Foul Deeds in Richmond and Kingston

232 Pages·2010·14.2 MB·English

by  Dr Jonathan Oates

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First published in Great Britain in 2010 by
Wharncliffe Local History an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Jonathan Oates 2010
ISBN 978 1 84563 125 3
eISBN 978 1 78303 756 8
The right of Jonathan Oates to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 Richmond and Kingston: A Brief History
Chapter 2 Death to the Aristocrats, 1812
Chapter 3 Did Dr Smethurst Murder his Wife? 1859
Chapter 4 A Crime of Lunacy, 1861
Chapter 5 Murder or Suicide? 1872
Chapter 6 A Pauper’s Death, 1877
Chapter 7 Murdered and Chopped Up, 1879
Chapter 8 Murdered Whilst on Duty, 1881
Chapter 9 The Major and his Wayward Son, 1888
Chapter 10 The First Fred West, 1894
Chapter 11 A Suicide Pact, 1905
Chapter 12 An Accountant’s Deadly Reckoning, 1927
Chapter 13 Murder in the Park (1), 1927
Chapter 14 Murder in the Park (2), 1931
Chapter 15 Albert Hadfield, Guilty or Not Guilty? 1936
Chapter 16 A Middle-Class Murder, 1937
Chapter 17 A Jeweller’s Demise, 1938
Chapter 18 The Second Death on Kingston Hill, 1939
Chapter 19 Why did Jack Martin Commit Matricide? 1948
Chapter 20 The Teddington Towpath Murders, 1953
Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank those staff at Richmond Local Studies Centre,
Kingston Local Studies Centre, Hammersmith and Fulham Local Studies
Centre, the London Metropolitan Archives, the Surrey History Centre and
The National Archives, for assisting in his enquiries. These included fetching
maps, assisting with microfilm and archives, and dealing with Freedom of
Information enquiries. Without them and their historical material, this book
could not have been written. Staff at the Broadmoor Hospital dealt efficiently
with enquiries. John Coulter, was, as always, helpful with his knowledge, too.
This book is dedicated to John.
Introduction
When Richmond’s history is mentioned, most people think of Hampton
Court and Henry VIII. Crime does not obviously spring to mind,
whereas it would if Whitechapel or Notting Hill were mentioned.
Some books about Richmond and Kingston do not even allude to it. Yet criminal
activity does not recognise geographical or social boundaries and this book aims
to demonstrate this. Foul Deeds in Richmond and Kingston covers a number of
serious crimes which took place in what are now the London Boroughs of
Kingston on Thames (Norbiton, Surbiton and Kingston itself) and Richmond
(Barnes, Mortlake, Teddington, Hampton, Twickenham and Richmond), from
the early nineteenth century until the 1950s. Some are shocking indeed, such as
the murder and dissection of Mrs Thomas, by her servant, Kate Webster, in
Richmond, in 1879 and the savage killing of two teenagers on the Teddington
towpath in the 1950s. The alleged poisoning of Louisa Bankes in 1859 was once
a cause celebre, but all these have now been mostly forgotten, except by crime
buffs. In their day all were reported as national news. There are also unsolved
murders, killings in Richmond Park and other foul crimes.
This book does not aim to be comprehensive, due to limitations of space;
therefore other murders in these districts can be found listed in the appendix.
Rather I have chosen ones for which there is an appreciable amount of
information. Those which occurred elsewhere, but have local connections, are
also omitted – Buster Edwards of Great Train Robbery infamy resided at St
Margaret’s Road, Twickenham, and hid some of the loot at a friend’s in
Kingston, for instance.
Many people believe that the internet is the fount of all knowledge, but only
three of the cases in this book feature there (those referred to in the first
paragraph), and not in any great detail. It is the paper-based sources which are of
most use. Chiefly, the evidence used here has been taken from the police files
found at The National Archives, Kew. These include reports made by the chief
inspector who was in charge of the investigation, reports by doctors, witnesses,
other police officers and those accused of the crime. Some of these sources have
only recently been made available to the public. They vary enormously in scope