A poignant memorial to a tragic accident – St Laurence in Thanet, Ramsgate, Kent
I was exploring the churchyard of St Laurence in Thanet, in Ramsgate, Kent, when I found this little tombstone. It’s a deceptive churchyard because as I went behind the building it was actually much larger than it initially appeared. There are 1400 graves there and it is now closed to burials but there is now a Garden of Remembrance. The churchyard was consecrated in 1275 which gives you some idea of how long there has been a church on the site. The oldest known burial has been dated to 1656.
The young woman commemorated here was anonymous at the time of her burial and her epitaph reads:
IN MEMORY
Of a YOUNG LADY, who as
She was walking upon the
CLIFFS
on Oct 4th 1801
unfortunately fell over
and was killed upon the
Spot.
It was St Laurence’s churchwardens who raised the headstone to her and she was later identified as Louisa Grevis who was the second daughter of Captain Charles James Grevis-James. Louisa was born on 13 August 1773 in Doncaster and died aged 28.
This is all I have been able to find about about her so far. Although her name isn’t on the headstone, at least she was given a decent burial and remembered.
I am still travelling the highways and byways exploring ancient churchyards and cemeteries in search of symbols and interesting tales. You never know what you’ll find so it’s always an adventure for me. There was the 200 year old unsolved murder and discovering traces of Chatham’s maritime history in its epitaphs. Please note that there will be no Symbol of the Month this month.
But I also want to thank my readers for their comments and likes over the years – they have been much appreciated!
So let’s raise a glass, mug, cup, goblet, of whatever you feel is appropriate! Happy Birthday shadowsflyaway!
The image is of the churchyard of St Mary’s in Rye, Sussex on a lovely April day in 2025.
In light of the mass dial found at St Mary’s In the Marsh, I thought it might be timely to repeat the 2021 Symbol of the Month about them. Easily missed as they are not always where you expect to find them, they are survivors from a time where there were no time keepers such as clocks. People rose with the sun and went to bed at sunset which is why they were so important to villages and their inhabitants.
Despite the somewhat dispiriting summer, I was determined to escape from the house and see at least one or two local churches. My little part of Kent is known as Charles Dickens country (I’m not sure that he knows about this) and there are several buildings and churches associated with him.
One of these is St James’s church at Cooling. Although closed for services, it is still kept open by local people on most days. The Churches Conservation Trust take care of it and it’s in an isolated spot which borders onto marshes. It’s also a fair walk from the nearest town, Cliffe. I didn’t see any signs of much of a village there although there is a 14th century ruined castle nearby. St James’s is the end of a terrace of houses appropriately named Dickens Walk.
l’ll talk more about St James in a later post as it inspired one of Dickens most atmospheric scenes in ‘Great Expectations’ with the childrens graves in the churchyard. But while I was there, I found a symbol set within a wall that I had heard of but had never previously seen an example – this was the Mass Dial. I have to admit that if it hadn’t been pointed out on a display board within the church that I might have missed it as it’s set into an outer wall of the church. Not many have survived and Victorian restoration may have meant that they are found in odd places.
Mass dials are rare survivors and were a way of telling time before the invention of mechanised clocks and timepieces in the 14th century.
It was the Anglo-Saxons who established the dials. There had been confusion with all the different calendar systems such as the Lunar and Julian, and with a largely illiterate population, a visual way of telling the time was necessary.
It was the Anglo-Saxons who established the dials. There had been confusion with all the different calendar systems such as the Lunar and Julian, and with a largely illiterate population, a visual way of telling the time was necessary.
According to the Building Conservation website:
‘the Anglo Saxons divided night and day into 8 artificial divisions known in Old English as Tid or Tides. The 4 daylight divisions were called:
Morgen – 6am – 9am
Undern – 9am to noon
Middaeg – Noon to 3pm
Geletendoeg – 3pm to 6pm.
Morning, noon and evening are still in use as the last remnants of this division still in use today as are moontide, yuletide and shrovetide.’
But, throughout the Middle Ages, the Catholic church emphasised the reciting of prayers and fixed times during the day as pre-Reformation Britain was still a Catholic country. These were known as the Divine Offices and were:
Matins – pre-dawn
Prime (6am)
Terce (9am)
Sext (12pm)
None (3pm)
Vespers (sunset
Nocturnes (after sunset)
However, these were not set as the sun might not shine for a few days and if a mistake was made then the parish priest might end up celebrating certain feasts on different days from a neighbouring parish.
They were a form of medieval sun dial and originally the hole in the centre of the dial would have contained a horizontal wooden or metal rod that cast a shadow. This was known as a ‘gnomon’ which is pronounced as No Mon. These may well have been the local community’s only way of telling the time although medieval life revolved around getting up at sunrise and going to bed at sunset.
According to the British Sundial Society,
‘mass dials can be found on the south side of many churches. They are usually small and often located on the walls, buttresses, windows and doorways of a church. However, they can also appear in more unlikely places such as inside churches and on north walls where the sun rarely shines. But they have also been found in porches suggesting that the porch was built sometime after the dial was made.’
The Society goes onto suggest that this may be
‘due to the stone blocks having been re-used in the rebuilding of the church.’
The location of the Cooling one may indicate that it’s been moved.
Again, according to Building Conservation:
‘if a mass dial is found anywhere other than a church and other than the south elevation of a church, this usually means that it has been moved from its original location often as part of a Victorian restoration. In such cases, the dials were sometimes rebuilt into the fabric upside down, making them unreadable.’
The positioning of mass dials is important and can vary. They may be on the smooth cornerstone or quoin of a tower, nave or chancel, above a porch or on a door or window jamb. Often they are set at eye level and in one church it is cut into a window ledge.
‘Some have either a few or many radiating lines, {others} have ‘hour’ lines within the circles or semi circles and others are constructed with a ring of ‘pock’ marks drilled into the stone.’
British Sundial Society
There are also variants in the way that the hour lines are numbered as they may have Roman numerals or even Arabic ones. They’re also known as scratch dials as
‘many are quite crudely scratched into the stone.’ British Sundial Society
The 14th century brought mechanical clocks that created a regulated 24 hour time period. As a result, medieval life changed as it was no longer so reliant on daylight. However, mass dials were still in use but now they were a complete circle with lines radiating from the central gnomon to simulate the 24 hour clock. But by the 16th century they had fallen out of use. Sundials and mechanical locks had overtaken them and it was no longer the Roman Catholic church that dominated after the Reformation.
Mass dials are of great archaeological and historic importance. However, many of them are now indecipherable due to erosion and vandalism and people may not even realise what they are or their significance.
Edith Nesbit is buried in the churchyard of St Mary in the Marsh which was our next church. We left Brenzett and its attractive cats to travel through the wonderful Kent countryside. Blossom foamed over the hedgerows and the fields and marshes seemed to stretch on forever. There was a sense that Nature was beginning to stretch herself and come back to life after the winter.
St Mary in the Marsh was a more substantial church and we were greeted by the Star Inn which ‘would have been Edith’s local’ but is now a private house. It’s a large, rambling building and was opposite the church. We soon found her last resting place in front of St Mary’s lying under the morning sun and with a simple wooden rail as a marker. It was Tommy, her second husband, who erected the first wooden rail commemorating Edith. This has suffered over the years and is now inside the church porch with a small plaque. The one in the churchyard today is a replacement put up by the E Nesbit Society.
St Mary’s was less plain inside than St Eanswith although there were still box pews and whitewashed walls. There was a magnificent triptych on one wall and another little plaque inside the nave dedicated to Edith. Three pairs of eyes were watching us as we explored. There were two small heads attached to two pillars of a sedilia by the altar and another, larger one at the base of a column.
Outside early bluebells nodded in the breeze and we found a medieval mass dial set into a wall. (please see Symbol of the Month – The Mass Dial published 18/10/21)
Afterwards we went on to explore churches and other places associated with Russell Thorndike and his famous creation whose exploits took place on the Marshes, Dr Syn.
Our final port of call was St Mary’s Bay in Dymchurch where we saw the house known as ‘The Jolly Boat’ which was E Nesbit’s final home which she are with Tommy. It is now a holiday home and is situated at the end of Nesbit Road appropriately enough. As we admired it, we were lucky enough to see a steam train from the Romney and Hythe railway come puffing past as it steamed into the station nearby. In the town one of our party had spotted a blue plaque on a house called ‘The Cottage’ which commemorated its famous residents: the painter Paul Nash, Noel Coward and Edith all stayed there. We did wonder if it had been at the same time and one of our party commented that ‘it must have been quite a party!’
E Nesbit had a fascinating life with her strong Socialist views and published over 60 books, some of which are still in print today. The film version of ‘The Railway Children’ is a much loved classic although her ghost stories are less well known. They were reprinted last year in ‘The House of Silence’ by Handheld Press.
It was a wonderful day travelling the marshes and understanding how they inspired Edith where she is still remembered with such affection.
The churches of the Romney Marshes are isolated and you’ll need your own transport to visit them. But there are hamlets and villages here and there and I could imagine how it must feel in mid-winter with dark short nights.
However it has long been one of my ambitions to explore the churches that are on the marshes. So when I was offered the chance I didn’t hesitate. It was a wonderful Spring day, sunny and bright, and we were all eager to explore the Marshes.
Our first church was St Eanswith in Brenzett. This was a plain little church with a candlesnuffer steeple on top of a small slope and was surrounded by a small churchyard dotted with daffodils. There was an azure blue sky and a hare was spotted racing across a bare field at the back of the church. It’s one of the smallest churches on the Marshes and is dedicated to a 7th Saxon princess who founded a nunnery in Folkestone in 630AD. There is now nothing left of the Saxon building and the present church can only be dated back to the 12th century when the Normans rebuilt it.
A large Maine Coon cat, who was obviously returning from a night out through the churchyard to its home in the little straggle of houses nearby, caught sight of us and tried to hide by running from patch after patch of daffodils. Then its owner came out of the house that it ran into with another Maine Coon cat!
Inside St Eanswith it was plain, with white washed walls and dark wood pews. The pulpit had a raised roof panel which I’d not seen before and at the altar end of the church was the table tomb that we had come to see. This was the Fagge monument and is the only monument in the church. It is dedicated to a father and son, both confusingly called John, and it is a pair of alabaster sculptures of two men in fashionable 17th century clothes. The man in the foreground is portrayed as lying on his back on a sculpted cushion with his left hand on his chest while the man behind is lying on his elbow with his right hand under his chin and his left hand on his left leg. There are visible cracks and damage with repairs which you would expect over the centuries. They are beautifully sculpted. There are small coats of arms beneath the figures at corners which bring a small splash of colour. John Fagge the elder died in 1639 and his son and heir died in 1646.
This is the monument that inspired one of E Nesbit’s most famous stories, ‘Man Size in Marble’ which was adapted by Mark Gatiss for the 2024 BBC Christmas ghost story and retitled ‘the Stone Woman’. A young married couple have moved to the country and their housekeeper tells them of a certain night when something walks from a local church to their house. They take no notice of this but when the husband is called away and leaves his wife alone in the house….you can read the story here: The Project Gutenberg ebook of Grim Tales, by E. Nesbit.
This is English folk horror clashing with modern reasoning and belief. Nesbit creates the dark countryside so well and also the central characters incredulity at what they are being told. They are still in love with endearments such as ‘wifie’ and ‘dearest’ which makes the ominous events that are about to happen all the more shocking.
E Nesbit c. 1890 Shared under Wiki Commons
E Nesbit (1858-1924) is most known for ‘The Railway Children’ which was first published in 1905 and has never been out of print. It was also a classic and well loved childrens film. Some of her other children’s stories have also been adapted for TV. But she also wrote ghost stories, some of which were recently published by Handheld Press in the collection ‘The House of Silence.’
She was only 4 when her father, an agricultural chemist, died. Edith’s sister, Mary, suffered from ill health and as a result the family travelled in the UK and France. She died in 1871 of tuberculosis after becoming engaged to the poet Phillip Bourke Marston. After Mary’s death, Edith and her mother lived in Halstead Hall, Halstead in Kent which is considered to be a possible location for ‘The Railway Children’. When she was 17 they moved to Elswick Road in Lewisham.
She married Hubert Bland on 22 April 1880. They met when she was aged 18 and at 21 and 7 months pregnant they tied the knot. It was a difficult marriage to say the least as he was always being unfaithful. Edith had 3 children by him and adopted 2 more from one of his long term affairs. It was a complicated family. She and Hubert were both fervent socialists and joined the Fabian Society, jointly editing its journal ‘Today.’ But this work often took second place to Edith’s writing as she became more successful. The Fabian Society ultimately became part of the Labour party.
From 1899-1920 she lived at Well Hall Eltham. The house is long gone but the garden remains as a public park. She also had a second home at Crowlink, Friston, East Sussex when she entertained.
Bland died in 1918 and she married her second husband, Thomas ‘the Skipper’ Tucker in Woolwich where he was the captain of the Ferry. They both lived at St Mary’s Bay, Dymchurch at their house ‘The Jolly Boat’ where she died on 4 May 1924. It may have been from lung cancer as she was a great smoker. Tommy died at the same address on 17 May 1935. To read more about Edith and her life please visit: https://edithnesbit.co.uk
It was such a privilege to see the Fagge monument in the flesh so to speak and also a writer’s inspiration. I could easily imagine Brenzett on a winter’s night, the little terrace of houses with their curtains drawn and lights out as something stirs and moves within the small church and suddenly the top of the tomb is empty and something that shouldn’t be is walking…..
A Spring Saunter in the footsteps of E Nesbit Part 2 her late life on the Marshes
It wasn’t until late in the 19th century that angels fluttered into large Victorian cemeteries and there is undoubtedly a story to be written as to how they changed sex once they had perched themselves on top of monuments. Prior to that they had been seen as ‘Popish’ symbols and I have visited cemeteries where there is a lone angel or maybe just a scattering of them. There is a hierarchy of angels and they can be identified by what they hold in their hands; a sword, shield, a book or, in this case, a trumpet. The angel holding a trumpet is the one that features as this month’s Symbol.
I have seen several examples and this one comes from West Norwood Cemetery. It’s on the headstone dedicated to Edward who died aged only 13 years. As the epitaph states,
‘Edward
THE ONLY SON
E. du Bois Esq
BARRISTER OF LAW’
I’ve always considered it to be a very striking, almost 3D image, with the detail on the angels wings, clothes and the clouds that surround her. It depicts an angel blowing on a trumpet with a Biblical quotation surrounding her. The angelic figure is definitely a woman. and it’s always intrigued me how angels which are traditionally male in the Bible became pretty, pensive young women when they appeared in cemeteries and churchyards. The quotation reads:
‘WAITING
THE LAST TRUMPET (words unreadable)………
ALL SHALL RAISE AGAIN
In this case, the angel trumpeter on this headstone is a representation of the Last Judgement Day as she is the herald of the resurrection.
There are many references to angels blowing trumpets in the Bible and their association with the dead rising on the Day of Resurrection. For example in Corinthians 15:32, it says:
‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
At the last trumpet.
For the trumpet will sound, and the
Dead will be raised imperishable,
And we shall be changed.’
There are also references in the Book of Revelation and Matthew 24:32.
However, it is the archangel, Gabriel, who is most associated with blowing a trumpet to announce the resurrection of the dead and images of this began to appear in the 14th century. There is a very stern and definitely male angel figure holding a trumpet at the entrance to Queen Victoria’s mausoleum at Frogmore. There is also a geometric figure known as Gabriel’s horn or Torricelli’s trumpet. It has infinite surface area but finite volume. According to Wikipedia:‘The name refers to the Abrahamic tradition identifying the archangel Gabriel as the angel who blows the horn to announce Judgment Day, associating the divine, or infinite, with the finite. Theproperties of this figure were first studied by Italian physicist and mathematician Evangelista Torricelli in the 17th century.’
Angels appear in most religions and it’s appropriate that one of the most well-known is associated with communication. In fact angels are usually seen as messengers as the word ‘angel’ is derived from the Greek word, ‘angelos’, which means ‘messengers.’ They also appear in Islam as the word for messenger, Mala’ika, is the Islamic term for angel. The Koran, like the Bible, also has references to angels especially Djibril or Gabriel nd Mikhail or Michael. According to Douglas Keister:
‘Angels appeared to grow wings in a 5th century mosaic in Rome. After all they are seen as messengers between heaven and earth.’
Gabriel is also associated with the Annunciation. He is, with his trumpet blowing, an obvious choice for announcing the departure of a soul and its arrival in Heaven.
I have seen an example of an angel blowing a trumpet in Tower Hamlets Cemetery and this lovely example above comes from St Mary’s Catholic cemetery which nestles beside its larger neighbour, Kensal Green.
While exploring Kent churchyards prior to the Coronavirus outbreak I found 17th headstones with angel heads on them with trumpets surrounding them. In this one the trumpets are crossed like long bones beneath the angel head. So, in many ways this is a very ancient symbol which has come down through the centuries as a message of comfort to those left behind. The one dedicated to Edward du Bois has an epitaph that expresses his father’s grief as well as his anger at his son’s untimely death.
In April, I was on a literary weekend in Sussex and Kent. We made the town of Rye our base. The town has a rich literary tradition with several famous writers having lived there. Several of them were lucky enough to live at Lamb House, a red brick Georgian house with spacious rooms and a garden that was just beginning to take shape on my visit. Neatly labelled rows of vegetable seedlings gave an indication of what was to come later in the year. There is a magnificent view of St Mary’s church from an upper window and Henry James is commemorated with his writing desk and ‘The Telephone Room’. I love finding pet cemeteries as I find them fascinating and touching.
Lamb House is now owned by the National Trust and when I last visited over 20 years ago, it looked very different. There was an upstairs tenant – lucky them! Now the upstairs rooms have been opened to visitors and on my visit there was an exhibition, ‘Ghost Written’, which featured the house’s most well known writers through their ghost stories.
The American writer, Henry James, (1843-1916) wrote three of his most famous books at Lamb House: ‘The Wings of the Dove’, ‘The Ambassadors’ and ‘The Golden Bowl’. He discovered Lamb House while visiting a friend and instantly fell in love with it. He leased it in 1897 and, two years later, he finally bought it.
The house appears in his novel, ‘The Awkward Age’, where it is Mr Longdon’s home. During James’s time there a literary circle came into being that included Rudyard Kipling and H G Wells amongst others. In 1916, James was very ill in London and wanted to be taken back to Lamb House but he was too ill to be moved.
He was followed by E F Benson (Edward Frederic) Benson (1867-1940) who is known for his Mapp and Lucia novels which are set in a fictional town called Tilling that was based on Rye. They were adapted and made into a successful TV series. I know him through his ghost stories or ‘spook stories’ as he called them. He became Mayor of Rye twice and was awarded the Freedom of Rye which was the town’s highest award. He is buried in the local cemetery on the outskirts of town. ‘Fred’ as he was known bequeathed two colourful windows, the East and the West, in the local church, St Mary’s.
Other writers who lived at Lamb House were Montgomery Hyde and the prolific author of ‘Black Narcissus’, Rumer Godden.
It was in the south western corner of the garden that I found the pet cemetery which was dedicated to Henry James and Fred Benson’s pet dogs. I remembered it from my first visit where it was hidden behind vegetation. The cemetery is a small collection of headstones. There are no cats as, although Henry James, was;
‘A great lover of animals he would chase them (cats) away from the garden’
National Trust guidebook
The first headstone in what James called his:
‘domestic mortuary’
was dedicated to Tosca, his black and tan terrier who died in 1899.
Tosca was followed by Tim who was another terrier, then came:
‘my admirable little Peter’
Then there was another terrier, Nick. But James’s heart was undoubtedly given to Maximilian or Max, a red dachshund. According to his owner Max had
‘a pedigree as long as Remington Ribbon.’
He also described Max as:
‘the gentlest and most reasonable and well mannered as well as most beautiful small animal of his kind to be easily come across.’
Max loved being taken on long walks but, due to his love of chasing sheep, had to be kept on a long leash.
Henry was very upset at having to leave Max behind when he went on an extended trip to the US. He wrote to his lodgers of his homesickness and how much harder it was when thinking of:
Fred Benson also adored dogs and his favourite was a collie called Taffy. This is a photo of them together and Taffy is also commemorated in the East Window of St Mary’s church.
Rumer Godden loved Pekingese dogs and she owned several throughout her life.
I didn’t recall the pet cemetery being so large but the Trust’s intention is to recreate the garden so that it resembles
‘ the space that delighted and inspired Henry James and Fred Benson’
National Trust guidebook
I found the little cemetery with its little plain, simple stones very touching and a poignant reminder that these much loved pets were not forgotten. And as I read the names on the stones they seemed to come alive again racing around the garden at play.
The skull and crossbones was one of the central motifs of 18th century Memento Mori and intended to be a stark and macabre reminder of the viewer’s inevitable destination. They would be all that would remain of you after death.
However it wasn’t a very comforting message to either the loved ones left behind or to the living.
But fashions and tastes change, even in funerary symbolism, and the skull and crossbones had served their purpose.
Instead they were replaced by the winged soul. This consisted of a small child’s head flanked by a pair of wings or a garland of leaves. They have the faces of babies with big, round eyes, plump cheeks and pouting lips and resemble Renaissance putti which are child-like. Putti represent the sacred cherub as they are known in England.
The winged soul may have been intended to be a more comforting image as the wings represented the soul of the deceased ascending to heaven. This could also give hope of a resurrection to those left behind. According to headstone symbols:
‘In the USA the winged soul is known as a soul effigy.’
It was immensely popular and in my explorations of medieval Kent churches and their churchyards I found many examples. In fact, in one or two churchyards they outnumbered the skull and crossbones symbol. They mainly had one winged soul on a headstone but there were sometimes two or three clustered together as in these examples:
They can also appear in several combinations with other classic memento mori symbols as here:
In addition, every mason seemed to have his own interpretation of feathers as they can be carved as typical fluffy feathers, to resemble broad leaves or be very stylised.
With wings in general they are an important symbol of spirituality. They express the possibility of flying and rising upwards to heaven. For example, in the Hindu faith, they are:
‘the expression of freedom to leave earthly things behind…..to reach Paradise.’
New Acropolis
However, as the full flowering of the Victorian language of death in the 19th century began to appear the emblems of memento mori were retired. Although a couple, such as the hourglass and ouroboros, were revived.
But I did find two modern examples of the winged soul in the churchyard of St Martin of Tours in Eynsford, Kent and one is featured above. For years I had always thought of the winged soul as being a more general symbol and merely a decorative feature. I called them winged cherub heads or death heads and never considered that they might have had a specific meaning or purpose. It was exciting to see so many variations and interpretations, sometimes within the same churchyard. But it depended on the skills of the mason as to how well they were carved and whether they were 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional.
But, as a message of comfort, it is one of the most poignant in memento mori. The other central motifs emphasise time running out and what will be left behind. The winged soul suggests an eternal life and a more uplifting message.
This is where Rev Jordan came in and he became known as the parson detective. Such was the feeling in the community that he became determined to find the murderer and bring them to justice. So he set about disproving George White’s alibi.
At the time, George had claimed to have met one of his father’s employees, Joseph Green, who he had invited him to come with him. But a few yards away from the house, George had said that he had to return home to fetch his handkerchief. As a result, he was gone at least ten minutes which would have given him enough time to put the hurdle in place for the perpetrator’s gun to rest on. Joseph attested that the hurdle had not been standing at the pantry window during the day. Afterwards they had walked to the Chequers pub and Joseph said that it was the last time he saw George that night. Joseph had added that he had seen George ‘sitting up about upon the stiles’ near the murder scene before it was dark. Even more damning was that George didn’t get the handkerchief that he had said he went back home to get as, when everyone was assembled in the house after the murder, he hadn’t got one and had to go and find one.
A gun had been found in a clover stack near William’s house about a month prior to the murder and an employee called Francis Smith had put it in the hayloft. A short time afterwards he couldn’t find it and was told by George that William had taken it away, destroyed it the stock and lock of it and thrown the barrel into a lumber room.
Rev Jordan meanwhile had preached a sermon on the matter and opened a book, asking everyone in the congregation and village to write down exactly where they were at 8pm on that fateful Sunday evening.
‘Rev Jordan persuaded George to make a vestry statement and a meeting was then held to clear him of suspicion. So, he stood before 40 people on Easter Monday, 3 April 1809 after a dinner at the Five Bells Inn. After the parish accounts were settled, Rev Jordan insisted that George make a public statement. He told the audience what George had said in his vestry statement and demanded that George bring in witnesses to confirm that they had seen him at any time between 7.45-8.15 to which he said that he couldn’t as he hadn’t seen anyone at that time. Some of the audience questioned him and none were satisfied with his answers.‘
The Five Bells Hoo from Facebook photographer unknown
The Rev was able to prove that George had not bought a bag of nuts at 7.45pm as a witness had said that he had seen him cracking and eating them at 7.40pm. Also, George had claimed to be standing at the Five Bells Inn when the hulks guns were fired at 8.15pm but it had actually happened at 8.00pm. He had been seen coming from the farm at 8.20pm with laboured breathing when he reached the vicarage door. He had had enough time to murder his father and then double back to the village.
So what happened next? Nothing. No one was ever charged with William’s murder and the case is still unsolved. George emigrated to Australia and that is the end of his story. There seems to be nothing more on the auction or the fate of William’s children. I could not find an image of William or of Cookham Farm House.
The only reminders are the newspaper reports in florid Victorian language such as;
‘Dastardly murder.’
And, of course, the headstone. It’s a reminder of an event that happened over 200 years ago which shocked a community. It’s not recorded if Rev Jordan went on to do more sleuthing but I think that he made a convincing case against George. William’s grave is situated 20 yards east of the main North church door and not faraway from Thomas Aveling’s resting place.
The Dastardly Murder of William – this site contains Victorian newspaper reports of the murder including 2 in London papers. Also Rev Jordan’s thought on the murder and possible perpetrators.
You never know what you will find in a country churchyard; crumbling mausoleums associated with royalty, a fine selection of skulls on headstones and poignant memorials.
But what I didn’t expect at Hoo was to find one that revealed, positively shouted in fact, about a local unsolved murder from the early part of the 19th century. This is the headstone dedicated to William Walter White. This is the inscription:
‘IN MEMORY OF
WILLIAM WHITE OF THIS PARISH, YEOMAN
WHO WAS ON SUNDAY EVENING THE 11TH OF DECR.
1808 MOST INHUMANLY MURDERED
IN THE BOSOM OF HIS FAMILY
BY A GUN DISCHARGED AT HIM THRO A WINDOW
WHILST SITTING BY HIS OWN FIRESIDE
THE PERPETRATOR OF THIS HORRID DEED IS
NOT YET DISCOVERED BUT THERE IS ONE, “WHO
IS ABOVE OUR PATH AND ABOUT OUR BED
AND WHO SPIETH OUT ALL OUR WAYS”
WHO[O] [WI]LL SOMETIME BRING IT TO LIGHT
HE LIVED ESTEEMED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM
[AND HIS] SAD END IS UNIVERSALLY REGRETTED HE
[LEFT ISSUE]6 SONSAND 5 DAUGHTERS TO BEWAIL
[HIS LOSS AND DIED [AT] THE AGE OF 58 YEARS
STONE WAS ERECTED JUNE THE 24TH 1809
“[By] whose Assa[ssinating} {H}and [I fell]
[Drop] Reader [o’er my Grave one] Silent Tear
[Live Well remembering that your God is Near]
[If Rich or Poor or Relative you be]
[Strike your own breast and say – It was not Me!]’
A more dramatic epitaph it would be hard to find and the stonemason certainly earned his money! The case shocked the farming community of Hoo especially as no one was ever brought to justice and suspicions ran rife. It even led to the local vicar of St Werbergh’s at the time, Rev Jordan, deciding to become an amateur sleuth and unmask the perpetrator.
Death had already visited the White family when William’s wife, Jane, dropped dead with no prior indication of illness on 24 March 1808 aged 44. The murder left the 11 children orphans within a short space of time and more about what happened afterwards later. William was a man of some standing in the village. He was a yeoman which meant that, although he was a farmer, he wasn’t part of the gentry. In 1790, he was one of only two franchised householders in the village and so was eligible to vote.
The facts are that, on Sunday 11th December 1808, William was sitting reading at home with his family when a shot rang out. A gun had been fired through an open pantry window which killed William outright. The shot entered the back of his head and exited under the right eye. The ‘cries and lamentations’ of his family could be heard in Hoo village a mile away after the body was found. An unsuccessful search was made immediately for the perpetrator. However, a recently discharged gun was found in a ditch roughly 200 yards away from the house near the River Medway which led to the assumption that the murderer had escaped by water.
Such was the notoriety of the case that reports of it appeared in London newspapers and the Bow Street Runners were called in. They were the forerunner of the modern police force.
Bow Street Runners c1800 from History UK website.
Whoever fired the fatal shot must have known the layout of the house and the family’s habits. It took place on a Sunday when there were no servants about and it would have been necessary for the pantry door to be open in order to have a good view from the window as the gun was fired at William sitting by the fire. It had been propped up on a hurdle in front of the window and this helped the murderer to have a good aim. The gun was an old musket-barrel which had nails in the breach fastening it to the stock. It was a very crude gun as the hammer would not hold at full cock but was fastened back by a piece of twine which was presumed to have been cut at the time of firing. The fatal shot was fired at the same as the nightly salvo of guns from convict hulks on the River Medway.
The suspects
The gun’s owner was a man called Driver and he and another man called Day were picked up in Bapchild near Sittingbourne, Kent. It was assumed that they were on the run. The Coroner, J Simmons Esq, questioned them but soon realised that he didn’t have enough evidence to prosecute them. He then had them removed to one of his Majesty’s ships which was a euphemism for being ‘press ganged’. The Kentish Gazette described it like this:
‘as they were unable to give a satisfactory account of their mode of obtaining a livelihood, they were sent to serve their country on board one of his Majesty’s ships of war.’
If that wasn’t enough, later on, they were marched back from Portsmouth to Rochester to be further questioned and then press ganged a second time before being finally released without charge.
As for motive, William had recently found a servant, possibly Driver, in the act of robbing a neighbour and had informed the appropriate authorities. He had sacked the man who had sworn to get his revenge. In fact, a week prior to the murder, the unnamed man, had purchased a gun:
‘for which he had no possible occasion, under some frivolous pretence’
according to newspaper reports at the time.
The inquest on William was held and a verdict was returned of:
‘Wilful murder against some per or persons unknown – Friday 23 December 1808.
Events began to gather pace as the executor of William’s will, Thomas Denton, was authorised to put William’s home, land, possessions and other assets up for auction. It was intended that the money raised would be distributed by him amongst the children as he thought best for them. Originally it had been intended that Jane White, William’s wife would be a joint executor but of course with her death it fell to Thomas alone. Understandably the children tried to stop him and suspicion began to fall on him. In the space of a few months they had been left orphans with the loss of both their parents and now they were to lose the family home as well.
But another suspect had appeared who was much closer to home. It was George White, William’s eldest son. He was known to be on bad terms with his father and had been seen to threaten him. George wanted the farm and the land but William was considering writing a new will leaving him and another relative out. However, his will dated 22 January 1808 did not indicate.
But George had convinced both the Mr Simmons, the coroner, and the Bow Street Runners that, during the vital thirty minutes between 7.45pm and 8.15pm he had been in Hoo village buying:
‘a penny’s worth of nuts.’
The shop was a good mile away from the farm. But someone else in the community had doubts about George’s alibi and was determined to disprove it as we shall see in Part 3.
shadows fly away 