Getting away with murder on the Central Wales Line
Our story this month comes from The Brecon Reporter of March 1865.
The great infrastructure projects of the Victorian Age depended entirely upon an itinerant workforce who moved from one to another, from viaducts to canals to reservoirs as required, living in temporary shanty towns that sprang up alongside their work.
The building of the beautiful Central Wales Railway line (completed in 1868) was no exception, with hundreds of workmen requiring an infrastructure of their own to support them in these moving villages. One such village was at Berthllwyd, near the restorative wells of Llanwrytd, where the accommodation for the workers could be described most charitably, as extremely basic.
There was a row of turf-made huts or cabins, each separated from the neighbours by wooden partitions and squares of turf which did not reach the height of the roofs, which were made simply of planks. Consequently. There were no secrets.
John Crompton, who was originally from Ludlow, was living in one of these shanties whilst he worked as a shoemaker, repairing and maintaining the foot wear of the railway work force, with his wife Mary and three of their children.
Not only was the accommodation poor, but also there wasn’t enough of it, so the cabins were crowded. Like everyone else, the Cromptons had three or four lodgers, which brought with it certain difficulties.
As the Brecon Reporter was eager to point out, more than forty summers had passed over this couple, and they had as many as twenty children born to them in wedlock. However, John was jealous that one of their lodgers was a little too over-familiar with Mary, and she eventually agreed that the man in question, who appears to have used the name ‘Ginger,’ found accommodation elsewhere.
There were certainly tensions in their relationship as a consequence and, whilst John was happy to go out drinking, he was less inclined to agree to his wife being anywhere other than at home.
John was certainly regarded as volatile. His own children viewed him as intimidating and the reporter described him as a man of ungovernable temper, given to drink, (who) had several times threatened the life of his wife, who had told neighbours she would drown herself, or he would murder her.
In early March he was out drinking and when he returned home, Mary wasn’t there, so he sent his son to look for her. However, the boy failed to find his mother, and so Crompton hit him three times in his frustration. He then spent some time searching the cabin (looking, the boy thought ominously, for a razor) before he himself went out to look for her, though with no success, believing it seems, that she was with Ginger. But when he returned, Mary had finally come home. She asked him what he wanted for supper but an argument soon began.
Arguments were frequent in the cramped circumstances in which they lived and there could be no privacy. Everyone heard everything. ‘Damn your eyes! I’ll send you to hell! I won’t allow it,’ John was heard to say. ‘You bugger! I’ll cut your bloody head off.” Someone else claimed to have heard him say ‘I will split your bloody head open then there, you bugger, take that, you know I don’t allow it!
He certainly threw a glass of beer at her, which was heard smashing against the wooden partition. There seemed to be the sounds of a scuffle, and Mary was heard to say, “Don’t John, Don’t John,” then there were three low groans.
No one, however, wished to interfere.
The next morning William Pugh, a butcher, found Mary’s body in a ditch outside.
Pugh shouted to Crompton, John, John, you have brought your fighting and drinking to something, here’s your wife lying dead in the ditch. Crompton made no answer, but went to cradle her head. Oh! Mary did I ever think it would come to this?
When Mrs Pugh said to him ‘you have done it well. This is the fruit of your fighting with your wife last night’, Crompton made no reply, but cried.
Sergeant Fly arrived from Builth Wells and Crompton told him that he had no recollection of what he did to Mary after he threw the glass at her. He never intended to harm her and he then turned to kiss Mary’s body. My wench, he said. I never intended doing such a thing, as God is my witness. I never thought it would come to this.
The post mortem showed that she had died from strangulation. There was no way in which it could be self-inflicted. It showed that she was a woman of about forty-five and full of nourishment. Her lips were livid and swollen, and her face bruised. Her neck was discoloured, particularly so on the left side. Her chest was discoloured and fractured her lungs much congested, the spleen and kidneys were injured to some extent, there was a fractured rib and her larynx was injured. The doctor believed Mary had died from strangulation by some force applied to the neck.
But how could anyone know for certain what Crompton had done? There were no witnesses; there was no conclusive evidence. Oh yes, there was plenty of circumstantial evidence. But it was more complicated than that, because Mary had been complaining of ill-health for some time.
Crompton said Mary had been was experiencing frequent fluttering of the heart.
I often thought it would take her life away. I should not wonder if that was the cause of her death. I observed her many times after walking a little fast putting her hands up, and saying, ‘Oh! My God here this thing is coming in my throat again, whatever can it be.
This, he said, had been going on for a while. Two nights previously she jumped out of bed and said, ‘Oh my God! Get up John and get a light, this will kill me in my throat.‘ There were days when she could not walk up the hill, and days when she could eat a great deal and other days very little.
There was no doubt that she was dead, but did her husband murder her? Was there any evidence? Or was it natural causes? Who could be certain? Did she die because of the assault? Or in spite of the assault?
The case was dismissed and John Crompton was released.
