Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in the Cotswolds by Nell Darby

Author:Nell Darby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRUE CRIME / General
ISBN: 9781783037803
Publisher: Wharncliffe
Published: 2009-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Too Young to Die: The Murder of Emily Gardner

1871

Some cases seem so modern that it is hard to believe they didn’t happen yesterday. Some motives for crime have been the same throughout history – love, hate, jealousy, all feelings that can cause people to commit horrific acts today. In 1871, one case motivated by love and jealousy roused the attention of the national media. It was notable for several reasons, but when I read the firsthand account of it, I was struck by how modern it sounded.

Frederick Richard Jones was Cheltenham born and bred. The youngest son of a local stonemason, Henry Jones, and his wife Elizabeth, he was brought up at 36 Swindon Place, Cheltenham, with his two brothers, Henry and Edward. His brothers both started work as masons in their mid teens, but Frederick became apprenticed to a baker in Northfield, a suburb of Birmingham.

Frederick was illiterate and was considered by locals to be ignorant and appear younger than he was. He was only five foot three and a half, so his shortness may have added to this perception of youth. His father was also regarded as having little parental control over Frederick. However, by December 1871, Frederick was home from Birmingham and living again with his parents at 36 Swindon Place.

He had probably been back in Cheltenham for a few months by then, as he had started seeing a local girl, Emily Gardner. She was seventeen and a dressmaker, popular with boys and confident of her looks.

Emily’s father, Peter, had originally been a blacksmith, but by 1871 was the landlord of the Early Dawn inn on the High Street in Cheltenham. He lived there with his wife Sarah and his five children – Matilda (who died, aged fifteen, in 1867), Emily, Alice, Annie and John. They were a working-class family, and the children all worked from a fairly early age. John followed his father into smithing; Emily and Annie were both dressmakers; Alice went into service.

Frederick had been ‘seeing’ Emily for a few months, and was a regular at her father’s pub. During the coroner’s inquest on 11 December 1871, Peter Gardner recalled that Jones had been in the Early Dawn during the afternoon of the 10 December, for several hours. He said he had seen him at both tea and supper times, and both times thought he had been drinking, although he wasn’t drunk. He added that Frederick drank beer nearly every day. Henry Jones, Frederick’s father, went further, saying that the Early Dawn had ruined his son, and that over half his earnings each week were spent in that pub.

In the evening of 10 December, after drinking at the Early Dawn, Frederick, Emily and Alice Gardner moved onto The Tiger pub and shared a pint of beer. Alice then needed to return to her workplace, so Frederick and Emily accompanied her. Alice said that, until that day, they had all been good friends – and even on that day, she noticed no difference in him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.