Wiltshire Murders E-Book

Nicola Sly

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 232

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Wiltshire Murders brings together numerous murderous tales, some which were little known outside the county, and others which made national headlines. Contained within the pages of this book are the stories behind some of the most heinous crimes ever committed in Wiltshire. They include the murder of Eliza Jones, stabbed to death by her common-law husband in 1836; the shooting of a policeman in 1892; Mary Ann Nash, who disposed of her illegitimate son in 1907 by dropping him into a disused well; and Edward Richards, who died in Trowbridge during an attempted robbery in 1925. Nicola Sly's carefully researched, well-illustrated and enthralling text will appeal to anyone interested in the shady side of Wiltshire's history, and should give much food for thought.

Leseprobe

Wiltshire

MURDERS

NICOLA SLY

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

Bristol Murders

Cornish Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

Dorset Murders

Hampshire Murders

Somerset Murders (with John Van der Kiste)

First published 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2012

All rights reserved

© Nicola Sly, 2009, 2012

The right of Nicola Sly, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, 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 7524 8397 9

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8396 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Author’s Note & Acknowledgements

1. ‘Nothing but skin and bone’

Bradford-on-Avon, 1811

2. ‘God bless you all!’

Purton Stoke, 1819

3. ‘May I be damned to everlasting if I had anything to do with the hatchet’

Sutton Benger, 1820

4. ‘I did it in a passion, seeing my wife and children ill-used’

Littleton Drew, 1828

5. ‘Thee will be hanged if thee hast a hundred necks’

Lacock, 1828

6. ‘You may as well let me poison it’

Warminster, 1830

7. ‘Oh, my God! I am a ruined woman!’

Highworth, 1835

8. ‘Damn your eyes, get up, or I’ll kill you directly’

Box, 1841

9. ‘They say I murdered my baby?’

Westbury, 1849

10. ‘Beat the old bastard’s brains out!’

Trowbridge, 1854

11. ‘Pardon me’

Tollard Royal, 1859

12. ‘I have done it. You had better lock me up’

Devizes, 1881

13. ‘I intended no harm to my old father’

Lower Westbrook, 1885

14. ‘What was the dispute as to the child about?’

Devizes, 1889

15. ‘Do you want me, Sir?’

Melksham, 1892

16. ‘The curse of my life’

Swindon, 1903

17. ‘I have told you the truth. He is where I have taken him to’

Burbage, 1907

18. ‘Stop that man; he has murdered my Teddy’

Salisbury, 1908

19. ‘I will make this county ring!’

Enford, 1913

20. ‘Diagnosis: alcoholism’

Sutton Veny, 1917

21. ‘I done the job and am prepared to stand the consequences’

Long Newnton, 1924

22. ‘You have got me, you rotter’

Trowbridge, 1925

23. ‘I’ll see she shan’t live to have the laugh over me’

Durrington, 1939

24. ‘Either you do what I want you to do or you die’

Marlborough, 1943

25. ‘She made Chris go away’

Swindon, 1953

26. ‘Everyone said she was too perfect to live’

Salisbury, 1953

Bibliography & References

AUTHOR’S NOTE & ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Wiltshire is a county that is steeped in history. It is famed for its ancient monuments such as Stonehenge and the Avebury Stone Circle, as well as the white horses carved into its chalky hillsides. Yet that history also includes numerous murders and one of England’s earliest serial killers.

When Rebecca Smith was charged with the murder of her baby son, Richard, in 1849, she pleaded not guilty. However, when the jury at her trial found otherwise, she confessed before her execution to having poisoned seven more of her children for no better reason than that she was afraid that they would ‘come to want’.

Thus Mrs Smith joins a diverse collection of child killers, spurned and jealous lovers, and those who murdered for greed or revenge. In 1819, Robert Watkins killed in the course of a highway robbery and, two years later, Edward Buckland killed an elderly widow simply because she would not let him into her cottage to warm himself by the fire. Wanting a place by the fire was also the motive for a murder in Devizes workhouse in 1881, while Swindon woman Mrs Court met her death in 1953 because one of her lodgers believed that the food she served was ‘the worst he had ever eaten’.

As usual, I have numerous people to thank for their assistance and encouragement in compiling this collection. Roger Evans and John J. Eddleston have previously published books, the former on mystery and murder in Wiltshire, the latter a more general reference works on British murders and executions. These books are recorded in more detail in the bibliography, as are the local and national newspapers, which proved an invaluable source of material. Kay Taylor’s article for the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine provided a fascinating insight into the Sutton Benger murder of 1820. John Broderick helped to source some of the photographs, including the one of victim Esther Swinford. My thanks must also go to the staff of the Central Library in Swindon and the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham for their help in my research.

I must also thank John Van der Kiste for his sage advice and of course my husband, Richard, who, as always, helped with the proof reading and photography, and acted as chauffeur for a whistle-stop tour around Wiltshire, during which most of the photographs for the book were taken. Both he and my father, John Higginson, have supported me from the first word of this book to the last.

Finally, my thanks must go to my editor at The History Press, Matilda Richards, for her continued help and encouragement.

Map of Wiltshire.

1

‘NOTHING BUT SKIN AND BONE’

Bradford-on-Avon, 1811

Samuel Tucker of Bradford-on-Avon had originally worked as a weaver, but by 1811 he had been practising medicine and calling himself Dr Tucker for some time.

Samuel was married to Ann, a widow with children, who was twenty-five years his senior. It is not known whether he simply tired of living with his wife or whether he found another, possibly younger, woman, but at the end of 1810 Samuel Tucker devised a fiendish plan to rid himself of Ann forever, while making it seem as though she had actually died from natural causes.

From New Year’s Day 1811, Tucker kept Ann confined to her bedroom. She was not allowed to receive any visitors and was fed only occasionally by her husband on small quantities of half-boiled potatoes, barley bread and sips of water. Tucker intended not to starve Ann to death but to keep her alive, although in such a severely weakened condition that she would fall prey to the slightest illness.

Several times, Tucker’s work took him away from home for a couple of days. Whenever that happened, he would simply lock the door and windows of his wife’s bedroom, forcing her to lie in her own urine and excrement, in the closed, airless room. A broadsheet published at the time described the atmosphere in the room as ‘nearly sufficient to create putridity’.

Ann slowly became weaker and more emaciated until 8 March, when she finally succumbed to the effects of the starvation diet enforced on her by her husband. A surgeon who examined her shortly after her death described her body as ‘nothing but skin and bone’.

Tucker stood trial for the wilful murder of his wife at the Wiltshire Assizes held at Salisbury on 31 July 1811. The trial lasted for seven hours in total and the main witnesses for the prosecution were Ann’s children from her previous marriage.

In his defence, Samuel Tucker claimed that his wife suffered from a serious disease of the bowels, which prevented him from sleeping with her or associating with her in any way. He ridiculed the idea that he had starved her to death, telling the court that Ann had a voracious appetite and ate insatiably. Her death, he maintained, was entirely down to the medical problem with her bowels.

The jury chose to disbelieve him and, having heard all the evidence against him, almost immediately returned a verdict of ‘Guilty of wilful murder’. The judge ordered his execution, stating that his body should afterwards be passed to the surgeons for dissection.

Samuel Tucker received the verdict with the same lack of emotion that he had displayed throughout the trial. However, while at chapel on the day before his scheduled execution, he apparently prepared for his death by making a full confession to the murder of his wife.

He was executed at Fisherton Anger Gaol in Salisbury on Friday 2 August 1811.

2

‘GOD BLESS YOU ALL!’

Purton Stoke, 1819

In 2007, the villagers of Purton Stoke in Wiltshire held their first ever Hang Day Fayre, to commemorate the day in 1819 when between 10,000 and 15,000 people descended on the village from far and wide to witness the public hanging of a local ruffian, Robert Watkins.

Stephen Rodway was a successful coal and salt merchant who lived in Cricklade with his wife Mary. His son-in-law, John Habgood, managed his business for him and, between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. on 7 May 1819, he watched as his father-in-law set off to ride towards Wootton Bassett. Rodway was carrying a good deal of money, including a £5 note and two £1 notes and, as a precaution, Habgood had not only marked the notes for identification, but had also made a note of their serial numbers.

Rodway arrived at Wootton Bassett safely and, having conducted his business there, began his ride home that evening. As he neared the village of Purton Stoke at about 9.30 p.m., a gunshot rang out and, soon afterwards, a man was seen by several witnesses riding through the village on a black horse and turning down Bentham Lane.

About thirty minutes later, Phoebe Grimes was riding along the turnpike road between Purton and Wootton Bassett towards her home in Purton Stoke, when her horse suddenly shied near Moor Stone. Phoebe realised that there was a man lying on the road, apparently dead. She rode as fast as she could to Stoke, where she roused several inhabitants of the village who accompanied her back to the place where she had seen the body. There they found a well-dressed gentleman lying across the road on his back, his arms and legs outstretched. The body was still warm.

One of the men, William Bathe, a solicitor, immediately took charge. He sent for a surgeon and, while waiting for him to arrive, made a quick search of the dead man’s pockets to see if anything could be found that might identify him. All that was found was some small change in the pocket of his waistcoat.

William Wells, the surgeon from Cricklade, arrived on the scene at about 11 p.m. and, having pronounced life extinct, ordered the body to be removed to the Bell public house at Purton Stoke. There he was able to examine the body more closely and found that the man had been shot in the chest, which had one large wound, with two smaller ones at each side. At a post-mortem examination, Wells found that a shirt buckle had been driven into the man’s chest with such force that it had ruptured an artery, which Wells believed would have caused instant death. Three horseshoe nails were also found in the body, one lodged in a rib, a second in one of the lungs and the third in the man’s spine. From the position of the wounds, Wells surmised that the man had been on horseback when he was shot, but would have been leaning forward, since the bullet had passed obliquely through his body, exiting his back just below his right shoulder blade. The bullet had perforated the man’s spine, which also seemed to have been pierced; possibly by two more nail heads.

The corner near Purton Stoke where Stephen Rodway was killed. (© N. Sly)

On the morning after the murder, William Simpkins of Bentham had found a loose horse, which was quickly identified as belonging to Stephen Rodway. The local police called for the assistance of John Vickery, a Bow Street runner, and began to follow up descriptions of the horseman and, before long, they were focusing their attention on twenty-five-year-old Robert Watkins, who lived at Wootton Bassett with his father and sixteen-year-old brother, Edward.

Watkins not only matched the description of the rider but had also been spending money much more freely than normal since the murder. His house was searched, but no incriminating evidence was found there.

Watkins was questioned at Cricklade on 11 and 12 May by John Vickery and members of the local constabulary, in the presence of solicitor Nathaniel Wells, who was later to act as prosecuting counsel at Watkins’s trial. Watkins told the police that on the evening of the murder he had been drinking in the White Hart until about 8.20 p.m. He had planned to visit his mother, but had changed his mind. He had passed the scene of the murder at about 9 p.m., cutting across a field towards Purton Stoke and going straight home. He had met a man riding a horse by the blacksmith’s shop in Purton and the man had a great coat rolled up and secured behind his saddle, as had Stephen Rodway when his son-in-law last saw him. Watkins said that he had met nobody that he knew that night, although he had seen two strangers walking near the school on Purton Hill. He had arrived home just after 10 p.m., having heard the church clock striking moments before he reached his door. He had not heard any gunshots.

The Bell Inn, Purton Stoke. (© N. Sly)

Questioned about the money he had been spending, he maintained that it was the remains of the wages he had received for a period of work on the canals near Chichester. When Vickery asked him if he had ever had a pistol in his possession, Watkins said that he had had one, but that he had sold it four or five years previously to a man from Wootton Bassett named Mr Blanchett. Vickery went straight to see Mr Blanchett who told him that, rather than buying a pistol from Watkins, he had sold him one. Confronted with this information, Watkins insisted that the man was mistaken and that he had sold Blanchett his pistol for 4s and a pair of shoes.

Watkins then changed his story and went on to tell Vickery that he had actually heard the gunshot and that he had been near enough to the scene of the murder to see a man riding away on a horse. Although he didn’t know the man, he gave the police a description and swore that he would be able to recognise him straight away if he ever saw him again.

The grave of Stephen Rodway, Cricklade. (© N. Sly)

The police rounded up three men who fitted the description that Watkins had given them – Thomas Ockwell, Henry Packer and Henry Ockwell – and brought them before Watkins. Watkins unhesitatingly picked out Thomas Ockwell as the man that he had seen on the night of 7 May. Thomas Ockwell immediately protested that he had been nowhere near the scene of the murder, but had in fact been at Oxford at the time that Stephen Rodway met his death. Vickery was later to take Ockwell to Oxford and came back satisfied that he had a cast-iron alibi.

Robert Watkins was eventually charged with the wilful murder of Stephen Rodway and committed for trial at the next Wiltshire Assizes by the local magistrates. His younger brother, Edward, who was believed to have buried the murder weapon in a ditch, was charged with being an accessory after the fact.

The trial opened at Salisbury before Mr Justice Best at the end of July 1819. There was no direct proof that Edward Watkins had been involved in the murder, so the case against him was dismissed and he was released. Mr Casberd, for the prosecution, then focused on trying Robert Watkins, who pleaded ‘Not Guilty’ to the charge.

The prosecution produced numerous witnesses who had seen Watkins in the area both immediately before and after the murder was committed and several who had seen him in possession of a pistol, one of whom, James Smith, had actually repaired a pistol for Watkins on 5 May. Henry Cox, a local stonemason, testified to having talked to Watkins at the White Hart Inn at Cricklade at about 8 p.m. Watkins had with him a greatcoat, which he kept rolled up on his knees all evening. William Hicks and Thomas Eagles had been driving sheep on Purton Hill, when a man wearing a greatcoat similar to the one described by Cox had passed them, averting his face as though he wished to avoid being identified.

Ann Seymour testified to hearing the gunshot and seeing a man resembling Watkins riding through the village shortly afterwards, and Phoebe Grimes, William Bathe, William Wells, John Habgood and John Vickery were all called as witnesses for the prosecution, as was James Kibblewhite, who was able to corroborate Thomas Ockwell’s alibi.

Mr Casberd then dealt with the money that had been stolen from the victim. He called Mr Edward Belcher, the draper from Wootton Bassett, who produced two £1 notes that the accused had spent at his premises. Thanks to John Habgood having marked the notes and written down their serial numbers, Mr Belcher’s notes were indisputably proven to have been among the money carried by Stephen Rodway on the day of his death.

Next, Sophia Cozens took the stand. The daughter of Watkins’s landlady at Hunston, where he had lodged while working on the canals at Chichester, she testified to having received two letters from Watkins, both arriving on 12 May. The first letter, dated 8 May, contained a £5 note and instructions for her to buy a sow and pig. The second letter, dated 10 May, told her that there was a problem with the £5 note and asked her to return it to him as soon as possible. Miss Cozens had returned the money to Watkins immediately. The police had intercepted her letter, and found the £5 note to be Rodway’s.

The only defence that Watkins could muster was that he knew nothing about the murder, he had not written the notes to Sophia Cozens, and he had never had the £5 note in his possession. The evidence against him was so overwhelming that it took the jury just one minute to return a verdict of ‘Guilty’, leaving the judge to sentence him to be hanged on the spot where the crime was committed and his body given for dissection.

On 30 July 1819, just two days after the conclusion of his trial, Robert Watkins was transported to Purton Stoke, where a gallows had been erected at Moor Stone. Two hundred special constables had been deputised to control the huge crowd that had assembled to watch the proceedings.

Watkins walked bravely to the gallows, pausing only to shake hands with his mother. He protested his innocence and declined an offer from the Revd Mr Harrison, the prison chaplain, to unburden his soul by confessing his sins. Having mounted the scaffold, he read aloud Psalm 108 then said ‘God bless you all!’ to the crowd.

It is said that, at the very moment that Robert Watkins met his death on the gallows, a violent clap of thunder exploded and the heavens opened, drenching the crowd with torrential rain. Ironically, Purton Stoke’s Hang Day Fayre, originally scheduled to be held on 28 July, near the anniversary of the hanging, was also a victim of the torrential rain and flooding of 2007 and had to be rescheduled to the end of September.

3

‘MAY I BE DAMNED TO EVERLASTING IF I HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE HATCHET’

Sutton Benger, 1820

Nobody objected to the gypsies who regularly used Sutton Lane, near Sutton Benger, as their camping ground. Yet one of the gypsies, Edward Buckland – or Buckley as he was sometimes known – was so universally reviled that his own tribe had disowned him because of his evil behaviour. Thus Ted tended to travel the area alone, sleeping under hedges or occasionally in barns when the local farmers took pity on him.

By 1820, Ted was sixty-six years old. A swarthy man, with black hair, grey whiskers and a long beard, he was usually dressed in a dirty old blanket, which he tied around his waist with string.

In the late spring of that year, Ted knocked on the door of Brookside Cottage. The owner, fifty-eight-year-old widow Judith Pearce, who worked at nearby Church Farm, had been known to give Ted a crust of bread in the past. However, on that day, Ted wanted more than just food and asked if he could come into the cottage and warm himself in front of the fire. Not surprisingly, Mrs Pearce refused. Ted went away angry and, later that evening, the thatched roof of the cottage caught fire.

The flames were thankfully extinguished before too much damage was done and it was widely believed that Ted Buckland had started the fire to get his own back on Mrs Pearce for refusing to let him inside her cottage. Ted was quickly apprehended, but he managed to escape his captors and prudently left the area.

Ted was not seen around Sutton Benger again until mid-November 1820. On 12 November, he knocked on the door of a cottage owned by Mrs Ann Flowers, begging for clothes. Mrs Flowers found him a coat and some breeches that had belonged to her husband.

The High Street, Sutton Benger. (Author’s collection)

The argument with Buckland earlier in the year had thoroughly unnerved Judith Pearce, hence her twelve-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth Cottle, had moved in with her to keep her company. In the early hours of the morning of 13 November, Judith and Elizabeth were asleep in Brookside Cottage when they were disturbed by the sound of somebody trying to get into the house.

The frightened woman and child barred the kitchen door then watched in terror as the intruder began to hack through it with an axe. In desperation, Judith Pearce managed to break through the thin lath wall of the cottage and the two escaped through the hole in the wall, into the garden. The intruder followed. He knocked Mrs Pearce down and grabbed Elizabeth, who somehow managed to wriggle free from his grasp. The girl ran as fast as she could through the darkness to her great-uncle’s house in the village and roused the occupants. As she was blurting out her story, the church clock struck three.

The girl’s two uncles, William and Thomas, her aunt and two neighbours, Daniel Powell and John Price, hurried back to Brookside Cottage, where they found Judith Pearce lying dead in the garden. At a later post-mortem examination, conducted by Dr Joseph Hayward, it was discovered that she had four wounds to her head, caused, the doctor theorised, by her being hit with a blunt instrument. Nothing had been stolen from the house.

The police were called and an immediate search was initiated for Ted Buckland. Not that he took much finding as, early on the morning after Mrs Pearce’s death, he was found cooking his breakfast at the side of Sutton Lane. He was immediately arrested and taken before Mr Coleman, the magistrate at Langley Fitzurze, who committed him to stand trial for the wilful murder of Judith Pearce at the next Wiltshire Assizes.

About three weeks after Buckland’s arrest, the Bath Herald printed an anonymous poem about the murder, clearly assuming that Buckland was guilty, even though his trial had not yet taken place and he was presumed innocent until proven otherwise in the eyes of the law.

A lonely cottage stands beside the way;

A white thatched cot, with honeysuckle gay;

There JUDITH PEARCE, a widow lived alone,

By a rough quarry of blue-coloured stone;

Where lurked a wretch of Egypt’s wandering race,

A wretch forlorn, without a mask of grace,

Whom ruffians left, for such a rogue was he,

That even the vilest shunned his company;

Dark was his face but darker still his mind,

To pity, and to every tender feeling blind.

He had no friends, nor knew the joys of home,

But muttering through the dews of night would roam,

Brooding on fancied wrongs with secret pride,

On words, or looks, or benefits denied.

Round his gaunt side a rope for girdle swung,

From which a light, short-handled hatchet hung;

A tattered garment did the village fright,

A coat by day, a blanket all the night,

Which round his neck a butcher’s skewer confin’d,

Fit fastening such a filthy dress to bind.

JUDITH had often a kind warning given,

How far his ways were from the ways of Heaven;

And once too, JUDITH (which would kindle strife

In greater persons) asked him –Where’s your wife?

Once fire denied, a common courtesy;

Yet there seemed danger in his quick black eye;

And so there was, for as she lay in bed,

At night the thatch was blazing o’er her head.

And EDWARD BUCKLAND, so the villain call,

Was met in haste, close to the village wall;

And if as on some villainy he mused,

The evening salutation he refused;

Suspected, taken, he escapes at last,

And all supposed the danger now was past –

When Judith’s brother, in the dead of night,

Heard his grand-niece who shook with cold and fright,

Tell how she ‘scaped the murderer’s hand by flight;

‘Wake! Wake! She’s murdered!’ was the frightful cry;

‘I heard the blow! I almost saw her die.’

They found her lying in the garden mould,

Mangled with dreadful wounds, quite dead and cold.

A sight to shock the weak and almost scare the bold.

Memorial stone for Judith Pearce, which replaced the original weathered stone. (© N. Sly)

It would have been almost impossible to find anyone to serve on the trial jury that had not previously read the poem and, as a result, formed an opinion on Buckland’s guilt.

Buckland’s trial opened at Salisbury in March 1821, before Mr Justice Holroyd. The proceedings were constantly interrupted by insane outburst from the accused. Elizabeth Cottle positively identified Buckland as the man who had attacked her and her grandmother, even though it would have been pitch dark at the time and she freely admitted that she hadn’t seen her attacker too clearly.

Ann Flowers testified that the coat and breeches that she had given to Buckland had been spotlessly clean. Constable Richard Ellery, who had arrested the prisoner, testified to finding blood and dirt on the clothes, the dirt matching the wattle and daub from the walls of Judith Pearce’s cottage.

Almost three months after the murder, Thomas Ferris, the landlord of the Bell Inn, had found a hatchet in a brook in the village. William Greenwood, from nearby Christian Malford, professed to recognise the axe as one that Ted Buckland had tried to persuade him to exchange for a capful of potatoes. Greenwood told the court that he recognised the hatchet as the one that Buckland had tried to swap for potatoes by some letters on the handle. (This was in spite of the fact that Greenwood was completely unable to read or write!) ‘May I be damned to everlasting if I had anything to do with the hatchet,’ protested Buckland.

He continued to protest his innocence throughout the trial, saying, ‘I’ll swear upon ten thousand books that I never killed that woman!’ However the jury took absolutely no notice and, less than one minute after retiring, returned a verdict of ‘Guilty’.