Page 53 - Top Cover Issue 9

TOP COVER ISSUE 9 53

Sergeant James Weedy (Yorkshire John Gould is living in a caravan in in a request for military assistance Charles Backhouse and his brother
North Riding) reprimands Robert Linthorpe, Middlesborough with his by the Chief Constable of Yorkshire Frederick live in Swinton near
Kitching for leaving a conveyance father. A doctor visits him at his father’s West Riding, Captain Stuart Russell. Rotherham. They buy a revolver and
parked outside a hotel in Leeming. request and deems him to be a lunatic. Fifty-four soldiers of the 1st Battalion, ammunition and both men are seen
Kitching tells Weedy to mind his own As he has a muzzle-loading rifle, which South Staffordshire Regiment, arrive to threaten people with it. This is
business and threatens to ‘blow his his father unsuccessfully tries to take at Wakefield Station and one section reported and Constable John William
brains out’. The next morning Weedy from him, the doctor tells the police and consisting of twenty-eight men under Kew (Yorkshire West Riding) goes to
is found dead and evidence points to Sergeant Black and Constable William Captain Barker is sent to Ackton Hall investigate. Kew confronts the two
Kitching. He is charged with murder Henderson go with two others to the colliery near Featherstone. A mob brothers as they are about to leave their
but claims in court that the gun went caravan where they find him in the there refuses to disperse and starts home and Charles draws the revolver
off by accident. He is convicted and yard threatening to ‘shoot anyone who to stone the soldiers who (after firing and shoots him in the stomach. Kew
executed at York Castle prison. comes near’. The men slowly advance warning shots thereby misleading the tries to hold onto Charles but Frederick
Said to be the last of the London and when Henderson makes a grab for rioters into believing that they are then takes the gun from his brother
night watch, Charles Rouse, retires. the rifle he is shot and killed. At Leeds only using blanks) fire a volley. Two and shoots him again, this time in the
Right – photographed with his cutlass, Assizes Gould is ordered to be detained men are killed and many injured. A right hip. Kew dies the following day
rattle, lanthorn lamp and truncheon in a lunatic asylum ‘at Her Majesty’s plate commemorating the event will be but names his assailants before he
outside his box in Brixton Road. Pleasure’. erected in Featherstone in 1993. does so. Both men are charged with
The Featherstone Massacre. murder, convicted and sentenced to be
During a miner’s strike in Yorkshire executed. Frederick Backhouse, aged
a shortage of police officers results nineteen, has his sentence commuted
to life imprisonment because of his age.
Charles Backhouse is hanged at Leeds
prison.

1890 1893 1900

1892 1896 1898

Detective Sergeant Joseph Joyce (Met) At Dartmoor prison at Princetown in Constable Thomas King (Inverness)
is shot and killed while at the home Devon three convicts try to escape. is shot and killed while executing
address of a thief, John Wenzel, who he William Carter is shot and killed by an arrest warrant for a poacher,
is trying to take into custody. Wenzel is armed warders as he is climbing a Allan MacCallum. In February 1899
executed at Newgate prison. wall and William Martin is recaptured MacCallum is tried for murder at
Sergeant Enos Molden (Wiltshire) after a struggle. The third man, Ralph Inverness but only convicted of
is shot and killed during a manhunt Goodwin, is missing for several culpable homicide and sentenced
for John Gurd who is wanted for the days as police and warders, many to fifteen years in prison. He will be
murder of Harry Richards, the uncle armed, search the moor on footand released in 1910.
of his ex-girlfriend who he blames for on horseback. He is recaptured at
the breakup of their relationship. Gurd Devonport and returned to prison.
shoots at two officers who try to arrest
him and a shot hits Molden. He dies
later in hospital. Gurd is charged with
murder, convicted at Wiltshire Assizes
and executed at Devizes prison.

Police History Series

1866-1900