Robert Baker's Tale • Wells-Next-The-Sea

 

Here lies Robert Baker. Robert was breeches-maker and glover from the town. It was on the 11th October 1817, when he left home to go and collect some debts owed to him. He said to his wife that he would be back by mid-afternoon, but he never returned. News began to spread of his absence, but it wasn’t until the Monday that his body was discovered on a lane outside of the town. As it happens, he had been discovered the previous day, but it wasn’t recognized as such. Some children had come upon a ‘sleeping drunkard’ in a hedge, but had not come close enough to see the fracture at the back of his head. A reward was offered for information that could lead to the arrest of two men seen running from the area on the Saturday afternoon. Robert was laid to rest here in the churchyard of St Nicholas. 

In the archives of the Norfolk Record Office there is a hand-drawn map of the area that pertains to the crime. It’s not to scale and many of the byways have changed in the last 200 years. 

It is my opinion that this is approximately where the body of Robert Baker was found. On Victorian ordnance survey maps a footpath or lane is shown here, passing over what is today just an expanse of field. I believe this was the ‘Blacks Lane’ noted on the hand-drawn maps. I have shared images on our website if you’d like to see. Otherwise, I imagine the footpath today looks much the same as it did in 1817.

Within a few days of the crime a 30 year old man named James Johnson was arrested. His suspected accomplice, William Hardiment was still at large. Johnson protested his innocence and acknowledged that although he had led a sinful life, he was no murderer. After a brisk seven hour trial he was found guilty and would be hanged at Norwich Castle on 23rd March 1818.

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Two and a half years after Johnson’s execution, Hardiment was finally captured. He had fled to Yorkshire. He was taken to Norwich Castle upon arrest. He again protested his innocence but did confess to being with Johnson on the day of the crime. So, were these two the killers of Robert Barker or did they flee the town following some more minor crime that weekend? Neither man confessed before they were executed, so we have to hope that the courts at the time made the right judgement.

Both men were poor and had been involved in other criminal activities. Hardiment was a veteran of the Napoleonic and American wars, having served in the Royal Marines for twelve years, followed by five in the Kent militia. He had made poor decisions after leaving the military and was said to be ‘selling religious tracts’ when captured in Yorkshire.

After his execution his body was given to the surgeons for dissection. If you want a grim field trip, his death mask is now on display at Norwich Castle museum, along with those of the Burnham murderers from our post on Hannah Shorten.

Grave:

W3W: ///digs.figs.scream

GRID REF: TF918431

Possible Crime Scene:

W3W: ///rinsed.tune.disbanded

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John Fryer's Grave • Wells-Next-The-Sea

 

John Fryer was the sailing master on HMS Bounty and was second-in-command to Lieutenant William Bligh. HMS Bounty was classed by the Royal Navy as cutter, so although still a warship, she was too small to be commanded by a Captain. 

She had originally been a private merchant ship and was purchased by the Royal Navy and refitted to carry four cannon and ten swivel guns. She was also without a detachment of Royal Marines, who would have usually provided a means of security to the commander in charge. Bounty departed England in December of 1787. The mutiny which made her famous occurred in April of 1789. Fryer was no friend to Bligh nor the mutiny leader Fletcher Christian, but he did remain loyal and became one of the 19 men cast adrift following the mutiny. 

He survived the journey back to safety and although Bligh’s account of the mutiny vilified Fryer, he would give a fair account of the incident at Bligh’s court martial in 1792. Fryer remained in the Royal Navy until 1812, when he retired to Wells. 

He died in 1817 and was buried here. The plaque in the graveyard is modern and his original headstone is preserved in the porch of the church.

W3W: ///digs.figs.scream

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Hannah Shorten's Cottage • Wells-Next-The-Sea

 

If you step onto Church Street you will be in the vicinity of Hannah Shorten’s cottage. The census of 1851 doesn’t specify individual addresses, but the entry immediately next to the church is that of Hannah’s home. I suspect it was one of the cottages that no longer stand opposite the church. You find cars parked there now. So, who was Hannah? Well, in Victorian times she was the local witch, or ‘cunning-woman’. She was well known for offering services such as fortune telling, but also offered folk remedies and spell casting. One of her methods to activate her spells was to burn arsenic with salt. It is the link with arsenic that saw her involved with two local murder trials.

 In December 1832 a woman named Mary Wright would poison her husband with arsenic laced plum cakes, which also, accidentally, killed her father too. The Wright’s lived in the nearby village of Wighton and Mary had travelled to Wells and met with Hannah just a few days before the crime took place. Whether Hannah gave further instruction on the use of arsenic to Mary, or whether she just helped Mary on a spiritual level, it was never known. Hannah was named, but not called as a witness in the subsequent trial. Mary was duly convicted and condemned to death. She was found to be expecting a baby at the time, so her sentence would have to take place after the birth. The baby was born the following July and her execution scheduled for August. In the intervening few weeks, however, her sentence was commuted to transportation for life. This never came to pass. Mary died ‘by the visitation of God’ in Norwich Castle in the November. Rather than burying her at Wighton with her husband and father, she was instead laid to rest in Thorn churchyard. Had she been executed she would have been buried with the other convicts in the grounds of Norwich Castle, but she was saved this fate by her ‘visitation’.

 The second notable appearance of Hannah in the annals of crime is just a couple of years later in 1835. The case of the Burnham Murders is quite well known. Hannah had once again been in contact with two women that would be accused of murder by arsenic poisoning. Catherine Frary and Frances Billing were neighbours and friends. Both were married and lived with their families. They lived either end of a row of cottages in Burnham Westgate. In the middle of this terraced row lived Frances’ lover, Peter Taylor, and his wife. Catherine’s lover lived elsewhere in the village. Like any small community, gossip abounded and Catherine and Frances decided poison was the reasonable way of making it stop. Catherine’s husband Robert was the first victim. Followed rather too quickly by Mary, the wife of Peter Taylor.

 When it was found that Mary had died by poison, there wasn’t any real doubt about who the obvious suspects would be. Frances was the first arrested. Soon after so too were Catherine, Peter Taylor, and Hannah Shorten as all had been perceived to be involved in the crime. Hannah and Peter would be released and Catherine and Frances sent to trial. On the 7^th August they were found guilty and condemned to death. On 10^th of August they were executed at Norwich Castle, holding hands as they dropped on the scaffold.

 Although Taylor had been released after his arrest, the women while incarcerated had implicated him, stating that he was fully aware of what they were about. He was re-arrested, tried and condemned to death. He was executed at Norwich in the April of 1836. The death masks of Catherine and Frances are on display at the Norwich Castle Museum.

 

Hannah lived until the age of 90 and was buried on 26^th May 1860 in the cemetery where we visited the sailors graves. Her grave is unmarked, but the plot number is listed on the burial register for anyone wanting to investigate further. On the 1851 census she is 80 years old and listed as a pauper and a widow. She was living with a lodger named Sarah Brett, who was 75 and also a widow. I do wonder how many husbands Hannah had helped leave this world by way of their wives cooking in all those years. The wise woman knows as many plants that will kill as will heal, after all.