Murder Recalled

Did He Kill Her? (The Ramsgate Mystery).

Who murdered Sarah Noel?

      That’s what the packed courtroom was desperate to know.

      Who had entered her home on Sunday afternoon, 14^th May 1893, and shot her at close range in the head? Was it, as Ramsgate Police strongly believed, her 43-year-old husband William? Or had this foul deed been perpetrated by an anonymous assailant?

      Justice William Grantham took his seat at the Bench. Indefatigable and a shrewd judge of character, Maidstone’s summer assizes would be his first his first encounter with Kent’s criminal fraternity.

      Grantham had spent the weekend painstakingly going through the prosecution’s case, and he was far from happy. The investigation had been less than professional, and now the 57-year-old judge had to decide whether or not the accused should be committed for trial. The evidence was far from conclusive; at best it was barely circumstantial. Nevertheless, Grantham had carefully and impartially considered the facts…

 Just before 4 p.m. on the day in question, William Noel had returned home to find the house locked and his wife seemingly out.

      The couple ran a successful butcher’s on Grange Road, Ramsgate, and lived, quite comfortably, in a two floor apartment above the shop. William was also a Sunday school teacher at the nearby St Lawrence Wesleyan Chapel, some twenty minutes’ walk away. Getting no reply he was about to leave, intending to go for a short stroll, when he noticed one of his students, 16-year-old Nelly Wilson, who also happened to be the family’s domestic servant.

      ‘If you see Mrs Noel, Nelly,’ he said, ‘tell her I can’t get in.’

      Nelly confirmed that she would indeed pass the message on should she see her mistress. But when he returned some fifteen minutes later the house was still locked. The family’s black Labrador “Nep” barked as Noel again hammered the doorknocker.  

      With still no reply, and soliciting the help of a neighbour’s ladder, William climbed to the first floor kitchen window. He sees his wife lying on the floor and Nep sitting next to her. Forcing the window he frantically clambered in.

Grange Road, Ramsgate, at the time of the murder.

      Around the same time Matthew Saunders – a town councillor and neighbour – was heading down Grange Road, on an afternoon stroll with his two daughters. As he passed the butcher’s William Noel hurried out. ‘Saunders,’ he exclaimed nervously, grabbing the councillor’s arm, ‘I believe my wife is dead!’ Noel’s words were overheard by another neighbour, James Harman, who immediately came to offer his assistance, and together the three men hurried in.

      Inside they found Sarah Noel (56) lying dead on the kitchen floor. The body lay on its back, surrounded by blood, some of which had trickled into the passage. The victim’s spectacles also lay near the body. Nep, reported as being ‘very attached’ to his mistress, emitted a low menacing growl at Harman and Saunders.

      ‘Be quiet, boy,’ Noel instructed. The dog immediately complied, but nevertheless kept a wary eye on the two strangers.

      While Harman rushed to fetch a doctor, both Noel and Saunders search the premises. The apartment appeared to have been ransacked. Cupboards and drawers had been opened (some wrenched open with a poker); their contents strewn on chairs, the floor and the bed. Noel also found that a cashbox used to store the firm’s takings had also been forced. The victim’s purse – containing five sovereigns – was also missing. At first sight it looked as if a violent robbery had taken place. Had Sarah Noel awoke from her customary afternoon nap to find an intruder or intruders? Was that why she had been shot?

      William Noel seemed to think so. At the magistrates inquest Saunders later recalled how the butcher repeatedly voiced his opinion that they had been robbed. But as the police would later point out, there were a number of problems with this theory.

     The body was examined by Doctors Fox and Cotton who placed time of death sometime around 2.30. Death was caused by a single gunshot, fired four feet from the victim, from a revolver ‘of somewhat large calibre’. The bullet, conical in shape, entered the victim’s head just below the right temple and exited through the left. It was later found lodged in woodwork in the kitchen. Sarah Noel also had a black eye, but as Dr. Fox later informed the coroner this was as a result of the bullet entering the victim’s head.

      Police-Inspector Robert Ross was the investigating officer. The 31-year-old Scot had previously served with the Lancashire Constabulary, where he had worked on ‘several important cases’ before transferring to Canterbury. Then in October 1891 he transferred again, this time to Ramsgate, where he was given the rank of Inspector. According to the Thanet Advertiser he was a man of ‘remarkable ability and intelligence’ and ‘greatly valued by his superiors’. Initially Ross too believed the Noels were victims of a violent burglary, but as he examined the crime-scene he soon felt that it was, as he put it at the coroner’s inquest, ‘a get up’. Some jewellery had not been taken. A bowl containing ten shillings in loose change was also untouched. As too were Sarah Noel’s pocket watch and chain, and jewellery she was wearing. But strangely the thief had taken a Post Office savings book containing £24, which was worthless to them as it would prove difficult to cash without raising suspicion. Ross also believed that a burglar would not target a tradesman’s premises. Nor would he use such violence against ‘a poor defenceless woman’. There was no sign of forced entry, and Ross was strongly of the opinion that criminals only used firearms to gain their liberty. Besides, it was well known around the town that William Noel banked the business’ takings on a Saturday afternoon.

      Then there was Nep.

      Described by the Illustrated Police News as a ‘ fierce-looking, stump-tailed, heavy-headed retriever’, as Ross later explained to the coroner, had the dog been shot and the woman knocked senseless he would be more inclined to believe the robbery theory. But Nep had not been shot, and furthermore, despite his fearsome reputation for aggression against all except his master and mistress, had done nothing to raise the alarm. Why? According to Noel, he’d had left the dog shut in an upstairs room, before leaving to give his Sunday school lesson. The butcher later conjectured that the thieves must have inadvertently let the Nep out while ransacking the premises. But Ross was still unconvinced, and to him the dog’s lack of intervention in protecting his mistress meant he knew and trusted Sarah Noel’s murderer. This, along with his belief that the crime-scene had, at least in part, been contrived resulted in William Noel becoming the investigation’s prime and only suspect.

      Ross then made a grave error. Instead of finding the evidence to support his theory, he does the opposite. And from here on Ramsgate’s police force embarked on nothing sort of a witch-hunt. Other lines of inquiry were either quickly dismissed or simply not followed up, as the investigation fell into farce.

      Inspector Ross failed fully to establish whether any firearms of a similar calibre had recently been sold in the town. A second-hand shop in Kings Street had sold such a weapon four days earlier, and the same individual had also purchased a box of .442 cartridges from a gunsmith in the High Street.  The identity of this person was never established. All the police learned about this potential suspect was that he looked in every respect ‘a perfect gentleman’.

      On the day of the murder George Palmer, who ran a grocer’s store on Grange Road, recalled seeing a ‘well-dress lady’, fairly short in stature and attired in a dark dress, loitering at the rear of the Noel’s house. The identity of this woman wasn’t looked into neither, even though William Noel, himself, indirectly gave them a clue to her possible identity.

      Another possible clue ignored was the discovery of a jemmy and ‘other burglar’s tools’ found in Tomson’s Passage, about a quarter of a mile from the crime-scene. Ross gave them little consideration as they were, in his opinion, too far from the murder site. (A walk from Tomson’s Passage to Grange Road will take you ten to fifteen minutes at most). Instead of pursuing these potential lines of enquiry the police, and Ross in particular, devoted most of their time in trying to prove rumours of William Noel’s improprieties with younger woman, which they saw as a motive.

Police-Inspector Robert Ross (sketch by Kyle Llewellyn Roberts).

      Under Inspector Ross’ guidance the police searched the couple’s apartment, but no firearm of any description was found. However, with William Noel, even in the earliest stages of the investigation, becoming the main suspect, Ross did not authorise a search of the St Lawrence Wesleyan Chapel, a potential hiding place for the murder weapon. Nor did he conduct a personal search of Noel himself. Ross and his constables did have a poke around the drains outside – again a possible hiding place – but a more thorough search was not conducted. Nor did Ross and his officers do themselves any favours by pinching, during their search of the crime-scene, a couple of bottles of Noel’s beer. In an attempt to save face Ross offered to reimburse the butcher. But Noel considered the matter of no importance.

      In fairness to Robert Ross, William Noel didn’t exactly help in allaying the inspector’s suspicions against him. In regard to the mysterious woman seen loitering at the back of the house, Noel, though unaware of what George Palmer saw, did indirectly give the inspector a possible motive and suspect.

      Two days after the murder Noel sent word for Ross to call on him. Inspector arrived to find the butcher looking very pale and behaving in an excited manner. ‘I have found the murderer!’ he exclaimed. When Ross asked for a name, Noel replied: ‘My wife’s sister. I don’t know her name, but she’s a very bad woman, and living with a man now [meaning they lived together but were not married]. Her maiden name is Saunders’. This sister, according to Noel, had been married twice and fallen out of favour with her family. When Ross asked why she, Noel gesticulating wildly said: ‘I have had a presentment, I feel it, I can’t help feel it!’ Pressed when he had last seen this sister, the butcher replied: ‘Eighteen years ago at Southsea. She was then residing with my wife at the lodging house there, and they had rowed over something before she [the sister] left.’ Ross then asked if Noel had seen her recently or heard she was in the neighbourhood. ‘No,’ Noel replied ‘but I feel, can’t help feeling that it must be her’. When asked where and when he had last seen the sister, Noel confessed that he had actually never met her.

      Inspector Ross then asked Miss Alice Simm, Sarah Noel’s nice, (who had travelled down from Twickenham, South West London, the day after her aunt’s murder) when she had last seen her wayward aunt. ‘Four years ago in Hastings, Inspector,’ she replied. ‘I believe she now resides in Bexhill’. Alice then corroborated Noel’s account about her estranged aunt being a ‘very bad woman’, but did not offer an opinion as to her uncle’s theory regarding the murder.

      (A Bexhill local paper tracked down the wayward sister, Mrs T. Harris. She explained how she had been forced to care for her invalid husband, a former gardener, until his death in 1886. She wasn’t in regular contact with Sarah Noel, but claimed this wasn’t as a result of ill-feeling. Mrs Harris also spoke of how, not long before Mrs Noel’s murder, she had experience a number of nightmares in which a death occurs in the family).

      Nine days after her aunt’s murder, Alice made a discovery that only enhanced Ross’ suspicion against her uncle. As she later explained to the coroner, and then again a month later before the magistrates, she was putting away some clothing in a chest of draws. The draws were untidy, where they had been search by the police. In one of them she found Sarah Noel’s missing purse, which slipped out from between the folds of a pillow case. William Noel, who was adamant it had been in the cashbox, immediately sent word to Inspector Ross; the purse’s contents – five sovereigns – were still inside. For Ross this was further evidence of Noel’s guilt, but when asked by the magistrates Alice Simm said she believed it was possible it could have been missed during the police search. At the coroner’s inquest she was also asked how the dog behaved towards her. Alice replied that Nep was always very friendly and affectionate with her.

      For Robert Ross, Nep was the key piece of evidence that proved William Noel’s guilt. A number of witnesses testified before both the coroner and the magistrates of Nep’s hostility towards strangers. Surely he would have attacked any intruder? Ross even discharged a revolver in the animal’s presence to gauge its reaction. After firing two blanks Nep simply rose from his mat and wagging his tail approached the policeman.

      After hearing nine days of evidence the coroner concluded that Mrs Sarah Noel was the victim of murder by person or persons unknown. But Inspector Ross wasn’t prepared to see the man he believed guilty walk free, and literally minutes after the verdict he arrested William Noel. What followed was a long protracted magistrates hearing, lasting 16 days. Full of pantomime and farce every detail of Noel’s life, in particular his behaviour around young women, was examined.

      The prosecution believed the butcher had murdered his wife because she objected to his adulterous habits. The couple, it was said, argued regularly about it. One of Ross’ own men, PC Hooker, testified that he’d heard the couple arguing some four years back, while he sheltered from the rain in Noel’s shop front. When pressed on what was actually said, Hooker confessed that he couldn’t make out actual words, but he was sure it was over another woman. The Noels relationship, it was implied, had become so unhappy and strained they occupied separate bedrooms. Two attempts to raise a family had failed with the children dying shortly after birth.  And while William Noel was a strikingly handsome man, with a full head of black hair, married neatly with his beard and moustache, his wife – ten years his senior – was beginning to show her age. She had false teeth, wore glasses and her hair was greying.

      Robert Ross was determined plumbed every depth in order to prove William Noel a morally reprehensible libertine, who, after killing his wife in cold blood, had ransacked their apartment to make it look like a violent robbery had occurred. In court he tried to use PC Hooker to tarnish Noel’s reputation, by having the constable recount how, some years earlier, he’d seen Mr Noel in the company of a young woman walking up Edith Street (just around the corner from his shop). It was also established that the young lady in question had since emigrated to Canada. Ross even brought one of the butcher’s former customers, Sarah Louise Cook, over from Ireland. In fact, Cook’s evidence was considered so sensational that all woman and girls were instructed to vacate the court.

      Cook had been a resident of Edith Road with her husband, a customs officer, until August 1891. She told the court how she had gone to buy some meat or pay a bill – she couldn’t remember which – and found the shop empty.

      ‘I went to the office window and looked in,’ she explained.

      ‘What did you see there?’ asked Mr James Emery, acting for the prosecution.

      ‘Noel and the girl, Miller,’ replied Cook disdainfully.

      ‘Who was the girl?’

      ‘The book-keeper.’

      ‘And where were they?’

      ‘Together on the floor.’

      According to the Thanet Advertiser, the witness then ‘proceeded to describe the positions of the prisoner and the girl’. However, this being Victorian Britain anything more graphic – in print at least – would have been considered in poor taste!

The murder site today.

      Noel’s solicitor, Mr Walter Hills, objected to this blatant character assassination, but was ignored. Later in his summing up of the facts he described Cook’s evidence as ‘absolutely irrelevant to the charge’. And of Ramsgate Police, Hill believed it was ‘monstrous’ that they should put forward such evidence in a ‘case of this importance’. But there was more irrelevant gossip to come.

      Henry Marsh, a farmer from Worth, was another of Robert Ross’ star witnesses. He told the court how two years previously Noel had called on him to collect some lambs. ‘Did anyone come with him,’ enquired James Emery. Marsh said the accused had been accompanied on one occasion by a woman in her twenties. After the farmer had loaded the lambs into the cart Noel and his lady companion stayed in the area for about an hour. ‘[They were] along the dyke shore,’ Marsh recalled. ‘She was sitting down. He was kneeling down along the shore and appeared to be gathering wild flowers.’ The distance between them appeared close and intimate. This revelation seemed to have caused uproar with the court, forcing the chairman of the magistrates, John Kennett, to restore order with a strong rebuke.

      Marsh was recalled a couple of days later. ‘We understand that on the last occasion you did not give all your evidence,’ remarked Kennett, ‘because someone had intimidated you. Is that so?’ Marsh confirmed that was correct and was instructed to tell all. The farmer recounted his previous story regarding William Noel’s visits. Only this time the butcher appeared to have his arm around the young lady, and was kissing her. Marsh and his wife observed this for about ten minutes. Later in the Salutation Inn, located in Sandwich, they discussed what they had seen.

      Under cross examination from Walter Hill, it was established that Marsh was a good distance away (‘There was sixteen acres of land between him and us’). And that he’d only seen Noel picking wild flowers. It seems Ross may have coerced the farmer into embellishing his evidence. But the Inspector, as it turns out, was not Marsh’s intimidator. There was considerable laughter among the public when it was revealed that agent provocateur was the landlady of the Salutation Inn, Mrs Holness. Marsh explained to her and his wife that Inspector Ross had called and to the purpose of his visit.

      ‘What a nuisance,’ complained Mrs Marsh.

      To which Mrs Holness suggested: ‘Mine what you are saying – don’t say too much, only say what you are asked!’

      ‘Do you mean the Bench to believe that these few words intimidated you?’ ask Hill incredulously.

      ‘Yes,’ replied Marsh embarrassed.

      ‘How old are you?’

      ‘Thirty, I think.’

      ‘Are you indeed!’

      The resulting laughter became so much that Kennett was again forced to restore order.

      As it happened Sarah Noel was fully aware of her husband’s female companion. In fact she waved them both off as they left. It was also established that the Noels never argued. In her evidence Alice Simm recalled how her aunt Sarah also spoke affectionately about her husband. William Noel’s staff and neighbours also spoke of how the couple were devoted to each other. And the magistrates themselves saw nothing untoward in the butcher accompanying the young lady up Edith Road as far as the field where he kept some sheep and pigs.

      And as to the crime itself, none of the witness could agree when the fatal shot was fired; the time ranging from between 2 p.m. and 2.45. Some even mistook it for a door slamming! Nevertheless, despite the flimsy evidence, the magistrates found William Noel guilty and remanded him to Canterbury Prison, to await trial at the next assizes in Maidstone. For Inspector Ross victory, and justice, was now close at hand, and for the accused man the hangman’s noose beckoned!

      But what were the facts? That’s what Justice William Grantham was only interested in. What evidence – good hard evidence – was there to prove William Noel a murderer?

      On Sunday 14^th, after the family had dined, around midday, Sarah Noel cleared away the dinner things. She was washing her hands when Nelly Wilson left via the back door for her Sunday school lesson. The time was 2 p.m. William Noel claimed he had left the house no later than 2.15 p.m., again via the back door, which he left unlocked. This was so he could get back in, as Sarah would be having her customary afternoon nap. But before leaving he shut away Nep in an upstairs room.

      Nelly arrived at the St Lawrence Wesleyan Chapel at 2.45, and finds Mr Noel already there preparing for his class. The lesson begins at 3 p.m. After class, she saw the butcher walking down Chapel Row, heading home. They next meet shortly after 4 p.m. on Grange Road where William informs her he’s locked out.

      Was there really enough time for Noel to murder his wife and then ransack their apartment?  Walter Hill didn’t think so. Neither did Noel’s friends, who were putting together a defence fund. They saw the violent intruder as a more logical reason. And to be fair Robert Ross’ attitude that burglars never use violence or rob tradesmen’s homes is a bit ignorant, if not naïve. Charles Peace, for example, was a very successful and elusive housebreaker, and not above using violence.  He was executed in Leeds some 14 years earlier for a double murder. Was it such a stretch of the imagination that an intruder had entered the property, perhaps believing it empty, found Sarah Noel and shot her? Perhaps in a panic? Then as he or they ransacked the apartment they open a door, only to be confronted by a barking and snarling Nep?

      William Grantham did not hold back in his criticism of Ramsgate Police or its handling of this investigation. In his opinion there ‘was not enough evidence to hand a dog!’ he told the Grand Jury. Never before, in the whole of his experience, had he seen a prosecution case so fully of ‘impropriety, incompetence and illegality’. Mr Noel was charged with murder, but after 16 days before the local magistrates there wasn’t enough evidence to ‘be compressed into one small piece of paper’. Inspector Ross, he said, instead of locating the murder weapon and who had fired it, had wasted time and resources muckraking into the accused’s past. The actions of the accused years earlier were of no relevance to the inquiry, and it was not the job of a policeman to ‘act as a bad-bred bloodhound’.

      The judge made it quite clear that his criticism had nothing to do with whether he believed Noel guilty or not. But should the accused man be sent to trial and found not guilty then he could not be retried, should more substantial evidence establishing his guilt later be found. Then again, if he were found guilty and the real murderer should later be identified, then an innocent man would have paid the ultimate penalty for a crime he had not committed. Grantham concluded by stating that the accused had suffered a ‘miscarriage of justice’, because the evidence used against him had nothing to do with the crime.

      It took the Grand Jury most of the day to reach a verdict. At 4.30 p.m. they concluded that there was ‘no true bill’, and the case was thrown out. The butcher’s friends were jubilant, and at 5 p.m. William Noel was released from Maidstone Gaol. It had been his intentions to return to his shop on Grange Road, but in the end he travelled with his solicitor to London. He would never set foot in Ramsgate again.

Entry in the Crown Minutes Book, held at the National Archives, Kew.

      As for Robert Ross, in an interview with a London newspaper he described the judge’s remarks as ‘cruel in the extreme’. ‘I do not deserve the harshness with which the judge reserved for me,’ he complained bitterly.  But he need not have worried. On the 15^th July the Thanet Advertiser published a testimonial in which a number of gentlemen gave their ‘formal expression’ of appreciation of the ‘manner in which Inspector Ross discharge a public task of great difficulty and delicacy, in connection with the recent criminal investigation’.

      ‘We congratulating Mr Noel on his release,’ it went on, ‘[however] we confidently assert that he has himself alone to blame for the perilous position which he has lately occupied.’

      And although the undersigned of the testimonial had the upmost respect and regard for Mr Justice Grantham, they were convinced that he had made a grave error of judgment. Robert Ross was later presented with an inscribed watch and pipe, and a sizable amount of money. Four days after Grantham’s scathing criticism a pistol, similar in calibre to that believed used, was discovered by a labourer on a nearby beech. It was deemed by the police as the work of a practical joker, and having no connection to the murder of Sarah Noel.

     Shortly after the Grange Road Mystery, as many of the London papers called the murder, Robert Ross returned to Scotland. He would eventually become Edinburgh’s Chief of Police.

      As for William Noel, his fate is a little more obscure. It was reported in the Thanet Advertiser that he was to sail (one would hope with Nep) to New Zealand. But a search of incoming passengers in the New Zealand press records no one of that name entering the country. 

      For the residence of Ramsgate, the Grange Road Mystery was the next big murder case after the Southey murder of 1865. It created fierce debate regarding William Noel’s guilt within the town. Did he really kill her? Today, as with the Southey murders, it is all but forgotten; superseded by the greater horrors the town suffered during two world wars. The identity of who killed Sarah Noel was never established, leaving the case forever unsolved.

© copyright Martin Charlton, 2018

Dickens, Debt and A Christmas Carol.

Dickens was in debt!

         Sales of his latest serialization, Martin Chuzzlewit, were not doing well. His previous two books, Barnaby Rudge and American Notes, had also failed to engage readers in the same way as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby or The Old Curiosity Shop had previously done. To add the Charles’ problems his wife Catherine was pregnant with their fifth child, and he already owed £240 to his solicitor and old school friend Thomas Mitton. And further complicating matters, his publisher Chapman & Hall, due to the poor sales of Chuzzelwit, were looking to reduce his weekly income by £50. They, as did many others, believed that the poor sales of his more recent works was evidence of Dickens’ waning popularity. So Charles needed to raise some cash – fast!  His answer was to pen what would become one of his most enduring and best-loved of books.

      The spectre of debt was never far from Dickens’ mind. In February 1824 his father had been incarcerated at the Marshalsea Debtors Prison, forcing a twelve-year-old Charles to leave school and work ten-hour days at Warren’s Blacking Factory, earning about seven shillings a week. “My whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such considerations,’ he later wrote, “that I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children; even that I am a man; and wander desolately back to that time of my life.” His father was in part responsible for his current financial strife. John Dickens thought nothing of using his famous son’s name to acquire loans he could never hope to repay. Dickens’ friends and even his publisher were approached for money, which always resulted in Charles having to bail his father out. So with himself now facing financial ruin it’s not surprising that Dickens was sent scrambling for his writing materials. 

      Charles started work on his “little Christmas book” in mid-October 1843. Much of its composition was done during evening walks, where he would at times burst out with laughter or sob with anguish at the comical antics or painful suffering of his characters. Fortunately these nocturnal excursions were carried out when most “sober people were tucked up in their beds”.

      Normally, because of their length and innumerable characters, Dickens would write plot summaries for each novel, but with Carol there was simply no time. Instead he turned to a minor character from The Pickwick Papers. Gabriel Grub – a precursor to Ebenezer Scrooge – was a misanthropic sexton and gravedigger, who featured in one of a number of digressive ghost stories, told by Pickwick and his friends. Grub is digging a grave on Christmas Eve when he is abducted by goblins, and tortured with visions of the past and future. The “cross-grained surly” sexton is forced to relinquish his anti-social ways and reintegrate into the community “full of mirth and cheerfulness”. With this basic plot in mind, Dickens added more pressure upon himself by adding a yuletide theme. He was quite use to working to tight deadlines, and his original manuscript – now housed at the Morgan Library, New York – shows the method of the story’s composition, allowing us to see the author at work. The pace and editing is feverish, rapid and boldly confident. Deleted text is struck out with a cursive and continuous looping of the pen and replace with a more concise but no less effective replacement. On the opening page a long tangent about the role of the ghost in Hamlet is boxed off and scored through.

      A month later the 31-year-old author, now suffering from a cold, but still in full flow, wrote to a friend: “I have been working from morning until night upon my little Christmas book and have really had no time to think of anything but that.” Six frantic weeks later his “little Christmas book” was ready for the printers, and on the 19^th December 1843 A Christmas Carol hit the bookshops. All 6,000 copies were sold by Christmas Eve, and a further 2,000 snapped up by January 6^th. Literary reviews were generally favourable, with the author being particularly pleased with the review in The Morning Chronicle. “The Carol is a prodigious success”, Charles announced proudly to his son Fred in a letter dated 30^th December. 

      In many ways Carol was a potboiler – a get-rich-quick scheme. But Charles also saw it as an opportunity to put across the plight of the poor, by stating that charitable goodwill should start with the individual. In stave one Scrooge’s nephew, Fred, sums this up nicely when he tells his grouchy uncle that Christmas is a time when people “open up their shut-up hearts” and view those less fortunate as “fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another races of creatures bound on other journeys.” Carol became a morality tale after a recent visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, where Charles saw the plight of dozens of real life “Tiny Tim’s”. He, like much of Victorian Britain, had been outraged by the findings of a report commissioned by the Children’s Employment Commission, which revealed that many young people laboured in wretched conditions. When, in stave three, the ghost of Christmas Present reveals to Scrooge the waif children, Ignorance and Want, the accompanying illustration shows the smoking industrial chimneys of Manchester in the background.

But Dickens also drew on his own personal memories. Bob Cratchit’s home and his run to work are drawn from the streets and dwellings of Camden Town. Tiny Tim (originally to be called Tiny Fred) was based on his own crippled nephew, whom he had last see back in September. Sadly the boy died a few weeks after the book’s publication.

      The moral message of Carol was that healthy societies, like sound families, are based on mutual responsibilities and responsiveness, and not selfishness and capitalists greed, which is as true today as in was in Dickens’ time. This, as with Shakespeare’s plays, which expose all the strengths and frailties of the human condition, is part of the book’s continued longevity.

      Charles personally oversaw every stage of the book’s production. He commissioned John Leech – himself no stranger to financial hardship – to produce four coloured etchings and four woodcuts within the text. The book was bound in red leather, with a gilt design on the cover, and the page edges were also gilt; altogether a hansom volume, and at the relatively low price of five shillings. The public were so enthused it not only dispelled the commercial failure of Martin Chuzzelwit, it also dispelled any fears Charles may have had concerning his waning popularity. William Makepeace Thackery called it “a national benefit”. But despite its commercial success, Dickens would later grumble about how it was “an intolerable anxiety and disappointment” financially. He had hoped to make £1,000 profit. “The first six thousand copies show a profit of £230!” he wrote to a friend. In fact it was more like £137. Much of the book’s profits were absorbed by productions costs: the expensive binding, the high quality paper and Leech’s colour illustrations, and advertising. By the time Charles wrote his second Christmas story, The Chimes, in 1844, Carol had netted him just £726. With such a commercial let down he was forced to yet again go cap in hat to his old friend Thomas Mitton. But Carol’s mixed blessings were to take on a legal twist.

      Within weeks of the original going on sale a number of pirate editions appeared, often with new characters or scenes and sold at a fraction of the price of the original. Charles immediately applied for a court injunction against these plagiarising “rogues and impostors”. However, it was a bitter victory for most of the defendants declared themselves bankrupt, resulting in Charles having to pay his own legal costs. In America, where copyright laws were non-existent, editions of the book were circulated without the author’s name attached, which meant no royalties. Dickens unfairly blamed the book’s publisher, Chapman and Hall, for his meagre return and severed all connection with them.

      The popularity of the book continues to this day. Not once in its 174 year history has it been out of print, and it has been numerously adapted for stage and screen. However, it is misconception to say that Dickens invented Christmas – or at least how we celebrate it today. When Charles first put pen to paper that afternoon in mid-October, Christmas was already going through something of a revolution.

   During the early part of the nineteenth century the festival was hardly celebrated among the industrial working class, and was generally believed to be on the decline. Workers – the real Bob Cratchit’s – were lucky if they got Christmas Day off! But social and economic changes began to sweep the country, a religious revival with greater emphasis on traditional virtues: neighbourliness, charity, and goodwill. In Carol Dickens seized upon the prevailing mood, crystallising it into popular form, making it accessible to the reading public. It is true to say that A Christmas Carol did play its part in the evolution of how we celebrate Christmas, but it’s just one of a series of events. Shortly after its publication Charles moved his family to a large house in Genoa, Italy, to reduce living costs.

   His next Christmas book, The Chimes, also dealt with supernatural visitations, and was his first to be written outside Britain. He hoped it would supersede A Christmas Carol, knocking it “out of its field”. Despite mixed reviews the book was a success, resulting in him acquiring his £1,000, enabling to settle his debts. However, despite his disillusionment it is A Christmas Carol that would become the public’s favourite.

      Today in our world of food banks, zero hours contracts, and news stories of people being forced to choose between food on the table and heating their home because of extortionate fuel bills, Carol’s moral message is as relevant now as in Dickens’ time. It reminds us to honour this period and “try to keep it all the year”. That Christmas should be a time of cheer and charity, of kindness, forgiveness and redemption; a time when we should not view those less fortunate with mockery or distain. In writing A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens gave the world a gift, not only of years past, but for now and years to come!

© copyright Martin Charlton

All images: public domain

     

  

Murder Recalled – Mary Bax, 1783

‘Every now and then a melancholy house is seen suggestive of ghosts and murders, but the windows are darkened, and not an inhabitant is to be found. … [Y]ou look ahead to the miles and miles of dreary waste with fear and trembling. All at once you stand rooted before a white sepulchral stone, which the moon brings in relief. For fifty yards around this spot vegetation has ceased; the grass will not grow, the flowers refuse to bloom. …Is it a mile stone or a boundary mark? Neither. It is a murder sign!’

      This somewhat melodramatic description comes from Clement William Scott’s Round About The Island (published in 1874). The location he’s describing is a headstone situated halfway long the ancient highway, which runs between the Kentish towns of Sandwich and Deal (a distance of 4 miles). According to Scott this is the site where one Mary Bax was ‘brutally murdered’ by Martin Lash – ‘a foreign seaman’. He goes on:

Our blood curdles in our veins, and we picture the murder on such a dreary night as this, and the shrieks of Mary Bax being carried out to sea over the salt sand-hills; no help at hand, nothing to save her from the bludgeon of Martin Lash.

The bloody incident, Scott informs his readers, took place in 1792, ‘so long ago,’ he writes, ‘that possibly it was not true’. Only it was true. Both Mary Bax and Martin Lash (also spelt ‘Laas’, ‘Lass, and Lascar’) had once been living breathing souls, whose paths crossed one fateful day during the summer of 1783 (and not 1792 as Scott stated). There are also other errors in Scott’s account of the murder. So what is the truth behind the slaying of Mary Bax? Who was Martin Lash? And what was his motive?

      Today the ancient highway snakes its way between the farmland and golf courses.  During the late 1700s the landscape – known as the ‘sandhills’ – was a mixture of grassy dunes and marshy pasture used for grazing, with clumps of willow clinging to the banks of the water-filled ditches that criss-crossed fields. Then as now it was an isolated spot, perfect for anyone harbouring nefarious motives. As L. Fussell comments in A Journey Around the Coast of Kent (1818), ‘[it] is both disagreeable and dangerous.’ Of course, Fussell’s remarks refer mainly with the nature of the terrain. But he would most likely have been aware of the Bax murder, so when he says ‘dangerous’ perhaps it’s not just the landscape he’s alluding too. 

      According to Robert Michael Ballantyne, in his 1864 book The Lifeboat, Mary was a ‘young and beautiful girl’. Burial records record her as twenty-three-years-old. ‘Having occasion to visit Deal,’ Ballantyne wrote, ‘she set out one evening on her solitary walk across the bleak sandhills.’ Mary was heading for Sandwich, some four miles away, though Ballantyne gives no reason for her journey. At the halfway point she is accosted by a ‘brutal foreign seaman’ called ‘Lascar’ – not Lash as in most other accounts. ‘This monster,’ Ballantyne continued, ‘murdered the poor girl and threw her body into a ditch that lies close to the spot on which her tomb now stands.’

      Again no motive is given. It’s as if Lash (or in this case ‘Lascar’) just attacked Mary for no reason. And as with Scott’s account, Ballantyne is wrong on a number of points. The most important of these is Mary’s burial. The ground in which the murder victims was interred was not consecrated ground. So Mary would not have been buried here.

      John Winter was Mary’s seventeen-year-old ‘devoted admirer’. Upon hearing of her murder he vows to hunt down Lascar, resting ‘neither night nor day’ until he has satisfied his desire for revenge. Winter’s little brother, David, just happened to be on his way the Checker’s Inn when he witnessed the murder. The terrified boy then runs to inform his brother. ‘It was chiefly through the exertions of these two,’ Ballantyne tells us, ‘that the murderer was finally brought to justice.’ A heartbroken John Winter then leaves the country, returning thirty years later when ‘the crime had been forgotten and most of his old friends and companions were [either] dead or gone abroad’. But it’s still a bitter homecoming, for Winter learns that during his absence David was drowned at sea.

      If this is all sounding like some mid-nineteenth century sensation novel then you’d be right. The Lifeboat is actually a work of fiction. A search through the local records did reveal a John Winter, who was born in Deal on 16^th October 1767. This would make him the same age as his namesake in the book. But whether or not he was an actual ‘admirer’ of Mary Bax is open to speculation. A similar search for John’s little brother was fruitless.

      Ballantyne’s was not the only fictional account of Mary’s murder. In 1850 the Penny Illustrated News published “Mary Bax: A Tale, Founded on Fact” by Thomas Mills.

R.M. Ballantyne and the cover of his 1864 novel, The Lifeboat.

      The story opens with Mary looking out at a moonlit sea at the ships anchored off shore. Believing she is alone she comments on the beauty of the site before her and the greatness of God. A voice behind concurs. Startled she turns to find Martin Lash (whom we are told is of Spanish birth, but has lived most of his life in England) is there too. After a brief exchange of pleasantries they bid each other good night. Lash, who is by now madly in love, watches Mary recede into the distance. Later he declares his love for her. But Mary is already engaged to another – a sailor who is away at sea – and she rejects Lash’s romantic proposal.

“Since then,” said Martin ironically, “the conversation is painful, doubtless my presence is not required. I wish you good evening, Miss Bax; the next time we meet again,” he continued, his eyes gleaming with rage, “it will be under different circumstances – we shall see who will be the suer then.”

      Mary is terrified by Lash’s rage. She later, through a ‘torrent of tears’, explains to her father what has occurred, and how she believes Lash now ‘intends me harm’. Her father tries to console her, saying the Spaniard’s angry words are nothing more than hurt vanity. But the experience unsettles Mary for days after and she experience nightmares. Weeks later she meets Martin Lash on the ancient highway, where (after conveniently being told to ‘prepare to die!’) she is strangled.

      Lash goes on the run, but is later caught in a churchyard in Dover. After his trial he is executed at the murder site and gibbeted; his bones being left to ‘blanch in the sun’.

      Mills’ account to us would seem over the top melodramatic. But for the Victorians they just couldn’t get enough. Other notorious crimes and criminals were retold by writers, who wouldn’t allow a little thing such as historical accuracy to get in the way of a good yarn. Mill’s even gives us a description of Mary Bax, but is it accurate? According to him she was of middle height with a ‘faultless figure’ and ‘symmetrical proportions’. Her features were plain, but the more you looked at them the more pleasing they became. When serious, her ‘wild blue eyes’ kindled into ‘vivacious brilliancy’ and ‘sparkled with diamond-like lustre’.

      As with nineteenth century accounts on Jack Sheppard, Sweeney Todd and Dick Turpin, it’s hard to know in Mills’ account of the murder of Mary Bax where fiction ends and historical truth begins. So let me repeat an earlier question. What is the truth behind the slaying of Mary Bax? To answer that it’s best we turn to the official records, which paint a far less romantic picture.

St Peter’s Church burial register recording the date of Mary’s burial.

      The morning of Monday  25^th August 1783 had been one of sunshine and showers. At around 10 a.m. twenty-five-year-old Mary Bax, a well-respected young woman from Deal, began her journey along the ancient highway to Sandwich. The purpose of her journey was to deliver a parcel (sadly, records don’t record its contents). As she passes the Checker’s Inn (also known as the ‘halfway house’) she passes a young vagabond sitting at the road side. Whether Mary took any notice of Martin Laas (all the official records spell his name thus) is not known. But upon spotting Mary carrying her parcel Laas decides to follow and rob her.

      He stalks his victim for about half a mile, before finally catching her up. Laas asks for directions to Sheerness. Mary replies that he is a ‘great distance’ away, and when Lass begs for money to ‘bear his expences’, Miss Bax regrets she has none to give. Unperturbed, Martin Laas accompanies his prey a little longer. The Newgate Calendar reveals what occurred next:

…[O]n passing a ditch, [he] pushed her into it, and jumping upon her, into mud and water up to his middle, and thus smothered her. He then took a bundle which she carried in her hands, and her shoes from her feet, with which he made off through the marshes, across the country towards Dover.

      Unfortunately for Laas his crime was witnessed by a looker’s son (‘Looker being a Kentish colloquialism for a shepherd). The boy, whose surname was Rogers  (eleven or twelve-year-of-age), had been sheltering from the rain in a haystack, when he heard Mary’s desperate screams. Upon seeing Rogers coming towards him Laas fled. After discovering Mary’s body lying among the reeds and bulrushes, Rogers then ran toward Deal to raise the alarm. He was immediately taken to the local magistrate, where he explained all.

      Martin Laas was eventually caught sleeping in a churchyard in Dover (some more contemporary accounts state it was Folkestone). He was committed to St Dunstan’s Gaol at Canterbury, to await his trial at the next Maidstone Assizes.

The only known illustration of Martin Laas, as featured in the Illustrated Police News of 18 November 1882.

      At his trial in Maidstone the defendant behaved with ‘unparalleled audacity’. He showed no remorse; on the contrary he appeared very cheerful. He mocked the court and insulted the witnesses. When the guilty verdict was given Laas gave three cheers and became so rowdy that the judge ordered that the prisoner be chained to the floor of his cell, until the time of his execution. It was during this period that Laas confessed to the murder. He was hanged on Penenden Heath, which until Christmas 1830 was the site for all Maidstone’s executions. Laas didn’t die alone. Also upon the scaffold was John Huntley (convicted of murdering his wife). After the execution Huntley was sent to be anatomized, but the surgeons, according to the Newgate Calendar, had no interest in Laas and his corpse was burned beneath the gallows.

     Laas, it was later established, had been born in Norwegian port of Bergen in 1756. As a boy he had come to England aboard a Danish trading ship. Deserting the services of his employer, he then joined the British Royal Navy, where he saw action in the West-Indies at the Battle of Grenada (1779) and the Battle of  the Saintes (1782). But after several years’ service he was discharge. Like many dismissed sailors Laas fell into destitution, which would eventually lead him to murder. ‘In this culprit,’ wrote the Newgate Calendar, ‘we have another deplorable instance of dismissing seamen, often pennyless [sic], at the end of that war, in which they often have conquered.’  It continued ungratefully, ‘When foreigners enlist under our banner, and having served our purpose, ought not the government, at least, to send them back to their own home?’

      As for Mary Bax, she wasn’t buried where she’d been murdered. Only the condemned criminals were interred in unconsecrated ground. Instead Mary was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Peter’s Church in Sandwich. The stone erected out on the ancient highway was commissioned by her friends. Upon it was inscribed the following:

On this spot

August the 25^th, 1782,

MARY BAX, spinster,

was murdered by

Martin Lash, a foreigner,

who was executed for the same.

The year, of course, is wrong. An error made by the stonemason perhaps? The burial register for St Peter’s records that ‘Mary Bax, spinster, aged 23, [was] murdered near sandwich, 25 Aug.’, and interred three days later.

The ancient highway looking towards Deal and the stone marking where Mary was murdered.

Copyright © Martin Charlton, 2016

Murder Recalled: The Bloody Husband

Murder of Katherine Sprackling, 1652

Among the British Library’s more restricted titles is a very rare tract published in 1653, entitled: The Bloody Husband and Cruell Neighbour or, A Truth Historie of Two Muthers. Written anonymously by ‘one that lives near the place where said muthers were committed’, it narrates the deaths of Katherine Sprackling and Robert Langley, during the mid-seventeenth century. The perpetrator of this bloody crime was the squire of the Ellington Estate – Adam Sprackling.

 The title page of The Blood Husband,

Published in 1653.

      Described as tall, cavalier (in both sense of the word), with long flowing hair, Sprackling was born in St Laurence on the Isle of Thanet in 1606. Some twenty-five years later, he married Katherine Lewknor, who was said to be a lady of ‘excellent character’ and ‘very remarkable for her piety’. Her father, Sir Robert Lewknor, had once served as High Sheriff of Kent under King Charles I. The Sprackling's were also one of the county’s noble families. They had settled in Thanet sometime before the 13^th century, and had acquired the Ellington Estate from the Thatcher family in 1558. Situated just on the outskirts of St Laurence village, the estate was vast. Much of it consisted of ‘luxuriant corn fields and fertile meadows’. Adam Sprackling, however, wasn’t interest in it. As the tract states, he preferred instead to: 

…ride about the Island, and frequent Taphouses, and there Rant and roar, game and sware exceedingly…

Fights were a regular occurrence. Sprackling would draw his weapon at the slightest provocation. But this wasn’t the worst of it.

      In a deeply religious time when church attendance, especially Sunday service, was deemed mandatory, Sprackling would remain at home, drinking, swearing and fornicating. The worship of God and the Word were of little consequence; the young wastrel preferring instead the company of ‘drunken ministers’ and women of low repute. Unsurprisingly his estate and fortune were soon wasted. Frequently intoxicated and foul, his poor wife on numerous occasions was forced to flee and lock herself away. Sprackling would also hold grudges against any who cause him even the slightest offence. It was one such grievance that would lead to murder.

      Richard Langley was deputy to the Mayor of Sandwich. He was also a god fearing man, ‘zealous for God and the State’. In 1648, he and two others – Edward Taddy, the parish constable, and Humphrey Pudner, deputy to the Mayor of Dover – were ordered to disarm the noableman. No reason is given by the tract as to why, but no doubt the squire’s fiery temper played its part somewhere. Langley and his compatriot’s executed their orders, which also resulted in Sprackling being briefly incarcerated in Canterbury Gaol. Some months later, the squire came across Taddy in the street and physically assaulted him, but for Richard Langley, he harboured a deeper animosity. During one incident, the nobleman unsheathed his sword, brandished it over his head and threatened Langley with an untimely end. On another occasion Sprackling pursued the deputy back to the unfortunate man’s home. With his quarry trapped inside the squire fired his pistol at the house and issued more death threats.

      On the day of his murder, Langley was out drinking when he heard that the squire and two of his thugs were again looking for him. Sprackling, along with Paul Allen and Thomas Emerson, had indeed come down to Ramsgate, then a small fishing town, looking to settle his grievance. Langley stole away. First to his home, but later he sought refuge with a John Johnson. After explaining his situation, the Johnson’s gave him a horse so he could make his escape. John Johnson would later recall how Langley had no sooner climbed upon his mount when he was spotted by Sprackling. The last anyone saw of Richard Langley alive was as he galloped out of town, with the nobleman and his cronies in hot pursuit. He was later found shot in the back and ‘wallowing’ in his own blood. He died from his injuries a short time after.

      Sprackling escaped arrest. No one in the town would speak against him. Paul Allen also evaded justice by going on the run. Thomas Emerson wasn’t so fortunate. He was executed at Canterbury later that year.  Adam Sprackling may have thought he had evaded justice, but not in the eyes of God. To spill another man blood was a sin and it was only a matter of time before God would act out His revenge.

      By the end of 1652, Sprackling was deep in debt. Many of his creditors had made claims against him; bailiffs had been issued warrants for his arrest. Some of those who had lent the nobleman money found themselves in debt and imprisoned. Adam Sprackling, naturally, couldn’t have cared less. During the intervening years since the murder of Richard Langley the villainous squire had continued his life of debauchery. But now with bailiffs ready to apprehend him on sight, he was forced to place himself under self-imposed house arrest. This was bad news for Katherine. Unable to indulge his nefarious habits he became even more violent. His savage rages would send the entire household scuttling for cover. Katherine took the brunt of his torment and abuse. She in turn remained stoically loyal and loving towards her husband. Finally, on the evening of 12^th December events took a more sinister and bloody turn.   

Ellington House, c. 1886.

      Sprackling had spent much of that evening drinking with a neighbour by the surname of Lamming. At around 10 p.m. the squire sent word to a seaman called Knowler, living in Ramsgate, instructing him to call at the house at once. Knowler refused, saying that it was late and he was in bed. Unperturbed, Sprackling instructed one of his elderly tenants, an old man by the surname of Martin, to come instead. Martin was also in bed, but rose and went to his neighbour. When he arrived at Ellington House, the old man was taken to the kitchen. There he found Sprackling and his wife, Lamming, and a servant called Ewell. Shortly after Lamming asked to be excused; perhaps he sensed the squire meant his wife mischief and wanted no part of it. The nobleman acquiesced.

      As the night wore on, Sprackling’s mood darkened. He instructed Martin to bind Ewell’s legs. The two men believed it yet another of the nobleman’s practical jokes. Martin did as instructed and bound the servant’s legs with using dog couplings. Ewell would spend the rest of the evening tied-up on the floor.

      Sprackling then turned on his wife. He accused her of conspiracy and being in cahoots with the bailiffs by leaving doors to the house open. Katherine sat quietly as she took yet another barrage of verbal abuse. ‘Her words to him,’ claims the tract, ‘were full of loving and sweat expression’. In response Sprackling struck her about the face with his dagger (the tract doesn’t state whether he used the blade or hilt). The blow hurt her jaw, but Katherine continued to be patient towards her husband, though she now said very little to him. Ever the bully, Sprackling persisted tormenting her. This outpouring of hatred went on until early morning. Finally, after sustaining hours of abuse, Katherine, ‘being weary, and in great fear’ of her life, got up to leave. The tract narrates what occurred next:

… the Gentlewoman … rose up to go out of the room, and lifting her hand to open the dore, her Husband following her with chopping-knife in his hand, cut her wrist therewith, so that the bone was cut in sunder; her hand hung down only by the sinews and skin; No help was neer, Ewell bound, and Martin old and weak, and fearing his own life; durst not interpose, but only prayed his Mistris to stay and be quiet, he sayd he hoped all would be well; And Martin got a napkin and bound her hand with it.

Sprackling, however, wasn’t done – far from it. Later he stuck her again on the head with the chopping knife. Katherine fell down bleeding, but, according to the tract, recovered herself and…

…kneeling cryd, and prayed to God for pardon of her own sins, and of her Husband’s sin [,] beseeching God to forgive him, for she forgave him. But in the time of her praying thus, her Husband chopt her head in midst into the brains, so that she fell down stark dead instantly, lying in her own blood.

      ‘Now let’s kill the dogs,’ Sprackling said, ‘and then they’ll say we are mad indeed!’

      The squire killed six of his dogs, the bodies of four he threw next to his wife. He then ordered old Martin to smear Katherine’s blood over Ewell’s face. Sprackling then bloodied the old man’s face and then his own. ‘For this fact,’ states the tract, ‘Master Sprackling was apprehended that night, having a Dagger in one hand and Pistol in the other…’ He was escorted to Sandwich Gaol. After the coroner’s inquest, held the following day, old Martin was also arrested.

      Their trial took place at Sandwich’s Guildhall on Friday 22^nd April 1653. In his opening address, prosecuting counsel, Peter Peak, spoke of the ‘crying sin of murther’ and how such acts were a ‘land-defiling and God provoking sin’. The court then received the Bill of Indictment, which was presented by Katherine’s brother – Steward Lewknor. Sprackling tried to disrupt the proceedings by objecting to every man summoned for jury service. Nevertheless, despite his best efforts, a jury was sworn and the trial proceeded. Naturally both men pleaded not guilty to the charge of wilful murder.

      For his defence Sprackling pleaded diminished responsibility (Martin’s defence is not mentioned).  However, the prosecution were able to produce a number of witnesses who were able to contradict this plea. Many were those assaulted by the squire during heated scuffles in the Inns and Taverns of Thanet. One Robert Lister deposed how after a quarrel, he was later set upon by one of Sprackling’s thugs. Others came forward and told the court of ‘bloodied assaults’ inflicted upon them by the nobleman. Even the people of Ramsgate finally broke their silence regarding Sprackling’s part in the murder of Richard Langley. The most damning evidence, however, came from Ewell. 

      In response, Sprackling tried to counter the prosecution’s case by calling two physicians to confirm his mental instability. They failed to appear. The defendant was able to produce several of his mistresses, each of whom swore that he was indeed mad. The jury, however, didn’t believe any of it. They found Sprackling guilty, but acquitted Martin. When asked by the judge to respond to the guilty verdict, Sprackling replied: ‘no man can judge between man and wife, but God alone!’  The judge then passed the sentence of death by hanging.

      On Wednesday 27^th April, before a crowd of some 2,000 people, Adam Sprackling was hanged at Gallows Field, on the outskirts of Sandwich. While awaiting his sentence he refused to see anyone, and as he was being leading to the gallows he instructed the Sheriff of Sandwich to ‘make guard that no man, Minster, or other, might come neer to speak to him’. A churchman in the crowd did try and plead with him. Would he not clear his conscience before God and state whether or not he had ordered Langley’s murder?

      ‘Sir, I have made my confession to God,’ replied the squire, ‘I pray trouble me not; man hath nothing to do with it!’

      After his execution, Sprackling’s body was cut down and coffined outside the Three Kings Inn. Then, under the cover of darkness, he was secretly buried next to his unfortunate wife inside St Laurence Church. No entry of his interment appears in the parish register (see Bygone Kent, Vol. 19, No. 3). The Ellington Estate briefly passed to his son, Robert. He in turn sold it to the Troward family in 1659 (see Bygone Kent, Vol. 13, No. 12). The Sprackling’s would never again return to either Ellington or St Laurence.

Copyright © Martin Charlton, 2015.
Originally published in the May/June 2015 issue of Bygone Kent.