A Grim Almanac of Oxfordshire E-Book

Nicola Sly

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A Grim Almanac of Oxfordshire is a day-by-day catalogue of 366 ghastly tales from the county's past. There are murders and manslaughters, including the killing by Mrs Barber of her entire family in 1909 while temporarily insane, and the brutal murder of four-year-old Edward Busby in 1871, killed by his mother to prevent his father ill-treating him. There are bizarre deaths, including those of four-year-old Charles Taylor, who was accidentally kicked clean through a top storey window in 1844 by a child playing on a swing, George Sheppard, who was struck by a cricket ball during a match in 1905, and of the vicar of Bucknell, who starved himself to death in 1935. There is an assortment of calamities which include strange and unusual crimes, devastating fires, rail crashes, explosions, disasters, mysteries, freak weather and a plethora of uncanny accidents. Generously illustrated, this chronicle is an entertaining and readable record of Oxfordshire's grim past. Delve into the dreadful deeds of Oxford's past, if you dare…

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

TITLE

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

BIBLIOGRAPHY

COPYRIGHT

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

A Ghostly Almanac of Devon & Cornwall

A Grim Almanac of the Black Country

A Grim Almanac of Bristol

A Grim Almanac of Dorset

A Grim Almanac of Herefordshire

A Grim Almanac of Leicestershire

A Grim Almanac of Somerset

A Grim Almanac of South Wales

A Horrid History of Christmas: Horrible Happening & Frightening Festivities

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

INTRODUCTION & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Beneath Oxfordshire’s apparent cultured and peaceful façade lurks a historical catalogue of dark deeds and shocking scenarios which, on occasions, seem to beggar belief. However, all the stories within are true and are sourced entirely from the contemporary newspapers listed in the bibliography at the rear of the book. Much as today, not everything was reported accurately and there were frequent discrepancies between publications, with differing dates and variations in names and spelling – in addition, the county boundaries of Oxfordshire and Berkshire historically seem very fluid, so even the location of events sometimes seems to change at will, depending on which newspaper reports them.

As always, there are a number of people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for their assistance. The Oxford Mail kindly gave me permission to use one of their archive pictures as an illustration. On a personal level, I couldn’t have written this book without the support of my husband, Richard, and 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, 2013

JANUARY

The Lock, Abingdon. (Author’s collection)

1 JANUARY

1895 Coroner Henry F. Galpin held an inquest into the death of Marston farmer James Aries.

On 30 December 1894, the farmer’s neighbours heard him shouting. Richard Smith sent his workman to see what Aries wanted, and Charles Culley found sixty-one-year-old Aries lying in his porch, a revolver about a yard away. ‘Is it done accidental or no?’ Culley asked, and Aries replied, ‘No.’ He gave the same response when Smith asked him that question.

Aries was taken to hospital, where surgeons found a single gunshot wound in his chest. They determined that the revolver must have been held very close to Aries’ body when it was fired.

Once in hospital, Aries was adamant that the shooting was an accident. He had purchased the gun three months earlier for protection against burglars and now, according to Aries, ‘The thing wouldn’t go off and I was looking at it and it shot me.’

Aries’ adopted son, Frank Haynes, told the inquest that his father was ‘jolly’ shortly before shooting himself and added that there was nothing about his affairs to suggest that he might be contemplating suicide. Aries had told him that his gun was malfunctioning and that ‘a man who knows about such things’ said that it just needed more regular use.

When Aries died from internal bleeding, it was left to the inquest jury to decide between suicide and accidental death – they chose the latter option.

2 JANUARY

1894 Coroner Mr Robinson held an inquest at the vicarage, Beckley, into the death of Revd George Theophilus Cooke.

The vicar had been feeling a little under the weather and his doctor prescribed a tonic for neuralgia and rheumatism. On 30 December, Cooke’s sister, Caroline, collected a fresh bottle of the tonic, purchasing a large bottle of carbolic acid for domestic cleaning at the same time. She left the carbolic acid on the piano in the drawing room and placed her brother’s medicine on a table outside his bedroom.

That evening, seventy-four-year-old Cooke, who had no sense of smell, came to his sister’s room complaining about the taste of the tonic and saying that it burned his mouth. When Caroline investigated, she found that he had taken the carbolic acid from the drawing room and, in spite of the fact that it was clearly labelled ‘Poison’, had drunk a teaspoonful under the mistaken impression it was his tonic. Although every effort was made to induce Cooke to vomit with mustard, salt water and ipecacuanha, he died within fifteen minutes.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘death from accidental poisoning.’

3 JANUARY

1853 After heavy rains, a railway tunnel near Wolvercote had collapsed and was under repair, limiting the amount of traffic that the line could cope with. At Oxford Station, a passenger train waited to depart but was prohibited from leaving the station until the 5.20 p.m. coal train arrived.

A telegraph was received to say that the coal train had left Islip and, shortly afterwards, a ballast train belonging to the contractors working on the tunnel pulled into the station. The driver of the passenger train wrongly assumed that this was the coal train and set off, disregarding all the signals against him.

Guard Joseph Kinch realised his driver’s mistake and waved his flag and the station porter blew his whistle, but the driver and stoker didn’t notice them. At a bridge just outside Oxford, the wrong signal was unaccountably displayed, showing a green light for the driver to proceed.

The passenger train, carrying twenty-one passengers, and the coal train collided head-on less than a mile from the station, killing six people outright. Two more died within days and many were badly injured.

An inquest was opened and adjourned, since Kinch, who was a key witness, was not well enough to appear. The proceedings eventually concluded on 16 January with a verdict of manslaughter against Kinch, on the grounds that he bore the ultimate responsibility for starting the train. He was promptly arrested but acquitted at his trial at the Oxford Assizes on 3 March.

4 JANUARY

1899 A letter was read out at the regular meeting of the Chipping Norton Board of Guardians concerning a complaint made to Messrs H. and C. Burden about a defective coffin.

Burden’s supplied all of the coffins used for parish funerals and, at a recent pauper’s funeral at Milton-under-Wychwood, the mourners complained that the body was clearly visible inside the coffin and that the stink emanating from within was unacceptable.

In response to the complaint by the Board of Guardians, Messrs Burden wrote that, like all of their coffins, this one was made from sound elm boards, well and properly put together and well pitched inside. If the corpse was visible, it was because the lid wasn’t properly screwed down, and since this occurred at the Workhouse, Burden’s felt that they couldn’t be held responsible.

It was established that, after death, the corpse became so swollen with gas that it no longer fitted the purpose-made coffin and, fearing that it might explode, the Workhouse staff were keen to get it buried as soon as possible.

5 JANUARY

1900 Thirty-two-year-old Edwin James Harris appeared before magistrates at the Oxford City Court, charged with assaulting and threatening his wife with violence on 29 December.

Harris’s wife and daughter both testified that Harris punched his wife in the forehead and then picked up a carving knife, with which he threatened to cut her throat. However, when Harris himself entered the witness box, he swore ‘before God his maker’ that his wife and daughter had sworn falsely against him, adding that he might at times have ‘kicked up a bit of a row’ but had never laid a finger on his wife.

In spite of his protests, the Bench found him guilty of aggravated assault, fining him £1, with 9s costs or one month’s hard labour in default. Mrs Harris promptly applied for a separation order, which the magistrates granted, ordering Harris to pay 8s a week maintenance.

6 JANUARY

1899 An inquest was held at the Radcliffe Infirmary by coroner Mr H.F. Galpin into the death of forty-three-year-old Fred Shurmer, who died following an accident on Boxing Day 1898.

Henry Miller was driving a four-wheeled coach carrying a party of people to Headington and stopped to adjust the bridle. As he was climbing back onto the coach, the horse moved suddenly and Miller was knocked over. Finding the reins loose, the horse bolted, the passengers screaming in terror as the coach raced out of control through the streets. When it reached Magdalen Bridge, Shurmer bravely leaped out in front of the runaway horse and tried to grab the bridle.

Magdalen College and bridge, 1950s. (Author’s collection)

Although nobody actually saw what happened, passers-by found Shurmer semi-conscious on the pavement and called a doctor, who transferred him to hospital, where he was initially treated for a broken ankle. By the time that doctors realised that Shurmer had internal injuries it was too late and he died from a four-inch rupture to his bladder.

At the inquest, the coroner stated that the police had been unable to find anyone who had actually witnessed what happened on the bridge, so there was only the deceased’s account to his wife that he had tried to stop the coach and that nobody was to blame for his accident. The jury accepted this and returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

7 JANUARY

1920 Fourteen-year-old Thomas Edward Newton was shooting sparrows in the garden of his parents’ cottage in Wantage when he accidentally fired his rifle through a window. The bullet hit his mother in the chest, fatally wounding her.

In returning a verdict of accidental death on forty-one-year-old Mary Newton, the inquest jury asked the police to take action against the showman from the fair who sold the rifle to Thomas, and also against the person who supplied the boy with cartridges.

8 JANUARY

1933 After a severe gale, Ernest Bruce came across a fallen tree partially blocking a road near Oxford. Bruce’s first thought was to warn other motorists and he ran back along the road to stop approaching traffic. The first vehicle to come along was a motorcycle, ridden by twenty-year-old James Charles Walters of Benson, near Wallingford, with James’s brother, seventeen-year-old Lawrence as a pillion passenger.

Hearing the motorcycle, Bruce stepped into the road and waved his arms for it to stop. However, Walters ignored his signal and swerved round him, continuing at speed until he hit the tree. Both he and his brother were swept off the bike by a branch, dying almost immediately.

At the inquest, the jury returned two verdicts of accidental death, commending Bruce for trying to alert others to the danger.

9 JANUARY

1861 Twenty-four-year-old servant Henrietta Clarke died in Henley-upon-Thames Workhouse. She weighed only 50lb and was extremely emaciated, as well as being dirty and having gangrene in four of her toes, due to frostbite. An inquest returned a verdict of manslaughter against her employer, Robert Durno Mitchell.

Henrietta had worked for the Mitchell family since August of the previous year. Their house in Henley was hidden behind high walls and the gate was usually kept locked, so very few people actually saw Henrietta, who was said to have been in perfect health when she started her new job. However, those who did see her told the inquest that she always seemed ravenously hungry.

Chimneysweep Henry Palmer once gave Henrietta a piece of soot-covered bread from his pocket. Palmer stated that he would not have eaten the bread himself, since it was so dirty, but Henrietta bolted it as if she were starving. The people who delivered milk to the house stated that they never saw Henrietta, as they placed the milk on the top of the high wall and she took it down from inside. They related that she often gave them money to buy her a penny loaf, which they did.

A doctor was called to attend to Henrietta on 4 January and, in front of Mrs Mitchell, she told him that she always had plenty of food to eat. Henrietta was taken to the Workhouse Infirmary, where she ate ravenously, but the food came too late and she died five days after admission.

Mitchell was charged with feloniously killing Henrietta Clarke and tried at the Oxford Assizes on 4 March 1861. Mitchell’s family and other servants all stated that Henrietta was well-treated and given plenty of food. Mitchell’s defence counsel pointed out that Henrietta made no complaint to anyone, adding that she was free to come and go as she pleased. Although she had asked the people who delivered milk to fetch her food, she had never once complained to them about being starved.

By profession, Mitchell was a retired naval surgeon and when the jury at his trial found him not guilty, he was discharged to vigorous booing and hissing from the courtroom.

10 JANUARY

1928 An inquest was held into the death of ten-month-old John Bowen of Oxford.

Baby John was sitting on his father’s knee being fed, when the glass feeding bottle slipped from Mr Bowen’s hand and shattered on the floor. As it fell, Bowen tried to catch it and, in doing so, tipped the baby out of his lap. John fell onto the broken glass, severely cutting his head, and bled to death before a doctor could reach him. The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

11 JANUARY

1886 An inquest was held at Shipton-on-Cherwell into the death of eight-year-old Arthur Henry Abbott. On the previous day, Arthur and five of his friends were sliding on ice on the village pond when someone mentioned that the Oxford Canal was frozen over. Excitedly, the boys rushed to a section of the canal near the churchyard to see.

The ice near the banks appeared thick enough to support their weight and Arthur decided that he was going to walk across from one side to the other. Unfortunately, the ice in the middle of the canal was much thinner that that at the edges and it gave way, plunging the little boy into the freezing cold water.

Arthur managed to hang onto the edge of the ice for five minutes until help arrived. Two men from the village went out onto the ice with horse halters, venturing as close to Arthur as they dared. They threw the halters to Arthur but he was too cold and exhausted to grab them and soon sank. His body was recovered within fifteen minutes but it proved impossible to resuscitate him.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidentally drowned’.

12 JANUARY

1805 An inquest held in Tetsworth into the death of Ruth Lee found that she had died ‘by visitation of God’.

Nobody had been permitted to enter Ruth’s house for many years and when neighbours noticed that she was no longer out and about in the village as she normally was, they investigated and found her dead in her bedroom.

Reports in the contemporary newspapers state: ‘She had not suffered any person to enter into her apartment for a number of years; nor had a broom or any other article been used to clean it.’ A number of shillings and sixpences were found on her bedside table, having been completely covered by several years’ accumulation of dust. Ruth also had plenty of new bed linen but apparently preferred to sleep on the sacking of her bedstead, without even the comfort of a mattress.

13 JANUARY

1880 John ‘Jacky’ Cluff of North Street, Banbury, was a month short of his second birthday and, during the day, he attended nursery school, where Mrs Neighbour, also of North Street, looked after fifteen toddlers in her home.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, Mrs Neighbour briefly left the children unattended while she went to hang out some washing in her garden. When she returned, a child was missing and, on questioning the other children, she was told ‘Jacky’s gone’.

Mrs Neighbour assumed that John had wandered home but when there was no sign of him there, a search of the neighbourhood was quickly organised.

It wasn’t until much later that somebody suggested checking Mrs Neighbour’s well. The well was in a pantry off the kitchen and was usually kept covered by a wooden lid. Mrs Neighbour remembered using the well shortly before John disappeared but was sure that she had covered it and closed the pantry door after her. Nevertheless, John’s body was discovered floating on the surface of the water and, on reflection, Mrs Neighbour recalled leaving the pantry door unfastened and the well only partially covered.

At the inquest, the jury charitably returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’, although they added that they believed that Mrs Neighbour was at fault. Coroner Mr A. Weston was clearly not happy but, unable to change the verdict, he settled for reprimanding Mrs Neighbour. If she had these children in her house, warned Weston, she had a duty to look after them and it seemed improper – if not illegal – to have a dangerous well like this with so many toddlers around. If she continued her school, she must see that the well was made safe or that a pump was installed.

14 JANUARY

1891 Coroner Mr E.L. Hussey held an inquest at the Radcliffe Infirmary into the death of seventeen-year-old William John Ing.

Ing worked at Thame Grammar School and one of his responsibilities was attending to the baths. A new boiler had been installed in September 1870 and, on 10 January, gardener James Rush lit the fire, making sure that water had been pumped into the boiler first.

Rush fed the fire until lunchtime, when he left Ing in charge. At four o’clock, Rush checked the fire and found that Ing had created a tremendous blaze in the boiler’s firebox, far fiercer than was necessary to heat the water.

‘The water wasn’t heating and I thought it would make it hot,’ Ing explained when Rush questioned him. Rush left Ing pumping water into the boiler and had just gone into the yard when there was an explosion. Ing disappeared in a cloud of smoke and steam and Rush could only locate him by his repeated exclamations of ‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’

Taken to hospital, Ing’s injuries initially seemed superficial, the most serious being a deep cut on his left arm. However, he quickly began to show symptoms of internal bleeding and died from a lacerated liver on 11 January.

At the inquest, boiler expert John Horton stated that the most likely cause of the explosion was that the supply pipe was frozen. The boiler had not been used for two days prior to the catastrophe and, according to Horton, the recent frosts were the severest he had ever known and resulted in him being called out to mend hundreds of split pipes since Christmas. On hearing that, the inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

15 JANUARY

1877 Thirteen-year-old Annie Coombes (aka Annie Dipper) worked for the Viner family of Witney as a maidservant. Caleb Viner’s wife was a very religious woman and, while she and their four children were at chapel, Caleb took liberties with Annie, who, knowing no better, made no complaint about his actions.

The Memorial, Witney, 1950s. (Author’s collection)

However, after Caleb’s assault on 15 January, Annie went to her mother and stepfather. Mr and Mrs Dipper confronted Mrs Viner with Annie’s allegations against her husband, at which Mrs Viner threatened that, if Annie left her job, she would prosecute her for leaving without notice.

Inexplicably, the Dipper’s left their daughter at Witney and went home to Standlake. Five days later, Mr and Mrs Viner and Mrs Viner’s sister visited the Dippers at home to ask them not to prosecute. Mr Viner was keen to make amends for his wrongdoing and it was suggested that he might financially compensate Annie. The sum of £40 was agreed on, with Viner giving the Dippers £1 there and then ‘on account’. However, although he also wrote off £4 that the Dippers owed him, Viner made no more payments and was summoned.

He appeared at the Oxford Assizes, charged with three counts of ravishing Annie on 10, 12 and 15 January. Although a doctor testified that Annie was no longer a virgin, he found no marks of violence when he examined her. Thus, according to Viner’s defence counsel, the allegations of rape were an improbability, designed to discredit and exhort money from his client and as a way of ensuring that the Dippers weren’t prosecuted for Annie leaving her situation without notice. The jury concurred and Viner was acquitted.

16 JANUARY

1881 Coroner Mr E.L. Hussey held an inquest into the death of thirty-four-year-old Eliza Pavior, who worked as the cook for Revd George Lynch Kemp at the vicarage of St Frideswide’s Church in Osney. There was no question about the cause of Eliza’s death – she died on 15 January after a boiler in the vicarage kitchen exploded and literally blew her brains from her head. However, the jury needed to consider whether the boiler was properly installed and in good working order and whether anyone was to blame for Miss Pavior’s demise.

It was shown that the boiler pipes had frozen and there was no supply of cold water. Once the fires were lit, the boiler built up a head of steam for which there was no escape. Blaming the severe weather for the tragedy, the inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

17 JANUARY

1938 Aircraftsman Second Class Walter George Goodhand of Hull died after falling out of an aeroplane at Upper Heyford.

The plane, flown by Pilot Officer C.T. Norman, was engaged in Lewis gun practice and Goodhand fell out as it turned at a height of 250ft. He landed in a hedge on the boundary of the airfield and died instantly.

Norman was initially unaware of the accident and an inquest later concluded that the plane may have hit an ‘air bump’ as Goodhand leaned out.

18 JANUARY

1754 John Spurritt (or Spurrier) and his wife kept The Holt Hotel at Hopcroft’s Holt in the parish of Steeple Aston.

Trade was poor and the couple dispensed with their servants in favour of casual labour. On 18 January, two of these servants left in the evening and, when they returned the following morning, they found that the hotel had not opened up for the day. The couple knocked and shouted for some time before checking the back door of the pub, which was unlocked. The Spurritts’ bed had not been slept in and several boxes in their bed chamber had been ransacked. Mr Spurritt was eventually found dead in a pool of blood in the kitchen, while his wife sat senseless in a chair by the fireplace, her head bruised and one arm broken. She died three days later, without having regained consciousness.

The pub had obviously been robbed of its recent takings and, as far as anyone could ascertain, there were two brown waistcoats and two linen handkerchiefs missing. Mr Spurritt had six wounds on his head and one finger almost severed. It was apparent that he had been badly beaten and, close to his body lay a broken mug, a candlestick and a heavy ash club, which appeared to have been freshly cut and was thought to be the murder weapon.

The coroner’s inquest returned verdicts of ‘wilful murder by person or persons unknown’ and, although the police had several suspects, the murder was apparently never solved.

The hotel, which was also regularly visited by the notorious seventeenth-century highwayman Claude Duval, is said to be among the most haunted hotels in the country, with the ghosts of Duval and the Spurritts making regular appearances.

19 JANUARY

1827 Thirty-seven-year-old James Payne of Abingdon died. He was buried on 25 January in the Baptist burial ground and once his coffin had been lowered into the open grave, the minister and mourners went into the Meeting House to conclude the funeral ceremony.

Abingdon, 1950s. (Author’s collection)

As the sexton stood at the graveside, he noticed the coffin moving. He called over undertaker Mr Petty for a second opinion and both men clearly saw movement from within the grave. Gradually more and more people came to look and all were in agreement that the movement was not an illusion and that Payne’s corpse had miraculously come back to life.

Eventually, the coffin was carried to the rectory, where Mr Petty unscrewed the lid. Payne was clearly dead, although to everyone’s surprise there had been no apparent deterioration or discolouration of his body. With Payne’s coffin removed from the open grave, the reason for its movement became apparent. There was another coffin already buried in the grave and the weight of the new coffin and body was causing it to crumble, giving the appearance that Payne’s coffin was moving.

20 JANUARY

1899 Labourer James Bushnell appeared at Oxford City Court charged with an aggravated assault on two of his sons.

On 5 January, neighbours were drawn to Bushnell’s house by the sound of children screaming. Through the window, they saw him thrashing nine-year-old John and thirteen-year-old Frederick with a stick and heard the boys begging him to stop.

The police were called and, finding Bushnell drunk, arrested him for the safety of the children. John had a bad cut on the left-hand side of his head, while Frederick had a large swelling.

When Bushnell appeared before magistrates, John did not understand the concept of swearing an oath and was not allowed to testify, although the police pointed out that, on the day in question, the boy told them that he had hurt his head falling over.

Frederick told the Bench that their father had not beaten them for more than six months and only usually beat them when they deserved it. He freely admitted to stealing and to obtaining goods from shops by false pretences, saying that he was usually punished by being sent to bed. The hiding on 5 January was provoked by the disappearance of nearly half a pound of best butter from a cupboard – Bushnell thought that the boys had eaten it and didn’t believe them when they swore that they hadn’t. Frederick closed his evidence by telling the magistrates that he believed that his father had hit them ‘accidentally’, while he was ‘beery’.

Bushnell himself insisted that he never intended to hit the boys on their heads, saying that he planned only to spank their bottoms. Magistrates agreed that Frederick in particular was incorrigible but felt that the punishment meted out by his father was not acceptable chastisement. Since Bushnell had already spent time in prison awaiting his court appearance, the magistrates fined him 10s, with 12s 6d costs, or fourteen days’ imprisonment with hard labour in default. He was additionally bound over in the sum of £5 to keep the peace for six months.

21 JANUARY

1899 Eighteen-year-old travelling hawker John Buckland appeared at the Bullingdon Petty Sessions charged with an indecent assault on twenty-year-old Mary Francis.

Mary stated that, on 15 January, she was walking from Wolvercote to Oxford when she met Buckland, who crossed the road and grabbed the back of her dress. Mary told him to ‘leave go’, which he did, and Mary ran off as fast as she could but Buckland chased her, throwing her down on the road and indecently assaulting her.

Mary screamed and Buckland ran away. Mary then continued her journey to a Salvation Army meeting but made no complaint of any assault. In fact it wasn’t until the following day that she spoke to the Wolvercote police constable about Buckland. PC Godden took her to the field where Buckland’s father’s caravan was located and Mary positively identified John Buckland as her assailant.

There were numerous people in the area at the time of the alleged assault, all of whom saw different things. Buckland’s brother, Andrew, insisted that his brother was with him at the time of the assault. Some ponies belonging to the family had escaped into the garden of a man named Joseph Rowland and the brothers had been trying to recapture them. Rowland corroborated Andrew Buckland’s testimony, stating that John was in his garden throughout the entire period during which Miss Francis was allegedly assaulted. Rowland saw Mary pass his house and, just minutes later, saw Buckland walking with his brother in the opposite direction towards his caravan.

The magistrates found it unusual that Mary had waited until the following morning before reporting the assault and also that she said nothing about it to anybody for four-and-a half hours. They also found it strange that, in describing her assailant, she neglected to make any mention of Buckland’s thick black moustache and, on one occasion, she even identified Andrew Buckland as her attacker. Mary’s evidence did not add up and the magistrates eventually dismissed the case against Buckland on the grounds that no court would ever convict him.

22 JANUARY

1849 Seventeen-year-old Charles Elliott was part of a shooting party near Bicester. He successfully fired his single-barrelled gun three times but then aimed at a blackbird and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and Elliott fell backwards. The other shooters rushed to him to find that his gun had exploded, part of it taking out one of his eyes and penetrating deep into his brain.

Elliott lingered for almost four hours before finally dying from his injuries and an inquest held by coroner Mr W. Brunner later recorded a verdict of ‘accidental death’. The gun had recently been repaired by clock and watchmaker John Baxter and the jury expressed an opinion that cheap guns should not be so readily available and that they should not be repaired by those ill-qualified to do so.

23 JANUARY

1836 An inquest was held into the death of twenty-one-year-old Susan Garrett, who worked as an under ladies maid in the household of the Earl of Jersey.

For some months, Susan’s fellow servants had suspected that she was pregnant, although Susan vehemently denied it. The family and their servants were in residence at their country home, Middleton Hall in Oxford, when valet Edward Goulde noticed a maid’s cap floating in a large cistern, which supplied water to the entire mansion. There appeared to be a track on the floor leading to the cistern and handprints on the sides.

Goulde followed the track back to Susan Garrett’s room. Susan had retired early complaining of a headache so, when there was no reply to his knocks on the door, Goulde alerted the other maids, who went into Susan’s room, finding it awash with blood. The cistern was searched and Susan’s body was recovered, along with that of a newborn baby boy.

The bodies were removed from the water and laid in an adjoining room, where a surgeon attempted resuscitation for some time before pronouncing Susan and the baby dead. The inquest jury found that Susan drowned herself in a state of temporary mental derangement. They were unable to determine whether her baby was born alive.

24 JANUARY

1899 Richard and Mary Ann Eltham appeared at Abingdon magistrates’ court charged with neglecting their grandchild.

The case was brought by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, whose inspector informed the Bench that the five-year-old girl had been admitted to the Workhouse for her own protection. Her grandparents were both addicted to drink and their house was extremely dirty.

The child suffered from abscesses on her head, caused by infected insect bites. When she was removed from her grandparents’ care on 12 January, her scalp was encrusted with a thick layer of dirt and dried pus and, twelve days later, the Workhouse attendants were still trying to remove it.

The child’s mother admitted that her parents were addicted to drink but swore that, when she saw her daughter at Christmas, she was ‘nice and clean’, whereas the NSPCC inspector testified that the child was extremely dirty, ridden with vermin and covered in flea bites.

The magistrates chose to believe the inspector and sentenced both defendants to one month’s imprisonment with hard labour.

25 JANUARY

1937 Three fully grown Russian wolves broke out of Oxford Zoo by gnawing their way through the reinforced wire netting of their enclosure. With lambing taking place, there were obvious concerns for the safety of farm animals.

The first escapee was shot by a police inspector in the garden of an empty house on the northern by-pass road. The second was shot at Hampton Poyle, where a farmer caught it worrying sheep.

The final fugitive was seen swimming across a canal and was eventually run to ground and shot at Cuttlestowe on 28 January. During its brief period of freedom, it had killed thirteen sheep.

26 JANUARY

1880 University coroner Mr F.P. Morrell held an inquest at Oxford into the death of nineteen-year-old Ernest Hughes Malcolm Irving Davies of Magdalen College, who died on 24 January.

Ernest was visited by his brother George, an undergraduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, and the two young men joined a party of students on a trip to Woodstock, where they planned to skate on Blenheim lake.

As they skated, George began to have serious doubts about the safety of the ice and, having failed to convince his brother of his fears, he withdrew to the bank. Shortly afterwards, the ice broke, sending Ernest and another student, Mr Watson, into the freezing lake.

Watson was closest to the bank and rescuers held out a large tree branch, which he managed to grasp and was pulled clear of the water. Ernest, however, was out of reach and after clinging to the edge of the ice for almost thirty minutes he was so cold and exhausted that he slipped under the water. It was more than an hour before his body was recovered.

Magdalen College. (Author’s collection)

Blenheim Park lake and bridge, 1904. (Author’s collection)

The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

27 JANUARY

1891 An inquest was held into the death of eleven-year-old Albert Lovegrove. On 26 January, instead of coming straight home from school for his lunch, Albert and two friends went to look at the frozen river at Christ Church Meadow. They couldn’t resist walking on the ice, which immediately broke into large blocks that tilted like a see-saw, plunging all three boys into the water. Although two were rescued, Albert disappeared from view.

Hearing that his son was in the water, college servant Frederick Lovegrove raced to the scene. People were already prodding through the ice with poles and dragging the river but it was three-quarters of an hour before Albert’s body was recovered. The inquest jury returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

28 JANUARY

1846 An inquest was held at Abingdon into the death of Thomas Barnett, who died earlier that day.

The deceased had been employed by forty-six-year-old Thomas Fowler in his malthouse for almost two years, but Fowler came to doubt Barrett’s honesty and dismissed him. On 22 January Barrett called on Fowler, demanding payment of 1s 6d, which he claimed was owed him in outstanding wages.

Fowler denied owing Barnett any money and Barnett assumed a fighting stance and threatened to break Fowler’s head. Alarmed, Fowler picked up a malt shovel and hit Barnett over the head with it. Barnett crumpled to the ground and, on being assisted to his feet, was unable to stand unaided, dying five days later from a fractured skull.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against Fowler, a cripple, who was committed to Abingdon Gaol on the coroner’s warrant. Tried at the Berkshire Assizes on 3 March, Fowler was acquitted on the grounds that he acted in self-defence and that Barrett had an unusually thin skull.

29 JANUARY

1900 Frederick William Cumberlidge, the landlord of The New Inn, St Aldate’s, Oxford, heard a woman’s desperate screams coming from a room occupied by former publican Alexander Sharpe Naylor and his wife Edith Hannah Naylor. When Cumberlidge went to investigate, Mrs Naylor begged, ‘Pull him off me, he’s killing me.’

The room was covered in blood. Mrs Naylor had a deep cut across the back of her neck, while her husband was close to death, having cut his throat with a sharpened table knife. He later died from his wounds.

Mrs Naylor had formerly worked at The New Inn as a barmaid and had been visiting since 19 January. She had written to her husband, asking him to come and stay at the inn with her and suggesting that they might get a pub together. Her letters to her husband included the words, ‘I know how cross you are by your letter,’ and ‘If you cannot take my word about my staying only to help with the supper come and see. You can sleep with me.’

At the inquest, it was suggested that the Naylors had severe money troubles and that Alexander was a heavy drinker, who had suffered from delirium tremens in the past. It was also intimated that Mrs Naylor, who was much younger than her husband, was somewhat flirtatious with other men and that she often went out without him, causing him to become jealous. Mrs Naylor’s statement was read, in which she said that her husband had been drinking brandy and whisky before cutting them both but that there had been no arguments or cross words between them.

Coroner Mr Galpin asked the jury if they wanted to adjourn the inquest in order for Mrs Naylor to have recovered sufficiently to attend. After a few minutes deliberation, the jury told him that all but one of their number were happy to give a verdict without hearing from Mrs Naylor.

‘I will take upon myself to meet the convenience of the thirteen and to put the conscience of the fourteenth quite at rest,’ said Galpin. ‘I will take on myself the responsibility of not adjourning the inquest. What is your verdict?’

The jury agreed that Naylor committed suicide while in a state of temporary insanity.

30 JANUARY

1894 Shoemaker Edward Green appeared at the Oxford City Police Court charged with committing criminal assaults on his daughters Laura Florence and Harriet Louisa, aged thirteen and fifteen years old. There were multiple offences against both girls and Harriet had left home on account of her father’s sexual assaults, which occurred so frequently that she couldn’t possibly recall them all.

The majority of assaults on Laura were committed after the death of Green’s wife in September. Harriet suspected the abuse after finding Laura and her father on the kitchen floor on 24 September 1893. However, since Laura and her father both insisted that they were searching for a dropped stud, she did nothing until she actually caught her father in Laura’s bed, when she contacted the police.

Green denied any wrongdoing, saying that his children were making false allegations against him, but when Laura was examined by a doctor on 25 January, who found that she was no longer a virgin, he was charged with assault. Laura confirmed that her father had threatened to ‘smash’ her if she told anyone.

Tried at The Oxford Assizes, fifty-two-year-old Green was found guilty. According to the presiding judge, it was the worst case of its kind that he had ever dealt with and he sentenced Green to ten years’ imprisonment with twelve months’ hard labour.

31 JANUARY

1893 Thomas Ridge was unloading sacks of oilcake from a waggon and carrying them on his shoulder up a short ladder to the granary at his employer’s farm at Standlake. As he unloaded his fifth sack, the ladder slipped and Ridge fell about 8ft to the ground.

Ridge complained of pain in his stomach, saying that he had fallen onto the edge of the entrance to the granary and that the sack, which weighed more than two hundredweight, had fallen on top of him. Dr Smallhorn determined that Ridge had a dislocated rib and advised him to rest, but his condition gradually worsened until the doctor ordered his admission to hospital on 2 February. He died four days later and the cause of his death was given as fractured ribs.

At Ridge’s inquest, there were questions about whether he might have fallen out of bed while in hospital, since Smallhorn and his colleague were both certain that Ridge’s ribs were only dislocated when he was admitted. However, the inquest jury believed that the injuries occurred as the result of his fall from the ladder and returned a verdict of ‘accidental death’.

FEBRUARY

Old Charlbury. (Author’s collection)

1 FEBRUARY

1891 Oliver Grubb Horn died from tetanus, arising from an accident on 19 January.