitering around army camps’ in the Brentford and Romford area. Captain Unett, the Chief Constable, suggested the employment of six uniformed policewomen to be divided equally between Brentford, Romford and Grays. Thus Essex had its first WPCs – but only briefly, for they were all made redundant in October 1919. It was to be another twenty-five years before Essex welcomed women on to permanent placement within its ranks – the last county force in England to do so!

9 JANUARY1683 It appears the medieval belief that the touch of a monarch could cure King’s Evil (scrofula) was still alive and well in Essex in the late seventeenth century. Philip Peck, Minister of Romford, records his issue of certificates given according to the order made at Whitehall on 9 January 1683 concerning persons affected by the disease called the ‘King’s Evill’ in order ‘to their being touched by His Majesty to the end they may be healed’.

10 JANUARY1908 Fire broke out at the Church of England School in Wickford. All the children were successfully evacuated as soon as the fire was discovered. A telegram was sent to summon the Chelmsford Fire Brigade but they refused to attend because in his haste the sender had not signed it and the fire brigade did not know who to send the bill for their expenses to! Firemen from Billericay did attend but despite their promptness the school was practically gutted by the time they arrived.

King Charles II.

11 JANUARY1899 Police investigations into ‘The Barking Horror’ continued. The body of 5½-year-old Mary Jane ‘Jenny’ Voller had been discovered in early January. She had been murdered and her body thrown into a narrow, muddy stretch of water known as Loxford Brook about 40 yards behind the shops on Harpour Road in Barking. The child had only been ’sent across the road’ by her mother to buy a pennyworth of linseed. Fears were aroused when she failed to return. Her anxious parents went to the shop and found she had never arrived there, nor had she been seen in any other shops in the area. When her body was recovered it was found to be covered in scratches ‘similar to those caused by scissors’. All that was missing were the few pennies she had in her pocket. Her murderer was never found.

‘Jenny’ Voller.

12 JANUARY1843The Times published a comment on the proceedings of the last Quarter Sessions for the county of Essex, remarking that the report would doubtless be ‘read with a strange mixture of wonder and disgust by all who take an interest in the important subject of prison discipline’. It went on to say that the prison was overcrowded, with living space in some of the cells limited to about 4ft by 6½ft per prisoner; there was no heating and little or no ventilation, and the inmates were said to be reduced to weakness and ill-health through insufficient diets and clothing. Scurvy was rife. The eventual outcome of such reports was the enlargement of the prison by 115 cells and a full review of procedures.

13 JANUARYCounty Gaols and Bridewells of Essex visited by Prison Reformer John Howard The County Gaol at Chelmsford was visited by Howard and his representatives on no fewer than six occasions between 1774 and 1783. Unusually, some of the gaolers around this time were female. Susannah Taylor, for example, was followed by John Reynolds, who was succeeded by his widow. They received no salary but were granted fees for debtors and felons of 15s 4d each and were granted £1 5s for taking prisoners due for transportation from London to Gravesend if not more than seven in number (above seven they were paid the slightly lesser sum of £1 1s). They boosted their income by taking a ‘garnish’ from prisoners wealthy enough to pay for comforts like extra food, easing of restraints and straw for warmth. The sign in the tap room said it all: ‘Prisoners pay Garnish or Run the Gauntlet.’ The chaplain, the Revd Mr Morgan, was the highest-paid gaol official with a salary of £50, while the long-suffering surgeon Mr Griffinhoofte received a salary of £25 for attending both the prison and bridewell inmates. Howard was not impressed with the gaol: ‘The old prison was close, and frequently infected with the gaol-distemper. Inquiring in October 1775 for the head-turnkey, I was told he died of it.’ When the new County Gaol at Chelmsford was visited by Howard in 1779 he was impressed, stating that it ‘exceeds the old one in strength and convenience as much as in splendour. The county, to their honour, have spared no cost.’ He recorded commodious rooms with vaulted ceilings for debtors and prisoners, courts, pumps and the segregation of sexes but he felt the cribs and cradles supplied for the babies of prisoners could be improved in standards of health and cleanliness and he noted there was no bath – a special concern as the prisoners in the cells were ‘too much crowded at night’.

14 JANUARY1862 Rebecca Law (24) hammered on her mother’s door in the village of Langley in the early hours of the morning. Holding her 6-year-old son by the hand, she was in a very distressed state and covered in blood. She soon confessed to murdering her husband Samuel (27), a rat catcher by trade, and her 16-week-old baby Alfred. A police officer from Newport was summoned and soon the murder scene – the Laws’ cottage at Starlings Green near Clavering – was uncovered. More than a hundred deep cuts and slashes had been made to Sam’s face and neck, while the poor baby had been killed with a hammer. Rebecca Law was brought before the Lent Assizes. When questioned about the murder, she claimed, ‘All the time I was hitting him there was a noise on the stairs. They kept blundering up the stairs – I mean the devils – but I wasn’t afraid.’ Testimony from medical authorities and the chaplain stated she was a ‘melancholic’ and a ‘religiomaniac’. Found not culpable for her actions, she was removed to an asylum.

15 JANUARY1881 John Wilkinson (16) was brought before the Assizes at Chelmsford charged with the manslaughter of William Butler on Bridge Marsh Island near Latchington. On the evening of 5 December 1880 Mrs Marsh, who lived on Bridge Marsh Island, sent for her friend Charles Butler after she heard an intruder on her premises. Butler arrived with John Wilkinson and another lad named Rogers; they searched the house and immediate area but no intruder was found. Butler went home, leaving the boys as protection, after advising Mrs Moore to find and load her gun, if she had one. She duly brought the gun to Wilkinson who loaded it and fired it to make sure it worked. Then he loaded it again. Later that evening Rogers went outside saying he had heard someone, and Wilkinson followed with the loaded gun. They heard voices and both young men issued challenges but received no reply. They went a little further. Suddenly a man jumped out and seized Rogers violently by the throat; Rogers cried for help and Wilkinson fired at the assailant, felling him instantly. They brought a light and to their horror found it was Charles Butler’s nephew William. He had been walking with his cousin Robert on the sea wall when he heard the boys’ challenges; Robert had walked on but William probably leapt on Rogers as a prank. The judge asked the jury to consider if the gun was set off to frighten or injure the deceased; without a minute’s deliberation the jury returned a verdict of not guilty and the prisoner was discharged.

16 JANUARYOld Punishments: the Scold’s Bridle Alfred Hills MA was Clerk to the Justices of the North Hinckford and Halstead benches for twenty-two years between 1928 and 1950. A well-known and respected historian, he was a regular contributor to Essex Review for thirty years. Among his collection of bygones (which made up the foundation collection of Braintree Museum) was a scold’s bridle (or branks), which he was so proud of he was even photographed wearing it! The bane of early modern British life was the scold – a nagging wife or a rumourmonger or malicious village gossip. The judiciary, with its usual robust approach to such social problems, devised the scold’s bridle. There were several different designs but the basic construction consisted of a lockable iron framework in the form of a helmet-shaped cage that fitted tightly over the head. A small, flat, metal plate protruded into the unfortunate woman’s mouth to hold her tongue down and prevent speech – hence the term ‘hold your tongue!’ Such devices were known to have been in use across the country until the late eighteenth century.

The scold’s bridle.

17 JANUARY1925 A woman’s leg, complete with laced boot and stocking, was placed in the hands of Essex police at Ongar. It was discovered by Ongar motor-mechanic Mr W. Lane while he was travelling through Stanford Rivers on his motorbike at night. Feeling a bump under his wheels he got off to investigate and discovered the limb. A brief search of the area revealed no other body parts so Lane picked up the leg and took it to the police station. A contemporary newspaper report in Weekly Dispatch concluded, ‘so far no one has come forward to claim it’.

18 JANUARY1939 Pamela Coventry (9) left her home in South Romford to return for the afternoon lessons at her school on Benhurst Avenue. Her mother watched her walk up the road. Two of her friends were waiting for her on the corner of Benhurst Avenue but she never arrived. Pamela’s body was discovered by chance by a cyclist who noticed ‘a parcel’ in a ditch by Wood Lane the next day. The post-mortem, carried out by the eminent pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, revealed she had been strangled and sexually assaulted. Local man Leonard Richardson (28) was a prime suspect and was duly brought to trial, but as each item of evidence which potentially linked him to the murder was dismissed and a clear alibi given and confirmed, the jury passed a note to the judge stating they did not wish to hear the summing up and declaring Richardson not guilty. The murder of young Pamela Coventry remains unsolved.

The ditch on Wood Lane where Pamela’s body was found. (Essex Police Museum)

19 JANUARY1927 Inspector Aroll and Superintendent Wood of the Railway Carriage Department were called to investigate the suspicious death of young Catford bride Mrs Dorothy Rose Rushton, whose body had been found on the railway near Wickford. She had planned to visit her brother but had not arrived and was reported missing to the authorities. Aroll and Wood found that if they opened the rear door of the train near the spot where she was found it slammed back with great force; there was no sign of a struggle, Mrs Rushton was not thought to be depressed and nobody reported anything suspicious on the train. There was one odd thing, though. A parcel sent to Brentwood police station from Southend was found to contain her handbag, inside which had been slipped the front page of the Star of 17 January, which featured an account of the woman’s disappearance. There was nothing in the bag or on the parcel to show who had sent it. At the inquest an open verdict was recorded.

20 JANUARYOld Punishments: Broad Arrow Men A familiar term for prisoners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was ‘Broad Arrow Men’, an epithet derived from the distinctive broad arrows or ‘crow’s foot’ stamped on all prison uniforms. The origins of the symbol date back to the seventeenth century when a Master of Ordnance in the Tower of London began marking the weapons with an arrow-like device derived from his coat of arms to indicate they were Tower property. Over the years this symbol has been adopted by all government departments on various items of equipment – from military vehicle parts and rifles to rulers and paperweights – to denote Government Issue. The broad arrow was stamped onto prison garb not only to create a ‘dress of shame’ to be worn by convicts but also to make the clothes distinctive so they would be easy to recognise if they effected an escape. Broad arrows were discontinued on prison uniforms in 1922.

21 JANUARY1871 George Kingsland, a prisoner in Springfield Gaol, was brought before Chelmsford magistrates. The previous day he was proceeding from the chapel to his cell when he threw himself off the corridor and fell 20ft to the basement below. The Chief Warder hurried to help him, but was astonished to find Kingsland uninjured by his dive. Asked why he did it, he stated that he had murdered a man near Barnet four years previously and it was weighing on his mind. Repeating the story to other prison officials and the police superintendent, Kingsland claimed he had stabbed his victim in the throat for the few shillings in his pocket. It transpired that no crime of this nature could be traced, but Kingsland had previous convictions for vagrancy and his ‘confession’ was thought to be nothing more than a ruse to secure him further shelter in gaol during the winter months.

22 JANUARY1810 The Revd Joseph Jefferson left Chelmsford in his carriage between 7.00pm and 8.00pm to go to London, with one servant, Joseph Sharpe, following the carriage on horseback. Halfway between Chelmsford and Ingatestone Sharpe passed a tall man carrying a trunk – which looked remarkably like one which belonged to his master. Sharpe thought little more of it. On their arrival at Ingatestone it was found that the straps had been cut through and both Jefferson’s trunks had been robbed from the back of the carriage. A hue and cry was raised and a thorough search was made. Suspicion soon fell on two private soldiers, William Cooper and William Draper, from the New Barracks at Chelmsford. Some of the stolen property was seized in their barracks and the remainder found concealed in a ditch. Tried at the Assizes the following March on charges of grand larceny, their fate was sealed by Draper’s partner Jane Evans. Fearing for her own neck for complicity in this crime, she testified that the men had brought the trunks to her hut in the barracks to divide their spoils. Both men were found guilty. Their ultimate fate is not recorded but the death sentence was usual for such a crime in 1810.

23 JANUARY1847