A Grim Almanac of Herefordshire E-Book

Nicola Sly

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 395

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

A Grim Almanac of Herefordshire is a day-by-day catalogue of 365 ghastly tales from around the county. Full of dreadful deeds, strange disappearances and a multitude of mysteries, this almanac explores the darker side of Herefordshire's past. Here are stories of tragedy, torment and the truly unfortunate with diverse tales of murderers, bodysnatchers, duelists, poachers, rioters and rebels. Joining them are accounts of tragic suicides, accidents and bizarre deaths, including William Prosser, who died in Clodock in 1893 as the result of a practical joke; the farmer bitten to death by his horse in 1887; and the young man from Colwall who allegedly sat on a spike. Also here is the case of a Yorkshire tramp, whose body was found in Weobley in 1894, and the murders and suicide of Charles Hankins and his two young children in Ledbury in 1896. Some killers were lucky to get away with charges of manslaughter, such as Thomas Carlyle, who shot a coachman near Leominster in 1871, and George Hatton, who rid himself of a nagging wife near Ross in 1893. All these, plus tales of fires, catastrophes, explosions and disasters, are here. Generously illustrated, this chronicle is an entertaining and readable record of Herefordshire's grim past. Read on... if you dare!

Leseprobe

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

A Grim Almanac of Bristol

A Ghostly Almanac of Devon & Cornwall

A Grim Almanac of Dorset

A Grim Almanac of Somerset

A Grim Almanac of South Wales

Bristol Murders

Cornish Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

Dorset Murders

Hampshire Murders

Herefordshire Murders

More Bristol Murders

More Cornish Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

More Hampshire Murders

More Somerset Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

Murder by Poison: A Casebook of Historic British Murders

Oxfordshire Murders

Shropshire Murders

Somerset Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

West Country Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

Wiltshire Murders

Worcestershire Murders

CONTENTS

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Like all counties, Herefordshire has its share of horrible history and dark deeds, which I have collected over the years and kept on file for such a book as this. The true stories within are sourced entirely from the contemporary newspapers listed in the bibliography at the rear of the book. However, much as today, not everything was reported accurately and there were frequent discrepancies between publications, with differing dates and variations in names and spelling.

As always, there are a number of people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for their assistance. The Hereford Times kindly gave me permission to use some of their archive pictures as illustrations. The staff at the Local Studies Centre in Hereford Library were particularly helpful, especially Marianne Percival, and a chance meeting there with Robin Price proved exceptionally useful, as he generously shared his encyclopaedic knowledge of the county. My husband, Richard, took many of the photographs and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, John and Sue, kindly provided accommodation during my research visits to the county. I would also like to thank Matilda Richards, my editor at The History Press, for her help and encouragement in bringing this book to print.

Every effort has been made to clear copyright; however my apologies to anyone I may have inadvertently missed. I can assure you it was not deliberate but an oversight on my part.

Nicola Sly, 2012

JANUARY

Ross from the River Wye, 1950s. (Author’s collection)

1 JANUARY

1892 Coroner Thomas Llanwarne held an inquest at Ross-on-Wye Cottage Hospital on the death of farm labourer John Sandford, who died on 31 December 1891, following an accident on 22 December.

The inquest was told that Sandford and Arthur Chamberlain were loading straw at a farm in Foy. Sandford was balanced on top of the straw in the cart and, when it was fully loaded, he asked Chamberlain to take the cart out of the barn so that the load could be roped down.

Chamberlain led the horse pulling the cart out of the barn, then went back to fetch the ropes. However, as he did, Sandford toppled off the cart on the opposite side. Although Chamberlain didn’t see him fall, he recalled that Sandford had been feeling dizzy for the past couple of days, saying that his head was ‘all on the whirl’.

Sandford complained of pain in his back and head and, by the time the doctor arrived to attend to him, Sandford was partially paralysed on his left side. Although he was initially conscious and rational, further bleeding into his brain soon left him completely paralysed and eventually proved fatal.

The inquest jury attributed Sandford’s fall to an attack of giddiness, returning a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

2 JANUARY

1892 Thirty-three-year-old labourer Charles Preedy was trimming hedges at Little Dewchurch when he decided that it might be more fun to trim the cattle grazing in the field. Preedy cut the tail completely off one cow and badly wounded two others and a bullock by slashing them with his billhook. One cow was cut inside her left hind leg, the second on her hip and the bullock on one side.

Charged with having maliciously maimed three cows and one bullock belonging to Margaret Raymond, Preedy appeared at the Herefordshire Assizes in March 1892, where he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude.

3 JANUARY

1893 When fifty-year-old cowman Peter Watkins didn’t turn up for work as expected, a man was sent to his home in Withington to check on him. Since there was no response to knocks at the door, the man broke into Watkins’s cottage and found him dead in bed, his wife unconscious by his side.

An inquest held by Thomas Llanwarne heard that the couple had placed a bucket of live coals in their bedroom when they retired for the night, in the hope of keeping warm. The bedroom had no chimney and was so tightly sealed against draughts that the fumes created by the burning coals could not escape. The inquest jury ruled that Watkins’s death was caused by accidental suffocation.

4 JANUARY

1861 As the express train from Shrewsbury to Hereford travelled across an embankment near Moreton Station, about six miles outside Hereford, a wheel broke. The train ran off the rails and plunged into a deep dyke that ran alongside the track.

Although most of the passengers either swam to safety or were rescued, Sophia Lowe of Chester and Mary Jones of Breinton were drowned before help could reach them. At an inquest on their deaths held by city coroner Mr Warburton, the jury returned two verdicts of ‘accidental death’, recommending that the Shrewsbury and Hereford Railway Company should use a better quality iron for the wheels and tires of their rolling stock and that there should be some means of communication on trains between the guard and the driver.

5 JANUARY

1927 Coroner Mr L. A. Capel held an inquest at Hereford General Hospital on the death of John Thomas Clarke of Ullingswick.

In September of the previous year, Clarke fell 25ft from a pear tree, after the branch on which his ladder was resting broke. Clarke lay on the ground unable to move for some time until his shouts for help finally attracted the attention of some men working nearby.

Clarke remained in hospital paralysed from the waist down until his life was finally claimed by ‘septic absorption’ nearly four months after his fall. The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

6 JANUARY

1928 Sixty-seven-year-old Dr Hamilton Symonds deliberately gassed himself in his surgery at Hereford.

At an inquest the following day, the doctor’s brother explained that, although Symonds was a qualified surgeon, he had a deep-rooted, pathological objection to surgery and operations of any kind. On the day of the doctor’s death, his son was due to undergo a minor surgical procedure and this, coupled with the fact that Symonds suffered from painful rheumatism, was thought to have triggered his suicide.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘suicide while of unsound mind’.

7 JANUARY

1892 Thirty-five-year-old Richard Johnson assaulted PC Verrill and PS Cupper at Hereford.

When he appeared at the Herefordshire Assizes on 12 March charged with feloniously, unlawfully and maliciously wounding the policemen, Johnson’s guilt was not in question and the only thing to be considered by the court was his mental state at the time of the offence. The surgeon at Hereford Gaol, Henry Vevers, stated that he had observed Johnson at length during his incarceration in the run up to trial and believed that he was delusional.

The judge asked Vevers for an example of Johnson’s delusions and Vevers explained that Johnson suffered from a persecution complex and was convinced that people were intent on harming him. However, Johnson insisted that Vevers was ‘making it all up’. He denied suffering from any delusions and hoped that the court would accept that he was fully responsible for the offence.

High Town, Hereford, 1950. (Author’s collection)

The judge announced his intention of adjourning for lunch.

‘I don’t want to go back in the cells,’ Johnson piped up. ‘They have got men down there to murder me and do away with me.’

‘No they have not,’ the judge replied soothingly.

‘Yes they have and then they will have a verdict that I committed suicide,’ Johnson insisted.

When Johnson returned to court alive and well after the lunch break, he was found guilty but insane and sentenced to be detained as a criminal lunatic.

8 JANUARY

1892 Seven-year-old Alfred Carl Griffiths and his nine-year-old brother Harry John Griffiths died while sliding on the ice in the deer park at Much Dewchurch.

At an inquest held by coroner Thomas Llanwarne, the main witness was the boys’ elder brother, twelve-year-old Edwin. He told the inquest that they were sliding on a small pond together when the two younger boys wandered off. He had no idea where they were until he heard desperate shouts coming from the direction of a larger pool. When he ran towards the shouting, Edwin saw that the ice was broken about 20 yards from the bank and that his two younger brothers were struggling in the icy water.

Unable to assist them, Edwin ran for help but by the time he returned, there was no trace of Alfred and Harry. The pond was dragged and their bodies were recovered some time later.

The inquest jury returned verdicts of ‘accidental death’ on both boys.

9 JANUARY

1932 George Benjamin Parry sat in the kitchen of Hunter’s Hall, Lea, a shotgun propped between his legs, dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, which had severed an artery in his neck and blasted away the top part of one of his lungs. However, a closer examination showed that the gun’s safety catch was engaged and, in addition, there was no blackening around Parry’s wounds, indicating that the gun had not been fired at close range.

Believing that Parry had been shot by someone else, the police called in Home Office Pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury, who agreed with the conclusions reached by the local doctors. The only other person in the house at the time of Parry’s death was arrested on suspicion of having murdered him.

She was widow Edith May Dampier and, when she was committed for trial at the Hereford Assizes, it quickly became apparent that her defence team intended to rely on proving that she was insane at the time of the shooting. Although the disease wasn’t specifically named, it was intimated in court that Mrs Dampier was suffering from syphilis, which can lead to insanity in its later stages.

The jury accepted the medical evidence, finding Mrs Dampier guilty but insane. She was ordered to be detained during His Majesty’s Pleasure and is believed to have died in 1956, while an inmate at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

10 JANUARY

1849 Daniel Lloyd returned to his room at The Feathers Hotel, Ledbury, to find that his trunk had been broken into and £25 in Bank of England notes had been stolen. He instantly suspected commercial traveller James Jones, with whom he had struck up an acquaintance while staying at the hotel. Jones was tracked to Newent and when he was apprehended at The George Inn there, the stolen bank notes were found on his person.

Twenty-six-year-old Jones pleaded guilty to stealing the money at his trial at the Herefordshire Assizes in March 1849. His counsel asked the judge to be merciful on account of the defendant’s previous good character and indeed Jones’s former employer travelled 200 miles to vouch for him. Even the prosecuting counsel and Jones’s victim, Mr Lloyd, joined in with the recommendations for mercy.

The Feathers Hotel, Ledbury. (Author’s collection)

Jones told the court that he had succumbed to temptation while undergoing extreme financial difficulties, an action he now deeply regretted. He promised that, if the judge treated him leniently, he would make sure never to be in the same situation again.

The judge stated that, had it not been for the defendant’s character and undoubted remorse, he would have had no hesitation in sentencing him to be transported but it was still his duty to pass a severe sentence, regardless of previous character. He duly passed sentence of one years’ imprisonment, with hard labour.

11 JANUARY

1880 Having received his wages of 30s, James Williams paid his rent then went to the pub, where he stayed drinking until late at night. Since he was so drunk, Andrew Keggie (or Heggie), William Watkins (aka Morris) and James Davis (or Davies) offered to see him safely home and he was last seen at closing time, leaving The Red Lion Inn at Hereford in their company.

Several people heard sounds of a scuffle and shouts of ‘Murder!’ that night and, on 12 January, Williams’s body was found in the River Wye. Although the cause of his death was drowning, his pockets were turned out and his watch, money and other small personal items were missing, suggesting that he had been robbed. The surgeon who conducted a post-mortem examination found what he believed to be swelling and faint marks on the dead man’s throat.

As the last people to be seen with the deceased, Keggie, Watkins and Davis were questioned and Davis was found to have a silver watch in his possession, along with a large joint of pork, similar to one bought by Williams before his drinking binge. The watch wasn’t the one stolen from Williams but the police were able to prove that Davis had sold Williams’s watch to a publican, Richard Johnson, who then sold it on, giving Davis another watch to pretend to sell.

Keggie, Watkins and Davis were charged with wilful murder and Johnson with having harboured them in the knowledge that they had committed murder and with buying a watch, knowing it to be stolen.

They appeared before Mr Justice Hawkins at the Worcestershire Assizes, where Keggie, Watkins and Davis were first tried for murder. Several people testified that they had seen Williams being forcibly marched towards the river, all the while shouting ‘Murder!’ He had marks of violence on his neck and there were clear signs that a scuffle had taken place on the riverbank near to where Williams was found.

Yet, to the astonishment of the judge, the jury found the defendants not guilty. If there was no murder, then Johnson could not be an accessory and Hawkins empanelled a new jury to hear the case of robbery against the four defendants, who were found guilty.

Still apparently incredulous at their acquittal for murder, Hawkins sentenced each man harshly. Davis received ten years’ penal servitude, while Watkins was awarded eight years. It was Keggie’s first offence, hence Hawkins was slightly more lenient, sentencing him to just five years’ imprisonment, while Johnson’s punishment was seven years’ penal servitude.

12 JANUARY

1893 A funeral was held at the church in Clodock, after which the mourners retired to The Cornewall Arms Inn in the village. There was music, dancing and a lot of drinking and, by closing time, several men were in the mood for a little frivolity. They began a series of practical jokes, one of which was to end in the tragic death of labourer William Prosser and a charge against six men for his manslaughter.

It had been snowing heavily and John Cross, a guest at the inn, was dragged outside, stripped almost naked and rolled in the snow. When the men tired of tormenting Cross, they went to the home of Edwin Chappell, breaking the windows with snowballs then forcing the door open. Chappell was marched outside and rolled down to the river, where he was ducked before the band of practical jokers headed for William Prosser’s home.

The Cornewall Arms, Clodock. (© R. Sly)

Prosser suffered from a weak heart and the next morning, he was found suspended by what few clothes he wore from the palings outside his neighbour’s home. A post-mortem examination, conducted by surgeon Leslie Thain, showed that his near-naked body was covered with scratches and grazes and his bare feet were frostbitten. Thain concluded that Prosser had died from either exposure or terror, stating that he believed that Prosser had tried to go to his neighbour for help, slumping to the ground exhausted outside the house and catching his clothing on the fence, which prevented him from moving.

The physical evidence supported Thain’s conclusions. The windows of Prosser’s house were smashed and his clothes were scattered between his house and his neighbour’s home, as if he had fled in a state of panic, trying to dress as he ran. Farmer Philip Evans had been awakened by Prosser calling him during the previous night. ‘Come quick, they are coming and will kill me,’ Prosser shouted and, looking out of his window, Evans saw five men in his yard but, by the time he got downstairs, Prosser and his pursuers had gone.

Six of the pranksters were arrested and charged with manslaughter. William Davies, Leonard Miles, John Williams, Walter Griffiths, Thomas Jones and Charles Lewis appeared at the Herefordshire Assizes in March, where all pleaded guilty. Griffiths and Davies were sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment with hard labour, Miles, Williams and Jones to four months and Lewis to three days.

13 JANUARY

1860 Respectable farmer’s wife Phoebe Dowding of Hill House Farm, Cradley, was plucking and dressing poultry for market when her neighbour, Thomas Orgee, called.

He demanded a drink but, seeing that he was already intoxicated, sixty-three-year-old Phoebe refused. Orgee said that he would have a kiss instead and although Phoebe warned him off, Orgee persisted in trying to kiss her until she eventually raised her hand to push him away. Unfortunately, she was holding a knife at the time and the blade entered Orgee’s chest, near his left nipple.

Phoebe was brought before magistrates charged with stabbing. Orgee, a wealthy, influential farmer, insisted that he had done nothing to merit being stabbed and that Phoebe had thrust her knife maliciously into his breast with no apparent motive. Phoebe and her servants all swore that she had merely pushed her hand out to ward off Orgee’s advances, forgetting that she was holding a knife at the time.

Magistrates committed Phoebe Dowding for trial at the next Hereford Assizes, although they allowed her to be out on bail until her trial, when the Grand Jury found no bill against her and she was released without penalty. At the Civil Court of the Hereford Assizes in August, Phoebe’s husband James sued Orgee for damages for malicious prosecution, trespass and false imprisonment.

Of particular concern to Mr Dowding was the fact that Phoebe was suffering from rheumatic gout at the time of her arrest and her condition was much worsened by being transported eight miles to the Bromyard lock-up in an open cart at night. The court found in Dowding’s favour and Orgee was ordered to pay £30 damages.

14 JANUARY

1868 Magistrates at Weobley heard evidence of ill-treatment towards a servant girl at Almeley by wealthy farmer Joseph Hankins and his family.

After taking twelve-year-old Sarah Ann Baker out of the Weobley Workhouse in March 1867 to be their farm servant, the Hankins family subjected her to a never-ending catalogue of abuse. She was kicked, her hair was pulled and she was variously beaten with a horse whip, a riding crop, a shoe brush, a holly branch and any other weapon that came to hand. More than once, Sarah was thrown in the trough in the yard and had cold water pumped on her and, although she ran away six times, she was always sent back to the farm to face more cruelty.

Eventually, her fellow servants spoke out and, finding the case proven, magistrates fined Mr and Mrs Hankins a total of £8 19s 6d, including costs.

15 JANUARY

1843 An inquest was held on labourer James Hodges, who died in an accident at work. On 13 January, John Rayne and Hodges were working in a gravel pit at Bodenham, when a bank fell onto Rayne.

His workmate immediately began to try and dig him out but his efforts caused a further fall, burying both men. ‘Shout “murder”,’ Hodges told Rayne, who yelled as loudly as he could for almost two hours but, although there were men working in an adjacent field, Rayne couldn’t make them hear.

Weobley, early 1960s. (Author’s collection)

Former gravel pits, Bodenham. (© R. Sly)

Eventually, Rayne got his hands free, completely wearing away the ends of his fingers in the process. Having scraped the gravel from around his head, he remained buried up to his neck until his employer came to see where his workmen had got to.

Rayne was completely exhausted when extricated from the gravel but Hodges was dead, leaving a widow and four children. The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

16 JANUARY

1917 Coroner John Lambe held an inquest on Dorothy Kathleen Davies, aged six, who died after being knocked down by a car on the afternoon of 14 January.

Kathleen, as she was known, who was one of triplets, had been out with her aunt, with whom she lived. They were walking home accompanied by Mabel Dawes and, when it came time for Mabel to leave them, Patience Davies stopped to shake hands with her friend.

Mabel suddenly exclaimed ‘Oh!’ and when Patience turned, she saw her niece being carried along on the front of a Morgan motorcar. Patience and Mabel chased after the car until Kathleen fell onto the road. A nurse who lived nearby took her into her house and treated a cut on her upper arm before sending Kathleen to hospital, where she died later that evening from internal injuries.

At the inquest, Mabel and Patience were adamant that they had merely paused to say goodbye and that Kathleen was standing close by them. Neither had been really aware of a car until it actually hit the child.

The driver of the car, Morgan Hussey, gave a different account. According to Hussey, the two women were so deep in conversation that they were oblivious to his presence, even though he sounded his horn more than once. The women and child stepped out into the road and appeared to be about to cross. Hussey made a split-second decision to pass behind them – between them and the kerb – but just as he did, the women stopped walking and Kathleen darted back towards the pavement.

The inquest jury felt that Hussey had not taken sufficient precautions in going around the corner and thought that he should have been driving more slowly. However, they did not believe that he had been criminally negligent and so returned a verdict of accidental death, adding that they hoped that this would act as a warning to Hussey and other drivers.

17 JANUARY

1860 After spending a few days in Gloucestershire visiting her parents, a respectable young lady from Hereford boarded a train at Mitcheldean Station.

When the train reached Ross-on-Wye, she was joined in the second-class carriage by a well-dressed gentleman with a black moustache and whiskers, who carried a carpet bag. As soon as the train left the station, the man pulled a bottle of what he said was brandy from his bag and offered the girl a swig. Although she declined, the man grew ever-more persistent and she eventually took a sip simply to appease him.

Within seconds, she was ‘quite stupefied’ and, when she fully regained her senses, she found herself in the waiting room at Barr’s Court Station. Her bag containing two sovereigns and fifteen shillings in silver had vanished, along with her travelling companion and his ‘brandy’.

18 JANUARY

1864 Thomas Watkins of Hennor refused to support his wife and family, leaving Mary Ann Watkins to work as a charwoman and take in washing to feed and clothe their two children. She was assisted by handouts from the parish but the Board of Guardians took a dim view of husbands who shirked their duties and, on 5 January 1864, Mary Ann was summoned before them to discuss her financial status.

Watkins was furious and, knowing that Mary Ann had a second appointment with the Board on 19 January, swore to anyone who would listen that she would never say anything against him again. On 18 January, Mary went charring for Mr Lane, who lived about a mile from her lodgings. That evening, she was found lying in a ploughed field on her route home. She had been viciously beaten and died from a fractured skull and brain damage.

Hennor. (© R. Sly)

Police officers were able to track footprints for miles across country, from near to where Mary was found to a cottage near Eardisland, where they apprehended her husband.

Tried at the Hereford Assizes, Watkins initially pleaded guilty to the wilful murder of his wife, but was persuaded to plead not guilty so that the case could be tried. In the event, his plea made very little difference to the outcome of the trial, since he was found guilty and sentenced to death. His execution on 5 April 1864 was the last public execution ever held at Hereford Gaol.

19 JANUARY

1938 An inquest was held on the death of seventy-eight-year-old Alice Taylor Powell of Ludham House, Madley.

When people realised that they hadn’t seen the elderly widow for a couple of days, they checked and found that her chimney had blown down in a gale, falling onto a scullery roof and causing its collapse. After digging through the wreckage for ninety minutes, neighbours found the bodies of Mrs Powell and her beloved cat buried beneath rubble. A post-mortem examination showed that Mrs Powell had died instantly and the inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

20 JANUARY

1890 Coroner Thomas Llanwarne held an inquest at Pipe-cum-Lyde on the death of Louisa Prosser.

Two days earlier, labourer Henry Prosser was at work when a boy told him that there was a little girl on fire outside his house. Fearing for his two daughters, Henry ran home as fast as he could and, when he reached his cottage, he found nine-year-old Louisa lying dead on the path. With the exception of her shoes, all of the child’s clothes had been burned off, and her body was charred from head to foot.

It emerged at the inquest that Louisa had been trying to light the fire at home, having borrowed a Lucifer match from a man who was hedging nearby. Soon afterwards, an eight-year-old neighbour, James Hinton, heard screaming and found Louisa on fire.

James told the inquest that he had dragged Louisa to the soft water tub in the garden and put out the flames. Louisa then walked indoors but, as she did, her still smouldering clothes burst into flames again and she ran about the garden in a panic. James, who burned his hands trying to put out the fire, said that Louisa told him that she had been using paraffin to try and get the cottage fire started, and a tin of paraffin with the stopper removed was later found on the kitchen floor.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death caused by the effect of burns.’

21 JANUARY

1890 At Bosbury, farmer James Williams went out at five o’clock in the morning to catch his horse. It was cold, dark and very windy and his wife grew concerned when he didn’t return as quickly as she might have expected.

Eventually, Mrs Williams heard the sound of the horse clip-clopping towards the farmhouse. However, the hoof beats were accompanied by a strange groaning sound and, when she went to investigate, she found her husband with his throat cut from ear to ear.

Initially, it seemed as though Williams had cut his own throat, especially when his knife was later found covered in blood. Yet, once he was well enough to speak, Williams told a different tale.

The farmer swore that he was approached by two men, one of whom remarked to his companion, ‘We’ll settle the old *******.’ The men then tripped Williams up and knelt astride him, searching through his pockets. When they discovered that he had nothing but a knife about his person, the men cut Williams’s throat and left him for dead.

Although Williams is believed to have recovered from his injury, there does not appear to be any record of a prosecution for his attempted murder.

22 JANUARY

1875 Richard Mayor of Tarrington was slaughtering a pig for his neighbour, Edward Evans, and, having killed the pig and slit its throat, he carelessly tossed his knife onto the ground behind him. Unfortunately, Evans’s dog was taking a close interest in the proceedings and the knife speared the animal, mortally wounding it.

On 27 January, Evans took Mayor before magistrates at Ledbury, claiming the value of the dog, which he set at £2. Mayor swore that the dog’s death was a pure accident and the magistrates dismissed the case, although they intimated that Mayor had a moral responsibility to compensate Evans for the loss of his dog. Mayor eventually paid the court costs, totalling 11s.

23 JANUARY

1830 The Recorder for the City of Hereford happened to notice a strange piece of paper on the table of his parlour at home. Curiosity compelled him to pick it up and read it and he found to his astonishment that it was an important document, which had apparently been torn from the minute book of the City Council meetings.

The Recorder asked where the paper had come from and was told by his wife that it was used by a confectionery shop in the city to wrap gingerbread. The Recorder immediately began an investigation into how the shop had obtained the document and it was eventually established that, over a lengthy period of time, a number of important records had been stolen from the Guildhall, the City Sessions Rooms, the town clerk’s office and from a store room. The culprit was a woman named Hester Garstone, who was employed to clean and light fires. Hester had purloined numerous records and sold them to shopkeepers for waste paper.

Although two and a half sacks of documents were recovered, it was impossible to estimate the extent of Hester’s pilfering, which was described as ‘considerable and irreparable’. She was tried at the Lent Assizes on three counts of larceny and, found guilty on all three, was sentenced to a total of five weeks in prison.

24 JANUARY

1928 The jury at the inquest on the death of nineteen-year-old Ada Frances Wall found that she had committed suicide, while of unsound mind.

Ada worked as a domestic servant at the Waverley Private Hotel in Ross-on-Wye. She was courting a soldier but was devastated when his correspondence abruptly ceased, crying bitterly when she arrived home on the evening of 20 January to find that there was no letter waiting for her. At some time during that night, she drank about four fluid ounces of carbolic acid, dying in agony. There was little doubt that it was a deliberate act, since Ada left a suicide note stating that she intended to take her own life.

On the morning that Ada was found dead, the long-awaited love letter arrived at her home.

Memorial card. (Author’s collection)

25 JANUARY

1853 James Addis from Much Dewchurch was walking along the railway line near the Gallows Tumps at Grafton when a train approached. The driver sounded his whistle and Addis stepped aside but, at the last moment, seemed to decide that there wasn’t sufficient room for the train to pass him safely. He tried to dash to the other side of the line but the train was already upon him. An empty wagon preceding the engine knocked him over and the fire box pushed him several yards along the track, before the remaining wagons ran over him.

Although terribly mutilated, Addis was still alive. He was taken to the Hereford Infirmary, where he lingered until the next morning, before dying from his injuries. An inquest was held the following day, at which the jury returned a verdict of accidental death.

26 JANUARY

1881 As James Warren drove his trap from Eastnor into Ledbury, he spotted something lying in a ditch adjacent to Worcester Road. When he looked more closely, he realised that it was the dead body of a woman.

Although one side of her face had been almost entirely eaten away by animals, the woman was later identified as Mary Bozier (or Bouzer) of Birmingham, who had been missing for some time. Ten days earlier, Ledbury was affected by a severe snowstorm and it was assumed that Mary had fallen into the ditch during the bad weather, her body then being covered by snow and remaining concealed until the thaw.

27 JANUARY

1919 Coroner Colonel M.J.G. Scobie held an inquest at the Herefordshire General Hospital on the death of sixty-one-year-old Isaac Batten of Credenhill.

On 10 January, Batten was collecting blocks of wood, which had been cut using a circular saw, and throwing them into a cart. As he did, his employer farmer Edward Albert Hall saw him wince.

Hall asked if Batten was all right and Batten replied that he must have touched the saw. Hall inspected Batten’s finger, which had a deep cut on a joint, and took him into the farmhouse, where he washed and disinfected the wound, bandaged it in clean linen and took Hall to the hospital. The cut was stitched and Batten was released, but by 23 January he was seriously ill with tetanus.

Credenhill. (Author’s collection)

He was admitted as an in-patient and an anti-tetanus serum was injected, but it was too late and Batten died the next day. According to the doctors at the hospital, Hall had done everything right in washing and disinfecting Batten’s cut with Lysol and the fact that Batten subsequently developed tetanus was just sheer bad luck.

The coroner, who sat without a jury, recorded a verdict of ‘death from tetanus due to an injury.’

28 JANUARY

1840 The wooden spire of the church at Much Cowarne was struck by lightning. By the time the fire engine arrived, the whole of the tower was on fire and such was the intensity of the blaze that the six church bells completely melted.

The firemen concentrated on extinguishing the flames that had spread to the church roof. The storm continued to rage and the high winds blew sparks towards the thatched roofs of the village and the hay and straw stacks of neighbouring farms. Fortunately, there was a plentiful supply of water and the fire was confined to the church.

The damage was estimated at between £2,000 and £3,000 and the contemporary newspapers commented on the rarity of lightning strikes in January, while pointing out that a storm destroyed the steeple of a church in Somerset only two weeks earlier.

Note: Several different dates are given for the fire, although most sources agree that it occurred on a Tuesday.

Much Cowarne church. (© R. Sly)

29 JANUARY

1917 Soldier Thomas Breen of the Royal Defence Corps was billeted at a fish and chip shop on Owen Street, Hereford, where he fell in love with the owner’s daughter, Elfreda Wilson. Sadly for Thomas, Elfreda didn’t return his feelings and he was eventually asked to leave his lodgings because of his unwanted advances towards her. On 29 January, in front of several witnesses, Breen returned to Owen Street and shot Elfreda, the bullet entering her left side, passing through her body in a downwards direction and exiting her right side.

Elfreda died from her injuries and Breen was charged with her wilful murder. Tried at the Hereford Assizes, his guilt was never in doubt, since the shooting was witnessed by several people, including some military policemen. However, while the jury agreed that he had shot Elfreda, they were unable to agree on his mental state at the time of the shooting. Eventually the judge was forced to discharge the jury and a new one was sworn in to retry the case the next day. This time, they found Breen guilty but insane and he was sentenced to be detained as a criminal lunatic during the King’s Pleasure.

30 JANUARY

1903 John and Selina Prosser appeared at the Hereford County Police Court, charged with unlawfully and wilfully neglecting their five children. Magistrates were told that Clara Sophia (10), Mary Jane (8), William Henry (6), Edith May (4) and John Arthur (20 months) were infested with nits and fleas and covered with weeping sores from infected bites.

Numerous official visits to their filthy house, dating back as far as August 1902, had produced no improvement in the children’s living conditions and it was agreed that the neglect by their parents was causing them unnecessary suffering.

John Prosser was said to be tidy, hard-working and sober. ‘I have told my wife about it several times,’ he claimed, telling magistrates that he handed over all of his wages to his wife, who spent it on drink. Selina Prosser denied drinking to excess, saying, ‘I have always done my best for the children.’

Magistrates were unable to believe her, stating that they found her guiltier than her husband. John Prosser was therefore discharged, while Selina was sent to prison for one month.

31 JANUARY

1879 Forty-three-year-old Edward Saunders, who worked as a shunter for Great Western Railway, was knocked down by a train near Barr’s Court Station. Nobody saw what happened and indeed, nobody even realised that there had been an accident until someone noticed a hand lamp lying on the ground and heard groans. Saunders had two broken legs and, although he was still conscious, he spoke only to complain of being cold and to ask the Almighty to have mercy upon him. Although he was taken straight to the Hereford Infirmary, he was dead on arrival. He left a widow and five children.

Saunders was known as a steady, respectable man and a first-class employee, who had worked for GWR for ten years. At the time of the accident, he was just finishing a nightshift and it was thought that, in an uncharacteristic moment of carelessness, he stepped in front of a moving train and was knocked down.

Coroner John Lambe determined that Saunders’s death was ‘a pure accident’ and could conceive of no blame being attached to anyone.

FEBRUARY

Church Lane, Ledbury. (Author’s collection)

1 FEBRUARY

1851 Isaac and Sarah Roberts went into Hereford for the day from their home in Kivernoll. As they left the city, they began quarrelling and Isaac stormed off in a huff, leaving Sarah to make her own way home. When she didn’t arrive, he assumed that she had gone back to Hereford and went to bed.

At lunchtime the next day, Sarah was found drowned in a ditch about two miles from her cottage. At first, it was thought that she had simply strayed off the path but, when the scene of her death was investigated more closely, it quickly became evident that she had met with foul play.

The water in the ditch was less than 3ft deep and, although there were no external or internal marks of violence on Sarah’s body, with the exception of a small scratch on her nose, the contents of the two baskets of shopping she was carrying were found scattered around on the road, which ran above the ditch. Sarah’s bonnet lay on the bank and there were several footprints in the snow, all of which had been made by a man’s boots. Furthermore, two witnesses who lived nearby claimed to have heard terrible screams and cries of ‘Murder!’ but had been prevented from going to the distressed woman’s assistance by a deep flood that lay between her and their home.

It appeared as though somebody had carried Sarah from the road and put her into the water and, when the boot prints in the snow were found to match Isaac’s boots, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against him.

Sarah was Isaac’s third wife (the previous two having died from natural causes) and to all intents and purposes, theirs was a happy marriage. Isaac appeared extremely distressed when Sarah’s body was found and, when taken to the ditch, he appealed to God to strike him dead on the spot if he was his wife’s murderer.

He was spared God’s wrath to appear at the Herefordshire Assizes in March, still protesting his innocence. Having considered the prosecution’s evidence, the Grand Jury, whose job it was to review the prosecution’s evidence and determine whether the case was sufficiently strong to be tried, found ‘no bill’ and Roberts was discharged. His wife’s murder – if indeed it was a murder – remains unsolved.

2 FEBRUARY

1829 John Evans, aka Squire Smallman, was incarcerated in Hereford Gaol, awaiting his trial for countless robberies committed throughout Herefordshire. On his arrest in a public house in Montgomeryshire, he had more than £200 on his person and a search of his parents’ home recovered dozens of stolen articles.

After exercise in the prison yard on 2 February, Evans managed to slip unnoticed up a flight of stairs leading to an upper level at the gaol. There were five cells on the top floor, only one of which was occupied – the doors to the others had been left open for ventilation and the bedding rolled into bundles, which lay on the iron bedsteads.

Evans secreted himself behind the doors of one of the cells, having primed his cell mate to answer for him at roll-call. When the prison was in darkness, he carefully removed two small bars from a leaded window. He then tied two sheets together, affixing the ends to the staples in the walls used for suspending hammocks. A blanket was tied to the centre of the sheets and the other end secured to the bars of the cell’s window. In this way, Evans constructed a stable platform on which to stand to enable him to reach the top arch of the cell.

By removing bricks from the arch, he made a small hole, through which he wriggled to gain access to the roof space. He crossed to the opposite side of the gaol and removed several roof tiles, lowering himself to the boundary wall using a torn sheet. From there, he dropped to freedom, placing his shirt over his prison uniform so that it looked like a smock frock.

Evans spent the next few weeks living at inns throughout Herefordshire and Shropshire. However, in early March, while at The Boar’s Head Inn at Bishop’s Castle, he was recognised and when Edward Richards tried to apprehend him, Evans shot and wounded him.

Evans was eventually executed at Shrewsbury, having been found guilty of maliciously shooting Richards. He bequeathed his ill-gotten fortune to his sister, who offered all of the money to Richards if he didn’t appear as a witness against her brother.

3 FEBRUARY

1927 Fifty-year-old Eva Butcher committed suicide by flinging herself from a balcony at her house at Bodenham Road, Hereford. It was not her first attempt at ending her life and she had shown signs of mental illness for several years, during which time she was cared for by her twenty-five-year-old daughter, Kathleen. After her mother’s death, Kathleen went to stay with friends for a three-week holiday, returning home refreshed and apparently quite cheerful.

On 14 March, her brother Alec George Butcher and sister Joan were at home when Alec saw Kathleen walk past the dining room window and climb a staircase on the outside of the house. Soon afterwards, he heard a thump and, when he went to investigate, he found Kathleen lying on the ground underneath the balcony from which their mother had jumped only weeks before.

‘Are you hurt?’ Alec asked his sister, who scathingly replied, ‘Yes, of course I am.’

Dr Butler was sent for and diagnosed a broken ankle. However, even though her ankle was set, Kathleen failed to recover and was taken to hospital, where an X-ray showed an injury to her spine. Eventually, she developed chronic cystitis, from which she died on 16 April.

Having been given morphia to relieve her pain, at no time after her fall was Kathleen sufficiently rational to explain what had happened, although she mentioned a broken cord several times and a length of broken cord was found lying near to where she landed. Coroner Major E.A. Capel told the inquest jury that the probability was that Kathleen had thrown herself out of the window in a sudden fit of depression rather than having fallen by accident. However, if he found that she had committed suicide, he would be basing his conclusion on assumption alone and, in his opinion, the evidence didn’t justify such a verdict.

All the evidence showed that Kathleen was a perfectly normal, stable woman and the coroner therefore suggested that the jury found an open verdict that she died in a fall from a window.

4 FEBRUARY

1843 Seventy-nine-year-old Elizabeth Webb died at Ledbury, having steadfastly refused to reveal how she came by the injuries that cause her death.

Elizabeth lived with her two sons, George and John, and her bedridden daughter, Milborough, who was described as ‘almost an idiot’. John, a thatcher, suffered from fits of insanity, which were particular prevalent in winter, although he had never before committed an act of violence.

On 16 January, John went into the bedroom that his mother shared with Milborough and attacked both women with an axe handle. Milborough managed to jump out of bed and run away but Elizabeth sustained a fractured skull, a compound fracture of the lower jaw and a black eye.

Forty-year-old John soon recovered his reason but appeared at the Hereford Assizes on 28 March 1843, where he was found not guilty of wilful murder due to insanity and sentenced to be detained as a criminal lunatic.

Strangely, Milborough had not spoken for several years prior to the night of the assault. The blow to her head restored her power of speech.

5 FEBRUARY

1933 As James Pritchard was delivering newspapers at West Hill, Ledbury, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck. When he raised his hand to the site of the pain, he realised that his neck was bleeding.

Looking round, Pritchard spotted a young boy behind a tree with an airgun in his hand. ‘Not a bad shot,’ the boy remarked before running away. The following week, exactly the same thing happened again. ‘Three good shots for a kill,’ shouted the boy, before making himself scarce.

Pritchard knew the identity of the young sharpshooter and went to see his parents but, when they treated the incidents as a joke, he made a formal complaint to the police.

The thirteen-year-old boy appeared at Ledbury Children’s Court on 2 March. He admitted to shooting Pritchard on the first occasion, claiming that he had hit him accidentally, not having aimed his gun at anything in particular. He vehemently denied the second shooting, saying that he wasn’t even at home on the relevant date.

Since his parents refused to take their son’s behaviour seriously, magistrates confiscated his gun and bound him over in the sum of £5 to behave for twelve months. His parents were ordered to pay 5s costs.

6 FEBRUARY

1851 John Addis was drinking in Lower Ballingham with Joseph Tyler, Mr Rosser and Mr Townsend and all were pretty drunk by the time they set off to walk into Hereford. After consuming yet more alcohol there, they left for home at around midnight.