Part 14

In June, 1807, a man, who had enlisted into the marines, was detained by the magistrates at Plymouth on suspicion of being Hemming. Mr. Carden immediately despatched parties to ascertain the truth of the matter, but it proved to be a case of mistaken identity. The affair, though public notice of it was hushed, was never forgotten—the country people had their beliefs and traditions concerning it, and though it was confidently affirmed by some that Hemming had been seen alive in America, the real truth was more than guessed at. It was by some firmly believed that Hemming had been murdered by the parties who employed him to assassinate Mr. Parker, and they themselves seemed scarcely anxious to avoid the imputation. Captain Evans, whom all pointed at as being the principal instigator of the assassination, constantly kept standing upon his estate a certain clover rick, which he had made three days only after Mr. Parker’s murder, and when he parted with the estate two years afterwards to a Mr. Barnett, this rick was still kept standing. The general belief was that Hemming’s body had been buried beneath this rick, and in 1816 Hemming’s widow (then married again) made a deposition before the Droitwich magistrates of her conviction that this was the case. A search warrant was granted, but in that same night the clover rick mysteriously disappeared, and though the ground which it had covered was carefully dug up, nothing was discovered. Captain Evans, at the time of Mr. Parker’s murder, lived upon the Church Farm, Oddingley; but in 1808 he went to reside on a small estate called New House, upon the confines of the two parishes of Hadsor and Oddingley. Here he remained till 1826, when he went to Droitwich, and there lived till his death, which occurred in 1829; he was then ninety-four years of age. He was formerly a captain in the 89th Foot, and received half pay up to the day of his death. He was a magistrate of the borough of Droitwich.

It may be well conceived that all idea of any further discovery of the circumstances under which this terrible crime was committed had long been given up, and that the discovery of the skeleton of Hemming created the most startling surprise. On the 21st January, 1830, a carpenter named Burton was engaged in removing a barn upon the Netherwood Farm, Oddingley, which, at the time of Mr. Parker’s murder, was occupied by Mr. Thomas Clewes. He had begun to remove the foundation when he met with a pair of shoes and carpenter’s rule. The story of Hemming immediately recurred to his mind, and, carefully covering up again what he had found, he went to the magistrates of Droitwich and the coroner of the county (Mr. William Smith). The further investigation of the spot was very carefully conducted by the neighbouring magistrates and Mr. Pierpoint of Worcester; and the whole skeleton of a man, of just such height and make as Hemming was known to have been, was disclosed to view. His former wife particularly identified the remains by the mouth and teeth, and declared her firm belief to be that the rule which Burton had found was that which Hemming used customarily to carry in his pocket. The bones of the skull had been beaten into many pieces. An inquest was commenced upon these remains on the following Tuesday, and, by adjournment, on the Friday; at the close of which sitting, Thomas Clewes was taken into custody on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of Hemming, and in the course of the next day he expressed his desire to make a confession. The coroner and jury accordingly went to him in the County Gaol, where, with great composure, he gave the following account of the circumstances under which Hemming was himself murdered on the evening of the day after that on which he had shot Mr. Parker. Whether it is the absolute truth or not, coming as it did from an accomplice, must always be a matter of doubt, but it is at any rate all that will now be known of this deed of terror.

CLEWES’S CONFESSION.

“On the morrow morning after the parson was shot (I mean the Rev. Mr. Parker, Rector of Oddingley), it was on Bromsgrove fair day—I cannot recollect exactly the year—about seven o’clock, George Bankes came down to me, and says, ‘We have got Hemming, who shot the parson, at our house (meaning Captain Evans’s) this morning, and I do not know what to do with him—will you let him come down here?’ I said, ‘I will not have him here, nor have nothing to do with him.’ Bankes then went off. Bankes said, ‘he is lurking down in the meadows.’ I went up to Oddingley about eleven o’clock in the day to Mr. Jones’s; Mr. Jones is dead, and Mr. Nash lives in the farm now. As I went up the road side, I suppose he (meaning Captain Evans) kept sight of me all the way. The Captain called to me; he was in his garden, close by the road side; he followed me out of the garden into the field, and said he wanted to speak with me. He said, ‘I’ve had Hemming at our house this morning, and something must be done by him; he is lurking down towards your house now; I ordered him to get into your buildings by day-time, if possible, or at the edge of night, that you (meaning witness) might not see him, or any of your family, and somewhat must be done by him. I shall come down to your house at night, and bring somebody with me, and we must give the poor devil some money, or do something with him, and send him off; will you get up and come to the barn? it won’t detain you a minute.’ I refused coming, and said, ‘I did not like to come.’ The Captain said, ‘it can make no odds to you—you need not be afraid to come at eleven o’clock; just come out, it will make no difference to you at all; if you don’t come I shall be afraid of your dogs.’ I went out at the back door and down to the barn door, as the clock struck eleven. There was the Captain and James Taylor, and a third, whom I thought and believed to be George Bankes. They went into the barn (I mean the Captain, Taylor, and George Bankes), and I with them; I believed it to be Bankes; he had on a smock-frock; as soon as the Captain came into the barn, he calls, ‘Holloa, Hemming, where be’est?’ not very loud; Hemming spoke, and said ‘Yes, Sir;’ Taylor and the Captain then stepped on the mow, where Hemming was lying, which was not higher than my knee; the Captain pulled a lantern from under his coat, or out of his pocket; myself and George Bankes were then on the thrashing-floor; the Captain said, ‘Get up, Hemming, I have got something for thee;’ Hemming was at the time covered up with straw; he was rising up on end, as if he had been lying on his back; as he rose up, Taylor up with a blood-stick, and hit him on the head two or three blows; I (witness) said, ‘This is bad work—if I had known you should not have had me here;’ the Captain said, ‘He has got enough;’ Taylor and the Captain came down off the mow directly; Taylor said, ‘What is to be done with him now?’ the Captain said, ‘D—n his body, we must not take him out of doors, somebody will see us, mayhap.’ It was not very dark. Taylor went out of doors, and fetched a spade from somewhere; it was no spade of mine; and Taylor and the Captain said, ‘We will soon put him safe.’ Taylor then searched round the bay of the barn on the contrary side where it was done, and found holes which dogs and rats had scratched; he threw out a spadeful or two, and cleared away from the foundation side of the wall. ‘This will do for him,’ Taylor said to the Captain, who stood by and lighted him the while. Bankes and myself were still on the floor of the barn. Then the Captain and Taylor got upon the mow, and pulled Hemming down to the front of the mow. The Captain said to Taylor, ‘Catch hold of him,’ and they dragged him across the floor, and into the hole they had dug for him in the opposite bay, and Taylor soon covered it up. I cannot tell whether he was put in on his back or not; I never stepped into the bay from the floor; I thought I should have died where I was; the Captain said to Taylor, ‘Well done, boy, I’ll give thee another glass or two of brandy.’ The Captain said to me on the floor when we went out, ‘I’ll give you anything; d—n your body, don’t ever split.’ All four were present at this; we then parted; the Captain darkened his lantern; the Captain, Bankes, and Taylor, went away towards Oddingley; I went to bed; the whole did not occupy half an hour; Hemming had his clothes on; Hemming never moaned nor groaned after he was first struck; there was no blood—not a spot on the floor; nothing else was done that night. On the 26th of June I was at Pershore fair; George Bankes came to me in the afternoon, between four and five; he called me up an entry at the Plough, and said, ‘Here is some money for you that Hemming was to have had.’ Mr. John Barnett was with Bankes then, Bankes and Barnett each of them gave me money, but I do not recollect how much I had from each; I did not count it until I got home. They said when they gave it me, ‘Be sure you don’t split.’ There was no more said about it that night. It was in two parcels, in all between £26 and £27, and all in bills; there was no silver. I put it all in one pocket. This was to have taken Hemming off, as Bankes and Barnett informed me. A few days after, I was at the Captain’s; he sent for me by my own son, John Clewes, then about seven years old. When I got to the Captain’s, I found him alone; he said to me, if I kept my peace, and did not split, I should never want for £5. I never received any money from him afterwards. On the same day, in the parlour of the Captain’s house, Catherine Bankes came to me, and went down on her knees, in great distress, and begged and prayed of me not to say anything, as she feared the Captain had done a bad job, and that they would all come to be hanged if I spoke. I promised her I never would say anything.”

[Bankes was a farm bailiff; Taylor died about 1816, having lived some time in infamous notoriety at Droitwich. Barnett, at the time of the murder, was only bailiff for his mother, but had since become an opulent farmer. Clewes himself failed three or four years after the murder, and had since been engaged as a labourer or woodman.]

A great many witnesses were examined at the inquest, who spoke to expressions of hatred and malice used by Captain Evans, Barnett, Bankes, and Clewes, with regard to Mr. Parker, and many trifling circumstances which tended to implicate them in the disappearance of Hemming, and corroborate Clewes’s confession. The jury, after five days of most elaborate investigation, returned a verdict of wilful murder against Thomas Clewes and George Bankes; and further found that John Barnett, late of the parish of Oddingley, farmer, was an accessary to such murder before the fact.

These three persons were accordingly put upon their trial at the ensuing March Assizes, before Mr. Justice Littledale. A true bill was found against Clewes as principal in the second degree, and against Barnett and Bankes as accessaries before the fact to the murder of the Rev. George Parker, by Richard Hemming. Mr. Curwood was the leading counsel for the prosecution, Mr. Sergeant Ludlow for Clewes, Mr. Campbell, K.C., for Bankes, and Mr. Taunton, K.C., for Barnett. An objection was taken to the prisoners pleading as accessaries to a murder, the principal in which had not been found guilty; and this objection being allowed, Clewes and Bankes were arraigned as principals, and Barnett as accessary before the fact to the murder of Richard Hemming. Clewes was first put upon his trial alone. The evidence of the finding of the body of Hemming having been given, and its identification completed, many witnesses were examined to speak to expressions of the prisoner, tending to show that he had been anxious to procure the death of Mr. Parker; and expressions used by Hemming, showing that he had been employed to do some foul deed at Oddingley. It was proved, too, that Clewes and Hemming had been frequently in one another’s company prior to the murder. Last of all, after a sharp struggle on the part of the prisoner’s counsel to prevent it, Clewes’s confession was put in and read. Sergeant Ludlow briefly addressed the learned judge, urging that Clewes was entitled to his acquittal, as his confession stood uncontradicted, and that did not prove him to have been a principal in the crime. The court decided that the matter must be left to the jury, and to them the prisoner declined saying anything; nor did the law then admit of counsel addressing the jury in defence. The jury, after a short summing up, returned a verdict of “Guilty as an accessary after the fact;” but Mr. Justice Littledale observing that they had only to inquire whether he was guilty of aiding and abetting in the murder, they returned a general verdict of “Not guilty.” The crown refused to call any evidence on the coroner’s inquisition, or against Barnett and Bankes, so they were all discharged. The expenses attending the prosecution amounted to between £700 and £800.

1830—At the Lent Assizes, before Mr. Baron Bolland, was tried the cause of THE KING _v._ DINELEY, in which Mr. Francis Dineley, solicitor, practising at Pershore, was found guilty of conspiring with one William Loxley, deceased, to defraud Nicholas Marshall of £2,000. The transaction took place so far back as 1804, when Loxley and Dineley induced Mr. Nicholas Marshall to advance the sum of £2,000 on what it was alleged they _knew_ to be defective security, and he lost the whole of it. Mr. Campbell made a long speech in defence, alleging that the defect in the security might not have been known to his client, and remarking strongly on the long time which had elapsed. The case for the prosecution rested mainly on letters written by Dineley to Loxley.

1830—MAY 21—In the Arches Court, judgment was delivered in the suit of BARNETT _v._ REV. WILLIAM BALDWIN BONAKER, being a complaint on the part of some of the inhabitants of Church Honeybourne against their clergyman for neglect of duty, such as continued absence from the parish. Sir J. Nicholl, the judge, declared the evidence insufficient, and condemned the promoters of the suit in full costs.

1830—OCTOBER 20—At the Michaelmas Sessions were tried the Kidderminster rioters. True bills were found for riot and assault against ten carpet weavers, and the case for the prosecution was conducted by Mr. Evans and Mr. Lea; Mr. Godson and Mr. Lumley appearing for the prisoners. Three of them, named Lamsdale, Green, and Stephens, were first tried for being concerned in an attack on the prison, on the second day of the disturbances, and with assaulting William Hopkins, a constable; but they were acquitted, to the great surprise of the court. Six men were next tried for the attack on Mr. Cooper’s factory, and for very ill-treatment of a man named Edwards, working there at low prices. He was left by the mob, thrust into the ashpit of one of the furnaces, more than half dead. Phaizy and Hopkins, the men principally concerned in this assault, were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment—Lamsdale to three months, and Price to two months’ imprisonment; and all to enter into sureties to keep the peace. Other two were acquitted. In three other cases verdicts were taken by consent, and almost nominal punishments inflicted. Mr. Godson’s strenuous exertions in these cases laid the foundation for his subsequent popularity in the borough of Kidderminster.

1830—OCTOBER 18—At the trial of one of the prisoners at the City Michaelmas Sessions, Mr. Curwood, his barrister, handed in a protest against the jurisdiction of the court, because it was not constituted according to the charter of James I, which required that the recorder—“one learned and discreet man, learned in the laws”—should always preside at gaol deliveries. Earl Coventry and his ancestors had long been recorders of Worcester, and seldom (or never) present at Quarter Sessions. The magistrates refused to receive the protest.

1831—The cause list at the Midsummer Assizes this year contained thirty-one cases for trial, and two of them excited much interest. The first was an action brought by the Rev. Edward Herbert against a Mr. Heath, for an assault, in which Mr. Campbell and Mr. Whateley were for plaintiff, and Mr. Charles Phillips for defendant. For the prosecution it was merely proved that Heath struck Herbert some dozen blows with a horsewhip in Broad Street, Worcester, on the 23rd of the previous February. One witness heard Heath say the words, “that — my father, and you consider yourself well horsewhipped for it.” Mr. Charles Phillips made a very long and powerful speech for the defence, stating to the jury that if the prosecutor had dared himself to come into the box, he would have forced him to confess that he had not only broken his pledge to Mr. Heath’s sister, but had slandered his buried father in the most outrageous and unbearable manner. Mr. Justice Patteson told the jury that all they had to do was to say whether Heath had committed the assault, and so they returned a verdict of “Guilty;” but no sentence was passed, though the affidavits of defendant were ready, and Mr. Justice Patteson himself pointed out to Mr. Phillips an error in the record, no doubt with a view of getting rid of the case.

The other case was a charge against Mr. Francis Hill, of Stourbridge, of having committed wilful perjury, by swearing that he had not adopted certain royalty mines, while he had, in fact, signed a document to do so. Mr. Campbell, for the defence, urged that many a man signed deeds which he did not understand; and a host of witnesses appeared to give Mr. Hill the best of characters. He was honourably acquitted.

1831—At the County Epiphany Sessions six men were tried for destroying a thrashing machine, the property of Joseph Fretwell, of Blockley, and were indicted for a riot and assault. Mr. Godson and Mr. Lea were for the prosecution, and Mr. Strutt and Mr. Evans for the defence. There was no attempt to deny that the men did come into Mr. Fretwell’s barn, and take the machine to pieces; but on cross-examination of the prosecutor it was shown that he was just about to quit the farm, which he held under Lord Northwick, and that these men had come to take the machine down by his lordship’s orders, in order to prevent the destruction of the premises by the lawless mob who were going about the neighbourhood. Fretwell was evidently regarding his landlord with feelings of exasperation, because he had let the farm over his head. One of the men was found guilty of riot and assault, the other five of riot only. Two of them were ordered to pay a fine of £30 each, and the others of £20 each, and to be imprisoned till those fines were paid. But the money was immediately handed to them, and they were discharged from the dock.

Six men were charged with being concerned in the destruction of Mr. Baylis’s needle presses and stamps, at Tardebigg, and were sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment each.

Six other men were arraigned for going about the villages of Defford, Pinvin, &c., in a riotous manner, and obtaining victuals and drink by threats and intimidation; but the evidence only showed that they had importunately asked for relief at two or three places, and inquired of a labourer in the road whether his wheelbarrow was a “machine,” because, if it were, they would smash it! They were all acquitted.

1832—Lent Assizes—The Rev. John Lynes, Rector of Elmley Lovett, was sued for a penalty of £270 for non-residence in his parish for three months, under an act passed in the year 1817, which provided that a clergyman absenting himself for a quarter of a year should forfeit a third of the annual value of his living, and the living of Elmley Lovett was set down at about £800 a year. Mr. Jervis, with Mr. Richards and Mr. Alexander, were for the prosecution, and Mr. Campbell for defendant. A great number of witnesses were called to prove the defendant’s absence; some of them his own servants; but in the opinion of the learned judge (Mr. Justice Taunton) the absence for the entire time was not made out, and the jury returned a verdict for defendant.

At the same Assizes was tried the action of SHELTON _v._ STEWARD, rival surgeons at Bromyard, and brought by the former against the latter for a libel, said to be contained in a letter published in the _Hereford Times_ and _Worcester Journal_, and which was supposed to insinuate that Mr. Shelton was ignorant in his profession, and guilty of improper conduct. Verdict for plaintiff: damages, £10.

1832—At the County Epiphany Sessions, ten of the Dudley colliers were indicted for a riot, to obtain a rise in wages, in the previous December. Several parties, working in the Broad Pit Collieries (Earl Dudley’s) were ill-used by the mob for working at the ordinary wages; but Mr. Godson, who was for the prisoners, contended that their identity had not been sufficiently made out. After four hours’ consultation the jury acquitted all the prisoners. Seven of the same men were charged with an assault on one of their butties at this time, and five pleaded guilty by arrangement, and were liberated on their own recognizances. The other two were acquitted in the teeth of the evidence. Several other parties were indicted for assaults arising out of these riots, but only two, named Hill and Smart, were found guilty. Hill was sentenced to six months’ and Smart to one month’s imprisonment.

1834—At the Lent Assizes, seven men were tried before Mr. Justice Allan Park for being concerned in election riots at Dudley, breaking windows, &c., and were all found guilty. They were sentenced to trifling terms of imprisonment, excepting one man named Griffin, who had committed a serious assault on Jewkes the constable, and, therefore, was ordered to be imprisoned for twelve months.

Robert Osbaldeston was tried at these Assizes of shooting at Mr. Wood, gunsmith, Broad Street, Worcester, and was acquitted only on the ground of insanity.

Edmund Campbell Brewer, a confidential clerk in the employ of the Stourbridge Canal Company, was found guilty of forging a bill of exchange for some £13 odd. He absconded to America, and then it was found that he had embezzled £1,000 and more, belonging to the Company. Yet, upon the trial, many witnesses gave him the best of characters; and the prosecutors themselves said that his conduct had been most exemplary till this time. Mr. Eberhardt followed him to America, and apprehended him in Utica. He was sentenced to be transported for life. Great exertions were made to obtain a commutation of his punishment.

1835—At the Lent Assizes, before Mr. Justice Patteson, was tried HILL _v._ HICKES, an action brought by Mr. George Price Hill, a solicitor in Worcester, against Mr. Hickes, for having slandered him to his uncle at Dudley, by intimating that he was a rogue, &c. Verdict for plaintiff 40s. damages. Mr. Sergeant Talfourd was for plaintiff, and Mr. Sergeant Ludlow for defendant.

At these Assizes also was tried ANDERTON _v._ GIBBS AND FERNEY, the latter being executors of Mr. John Moor, a manufacturer of Dudley, and whose daughter Mrs. Anderton claimed to be. The question was one of legitimacy, Mr. Moor’s wife having left him and formed a criminal intimacy with a Mr. Corfield at the time of Mrs. Anderton’s birth. The jury found a verdict for plaintiff, and property, to the amount of £6,000, thus passed into Mr. Anderton’s possession.