Hungerford Virtual Museum

Website produced and maintained for the Hungerford Historical Association
by Hugh Pihlens

[Home] [Artefacts] [Events] [People] [Places] [Themes] [Timeline] [Archives] [Search]

You are in [Themes] [Events] [Police Murders 1876]

From the Newbury Weekly News: Two small iron crosses beside the Wantage road just outside Hungerford still exist to remind people of an event 90 years ago which caused such public concern that several special editions of the Newbury Weekly News were published. The event was the Hungerford murders. Two policemen, an inspector and a constable, were the victims.

On left: the memorial cross to Inspector Joseph Drewett

On right: the memorial to Constable Tom Shorter

Successive adjournments in the inquiries conducted by the coroner and the magistrates were made from time to time, and special editions containing reports were issued each day of the trial at Berkshire Assizes and finally on the day of the execution in Reading Jail.

From this calamity, the Newbury Weekly News seized its opportunity and the energetic action taken resulted in the circulation advancing by 1000 a week so that at the close of 1878, the sale of the paper stood at 4000 weekly. It became established in districts where previously it had not obtained a strong hold.
^ top ^
A contemporary newspaper commented in its report on the execution of the murderers, "Rarely does it fall to the lot of a journalist to present such an array of sickening horrors."

'Any murders lately?' is a casual remark frequently made to a reporter, but the particular gruesome facts of the Hungerford murders must have been among the least welcome assignments the Newbury Weekly News staff of 1876 covered.

It was on the evening of Monday December 11, 1876, that two policemen Inspector Joseph Drewett (42) from Hungerford, and PC Thomas Shorter from West Shefford, set out to keep a rendezvous at a turnpike crossing known as Folly Cross—roads less than a mile north of the town. Whether they made their 'point' was never known.

The inspector was due to meet another officer, PC William Golby, afterwards at another point on the outskirts of the town near the Bear Hotel. Shortly after 10p.m. PC Golby started out from Hungerford Police Station on his uneventful patrol of the deserted, ill-lit streets on that bleak winter night and reached the meeting-point, but the inspector had not arrived.

There was nothing very alarming about that for game preserves abounded and poaching went hand-in-hand with the poverty of those days.

When it began to appear that the inspector had indeed been delayed, PC Golby started to stroll to meet him and went through the turnpike gate at the foot of the hill leading northwards. High wooded banks on either side surmounted by massive overhanging oaks added to the darkness, but although the constable wondered a little at the non-appearance of his chief he little dreamt of the danger that lurked so close.
^ top ^
Armed men, already murderers, who would stop at nothing to cover their tracks were skulking through these wooded slopes, hastening from the scene of their horrible crime.

At the top of the hill, the trees were less dense and PC Golby was still some 20 paces away when he first saw a figure sprawled across the centre of the roadway.

The prostrate form was not what he had at first thought, that of a drunken man, but that of his colleague, PC Shorter. His head had been battered by frenzied blows, and his face was almost beyond recognition.

Running back to the turnpike gatehouse. PC Golby roused the gatekeeper, William Hedges, and his wife. He issued orders to the trembling couple for observation to be kept on the gate and then hastened back to the town for help. A messenger was sent to Supt. Bennett at Newbury and arrangements were made for the body of PC Shorter to be moved from the road.

PC Golby, who had by this time been joined by PC Charles Brown from Kintbury, began a second fearful walk up that gloomy hill.
^ top ^




	Inspector Joseph Drewett



	PC Tom Shorter

Passing the spot which had already provided sufficient horror for one night, they reached the Folly Cross-roads where the original conference should have taken place. There they parted, Golby taking the lane to the left leading to Chilton Foliat, and Brown the one to Denford.

Almost immediately, PC Golby heard a shout from PC Brown -'I've found him and he's dead.

The body of Insp. Drewett lay on the verge some 20 yards down the lane, his face blackened with a gunshot wound which had penetrated his neck at close range and his head battered until, in the words of the medical evidence 'every bone was smashed'.

Like his unfortunate subordinate, Insp. Drewett had never drawn his truncheon and again there was no sign of a struggle.

Investigations had already got underway under the direction of Supt.. Bennett who had been roused from his bed at 5a.m. and had collected two of his men and driven his pony and trap at full speed to Hungerford.

Working in the darkness of that December morning, by which time rain was falling, they were armed with the solitary clue of a mud-stained cap, yet before daybreak they had three prisoners under lock and key and a fourth in custody by 9a.m.

Two chief constables, those of Berkshire and Wiltshire, assisted in the subsequent enquiries.
^ top ^
True, the men arrested were notorious poachers, though three were in regular employment at a local ironworks and the evidence upon which they were detained might not have been held sufficient nowadays, but the murderers were among these four. Two of them, brothers Henry and Francis Tidbury, were subsequently found guilty of murder. The other two, another brother, William, and his father-in-law, William Day, were acquitted. Henry Tidbury was 28 and Francis 17. Both gave their occupation as strikers.

On the day of the funeral of the two policemen, the town of Hungerford went into mourning. Shops were shut and everywhere blinds were drawn. The graves of the two men can still be seen in the Eddington churchyard.

On being convicted of willful murder at Berkshire Assizes in February 1877. Henry and Francis Tidbury were sentenced to death. Press reports contained details of the last-minute interviews between the condemned men and their relatives, the efforts at a reprieve, and finally the execution. This took place at Reading Jail on March 12, 'in view of the public only so far as its representative of the Press was concerned.

Public subscription provided a large sum of money for the benefit of the policemen's widows and Insp. Drewett's five children.




	Henry and Francis Tidbury in handcuffs

Tributes were paid to the two men by the Chief Constable of Berkshire, Col. Adam Blandy. He described Insp. Drewett, a native of Weston, near Welford, as a man whose career afforded a striking example of perseverance, intelligence, and obedience.

Of PC Shorter, whose home was at Bray, near Maidenhead, the Chief Constable said that he had only served just over two years in the force, but his conduct had been unexceptionably good and merited the confidence of his superior officers. PC Shorter had not served the three years necessary for his widow to be entitled to a gratuity, so the money subscribed was of even greater value to her.