Shaws the Butchers : Tragedy At Halton Holegate

About four years ago I started researching into my family history with nothing more than the names of my grandparents and a rough idea about the geographical area in which they lived. Since then I have managed to trace some branches back to the 1700s but like most people I found nothing very exciting as far as the individuals on those branches are concerned. In fact I found that my paternal ancestors were living on the same road that I was brought up on over two hundred years later. Most it seems were fairly well down the social ladder being agricultural labourers although one gt gt grandmother was recorded in the 1881 census as “keeps a mangle.”  However, last year I stunned by a rather shocking yet sad tale regarding the siblings of my maternal great-grandfather living in the village of Halton Holegate. The Shaw family were well known in the village as butchers having their own shop and slaughter house on the Firsby Road which was only demolished last year to make way for a new building development.




Shaw's The Butchers , Halton Holegate ~ Scene of the Tragedy

 

The business was owned and run by William Rowston Shaw in the latter part of the 19^th century after which various sons, of which there were at least five, took over. At the time of the 1901 census son Joseph it seems was training elsewhere under a Thomas Cunnington at Donington near Spalding. Brothers Charles and Moses remained at Halton working for their father William up until his death in 1904. Certainly my great grandfather Aaron had left years earlier, running the Coach and Horses at Toynton before moving back to take over another butchers shop in Spilsby on the Boston Road. In the 1911 census William’s widow, Anna-Maria Shaw, is recorded as employer in residence with two of her sons, Joseph and Charles, working for her in the Halton shop.

 Sweeping forward to 1932 , the time of these tragic events, my godmother, who was a child of 5 at the time, recalls that both Joseph and Charles were still working at the butchers in Halton. She remembers her parents and relatives speaking in hushed tones about something dreadful having occurred at the shop involving a gruesome death.  Having recalled seeing a newspaper cutting about these events several years ago she encouraged me to search for information through the Lincolnshire Standard archives at Louth library. The library staff were tremendously helpful in tracking down microfiche copies of two particular extracts that told much of the following story.

Leading up to the tragedy there are few clues to suggest that anything was going awry with the business at the Halton butchers.
So the headline “Cut Throat in Presence of Brother” must have brought a chill to anyone opening the Lincolnshire Standard in August 1932.

The article recounts the events which occurred on the evening of Wednesday 17^th August. At 8:30 that evening Joseph Shaw (49) was assisting his brother Charles in the slaughter-house on their Halton premises when he turned the knife on himself inflicting a terrible gash in his neck ‘almost severing the head’. Dr C.S.E. Wright of Spilsby was summoned to the shop but could only report life was extinct. An inquiry into his death was swiftly arranged for the next day to be presided over by the local coroner Dr Francis J. Walker JP. Brother Charles, called as witness, was asked about events leading up to the tragedy and said his brother had come into in the slaughter house after fetching a pint of beer from the adjacent ‘Bell Inn’ and having had a brief conversation with a customer, Mr Atkinson.

Charles said he asked Joseph “Does Mr. Atkinson require anything tomorrow morning?” to which Joseph replied he “Could look after his own business without any interfering.” Charles repeated that he was “A bit nasty with me” but he didn’t know why because he had asked him about the meat before. Charles went on to say Joseph told his brother to “look after it then” he immediately crossed over to the other side of the room and grabbed a knife to slice across his throat. Charles said he went over to his brother but could not prevent him from giving himself another gash. Questions were asked regarding Joseph’s state of mind as Charles admitted that he had been lately ‘altered by the hot weather’ and  ‘it didn’t take much to worry him’ When questioned further about going to the adjacent inn for beer Charles said that Joseph was not the worse for drink and had never threatened to harm himself before. Another witness who spoke at the inquest was a schoolboy, Stephen Marshall King (13), who was employed as an apprentice and had helped the deceased cut the garden hedge and slaughter a beast earlier that afternoon. He had also seen Joseph in conversation with Mr Atkinson, a grocer from Candlesby, and later witnessed Joseph shouting at his brother over the meat order before taking the knife to his throat. Bernard Atkinson was called to give evidence but only to say Joseph was in a jovial mood when they spoke, he didn’t seem depressed and merely talked about Mr Atkinson’s son wanting to be a butcher and then Joseph went on to promise him a leg of mutton for the following morning.  

Dr Wright who attended Shaw the previous evening reported that the wound was 9 inches long from ear to ear, that there were 3 cuts altogether in the man’s neck all of which appeared to be self inflicted. No jury was summoned to assist the coroner in reaching a verdict as the coroner was satisfied with all the witness statements and returned a verdict of ‘suicide while temporarily insane.’ Apart from listing the mourners who attended the funeral, the article also paid tribute to Joseph as a soldier who had bravely served his country in the Royal Garrison Artillery in France during the war. However this was not the only tragedy to unfold in Halton Holegate in August 1932.

  It emerged that Joseph had left behind a young sweetheart Winnie, the twenty-five year old daughter of a local chauffeur who was employed as a cook at Halton House by the minister, Richard Barrow. The standard article revealed that at about 1:20 p.m. on the Friday afternoon whilst Joseph’s funeral was taking place Winifred Mary Wilford told her father that she did not want to hear the church bell tolling so she was going to walk across the fields by the allotments to Spilsby.

Her father, William Henry Wilford, said her mother could accompany her but Winnie said she would rather go on her own and didn’t even want to take the dog as he would “be too much bother.” Mr Wilford never saw his daughter alive again. What happened next was revealed by Laura Richardson, an assistant employed by A.C. Farmer’s the chemist in Spilsby, who served Miss Wilford when she asked for a small tin of weedkiller for her employer, the Rev. Barrow.




The Wilford's Cottage, gatehouse to Halton House

 

She then changed her mind and asked for a larger tin and signed the register for it. Next to speak was Lucy Ellerby a schoolgirl from Newtown, Spilsby who said that she was walking on the footpath over the fields to Halton when she spotted a woman’s hat lying on the grass between two stiles. She then heard a girl cry out for help from an adjacent field so she turned and ran home to get help. The girl’s brother, Herbert Ellerby, reported that he followed the path with his sister and, after seeing the hat , soon spotted the girl lying under a hedge in the field belonging to Mr Cade. The girl told him she had poisoned herself with weed-killer. He sent his sister back home and stayed with her until his mother and a neighbour, Mrs Parkin, arrived.

They were soon joined by another neighbour of the Ellerbys , Edith Robinson, who having heard the commotion in the street had gone and fetched some mustard and water to administer to the girl. Another Spilsby resident Arthur Goring also arrived on the scene and rode in the car with the girl to Spilsby cottage hospital. Returning to walk across the Halton footpath later in the day it was Arthur Goring who had found a note (in what her father admitted was Winifred’s handwriting) in which the following words were written “Take me with Jack, lay me beside Joe. Put all my photos of him in with me. I can’t live without him. Tell Charlie not to worry. Winnie”   

  There was some debate about this note when the coroner asked the girl’s father who she might be referring to as ‘Jack’. Mr Wilford said that although Winnie’s dog was called Jack it was more likely that it was a reference to Joseph Shaw’s horse, also called Jack, of which she was very fond and in fact had been employed to pull the cart  taking Joseph’s body to the church on the day of the funeral. Mr Wilford said that in the six years his daughter had ‘been keeping company with shaw’ they had often ridden out together on the horse and cart.

Arriving at the hospital at  4:00 the girl was already in a bad state according to the matron on duty, Miss C Crummock. She administered a nasal emetic to the girl but she died at 4:30 without giving any more information with regard to what had happened. The doctor who conducted the post mortem testified that his examination of the deceased revealed an inflamed stomach full of a yellow fluid, apparently mustard and water. He went on to say he believed the inflammation was due to some irritant poison which was most probably arsenic and that death could be attributed to arsenical poisoning.

In his concluding statement the coroner said he was saddened by the fact that within nine days he had presided over three deaths in the parish of Halton a village with a population of less than 350. Once again he returned a verdict on Winifred Mary Wilford of “suicide while temporarily insane.” Curiously under the subheading, “Mourning village : Three inquests in 9 days” the issue of the third inquest was not explained or whether there was any connection with the other two deaths. 

Two further paragraphs detailed the funerals of both Joseph Shaw and also that of his sweetheart Winifred. Both services were conducted by the rector, Canon H. L. Harrison in Halton Holegate village church. Both the coffins were brought to the church gates on Shaw’s butcher’s cart, the horse Jack being led by the young apprentice butcher, Stephen King.  Although at this time suicides were rarely permitted a burial in sacred ground the Standard account from August 1932 suggests that Joseph and Winnie were indeed buried together and in Halton churchyard

 There are however still a few unanswered questions surrounding this tragic affair. Joseph’s death certificate confirms everything that was reported in the newspaper but I must seek out more information regarding brother Charles as it is clear he did not die at the same time as his brother and Winnie. However both my godmother, and lately a cousin of hers, insisted that that Charles Shaw too met an untimely end. There is no evidence of this in the newspaper articles at the time of Joseph’s death in 1932 although online BMD records do show a Charles Shaw, aged 50, dying in the vicinity in 1936. This may merit some further investigation. 

There were however still a few unanswered questions surrounding this tragic affair. Joseph’s death certificate confirms everything that was reported in the newspaper but both my godmother, and lately a second-cousin of hers, insisted that that the brother Charles Shaw also met an untimely end.  I was uncertain why they should both think this as there was nothing further in the newspaper articles at the time of Joseph’s death. However, online BMD records revealed a Charles Shaw, aged 50, died in the vicinity in 1936. So I decided to obtain a copy of this certificate.

The Entire Shaw Butcher's property at Halton Holegate

The copy of Charles Shaw’s death certificate arrived from the GRO and showed that on 20^th January 1936 Charles Shaw died as a result of a gunshot wound in head, suicide, Temp.Insanity No P.M. The same coroner, Francis J. Walker, presided at the Inquest held on the following day, 21^st January and the death was registered by J.N. Radford.

Thanks again to the staff at the Louth Library I received a printout of a report which originally appeared in the Standard for Saturday, January 25th 1936 under the headline, “Village's Train of Tragedies.” A second headline stated: Third Halton Suicide in Grim Drama:  Fatal End to Romance Recalled. The article recalled the story of Joseph and Winnie and how their deaths affected the village and in particular brother Charles who witnessed his brother's suicide in the butcher’s shop.  

The article revealed that the body of Charles Shaw had been found in an outhouse behind the butcher’s shop in Halton. He had a terrible gunshot wound in his head and near his feet lay a single barrel shot-gun minus the stock. At the inquest in the Halton reading room friends testified that his brother Joseph’s death four years earlier had changed him although, ‘lately he had appeared in better spirits.’ He had apparently been in some financial difficulty which he had kept secret from another brother William who had a butchery business in Spilsby. The story unfolded that on Monday 21^st January Charles had risen shortly before 8:00 a.m. gone out into the yard and was never seen alive again. His body was found around 9:15 a.m. by a young lad Shaw employed, Douglas Boyall, who, after feeding the horses, went into the house for breakfast at 9 o’clock. He didn’t see or hear Charles go to the outhouse but after breakfast he had gone out to the outhouse noticing that the door he had left open had been closed. He fetched housekeeper Miss Edith Rebecca Dawson. She’d been lighting a fire at 7:30 when Charles came down for breakfast. To her he seemed cheerful although she commented that he had not enjoyed good health lately, “He was often tired and sometimes seemed worried,” although she didn’t know why. She was questioned whether he was likely to have taken any alcohol that morning but she said not. Nor had he had any breakfast. The medical evidence from Dr C.S.E. Wright suggested the gun had been very close to the head when discharged and death would have been instantaneous. The doctor considered the wound was self inflicted. He hadn’t attended the deceased since the previous summer when he had complained of indigestion and nerves. P.C. Skelson confirmed what the doctor said and went to say the gun didn’t belong to the deceased but had been borrowed by the lad Boyall about a year earlier for shooting rats. When found it contained one spent cartridge and was resting over the deceased’s right foot. The coroner was surprised that the gun-stock was missing. No explanation was given. Strangely there was no mention in the report of any witness hearing a gun-shot at any time that morning. A member of the jury, Mr Clough, examining the gun commented that the trigger had a very light pull. No other evidence was offered but the coroner, who had also presided at Joseph’s inquest, considered the facts of the previous tragedy most probably had a bearing on Charles’ state of mind at the time of his death.. A verdict of “suicide during a fit of temporary insanity” was returned.

  I have been unable to discover anymore about the tragic events in the butchers shop in Halton and only discovered a couple of months ago that the shop itself is no more having been demolished last year to make way for a new building development. Fortunately Google maps still contains an image of the premises from the roadside as a spooky reminder of this grim story. So anymore information would be gratefully received.

Uncle Ted's Lucky Escape

One of the things we still do well in Britain is cold, filthy wet weather during the winter months. Nearly a year ago, despite being away from Lincolnshire for over thirty years I felt strangely reassured by the driving force of a February downpour as I edged along the fens from Sleaford towards the Witham at Tattershall.  Many midlanders regard the fens as flat and featureless but I still think this area holds much fascination. Enormous tracts of land criss-crossed by dykes like wounds cutting into the rich, dark soil.  Clusters of cottages and farm buildings standing out like islands on the horizon encircled by rook laden trees. You may spot the occasional water-tower or derelict windmill in the distance to one side of the road or, on the other, a chimney stack rising up above the line of the dyke bank where long ago some old beam engine puthered away pumping water up from a network of field ditches into the main dyke. After rounding the bends at Anwick, you spot the massive keep of Tattershall Castle sticking up like some giant lego structure and I know I’m in familiar territory. Yet this isn’t home anymore. So much has changed. The village in which I grew up isn’t the same anymore. The winding road of little shops and white pantiled cottages in the centre of the village has all but gone. Sykes’ lane by the side of the old Primitive chapel down which we pelted to Newstead’s chippy has been obliterated by extensions to the village car-park, an expanse of tarmac all but removing the heart of the place. My old home on Dogdyke road, may still be there but it looks so different. The pebble-dash walls that gave the cottage the appearance of having a bad rash have recently had ‘treatment’ and now appear rather drab and grey. It looks quite exposed since the Virginia creeper has been removed that once covered most of it like some green shroud. The Methodist Church next door, a hive of activity in my day, now stands empty and forlorn, testament to falling congregations I suspect. But I’m wrong, the faithful haven’t gone altogether. A laminated card on the peeling church notice-board says they are now to be found worshipping in new premises in the former doctors’ surgery. I later discover from my brother, still a village resident, that the doctors have in turn moved over the road to spanking new premises on land which forty years ago served as the wood-yard. Of course some bits of old  Coningsby do remain intact, the fine church with its massive tower and huge one-handed clock face still dominates the landscape. The tall bow windows of what was once Blackburn’s ironmonger’s shop have fortunately escaped the developers’ hand. Yet here is not our intended destination, for today we’re only calling in to pick up my brother. We are venturing a dozen or so miles further on, skirting the edge of the fens near Spilsby.

I was actually born in Spilsby, well just outside, but they haven’t seen fit to put a plaque up as yet. Their most famous son remains Sir John Franklin, polar explorer and discoverer of the North West passage. Such was his claim to fame that he merited not just a plaque but an impressive stone statue at one end of the market place. Spilsby today is a rather sleepy little town. The market has virtually disappeared yet with its raised pavement terrace and rectangle of neat Georgian town houses and shops the place retains much local charm.   Some blame its downfall from busy market town on the building of the by-pass in the late 1960s. It certainly succeeded in removing lots of the heavy traffic heading to and from the east coast from the town centre. Traffic was choking the place making life miserable for locals trying to get about.  However, the town’s changing fortunes were not our main concern for we were turning off a couple of miles back along the Boston road onto the fen lane that led down to Toynton All Saints.

 In the last 100 years the cluster of villages along this escarpment played a key role in the lives of my mother’s family. None of the villages are or ever have been very large. They contain few buildings of any great architectural merit and few of their inhabitants have ever made the pages of the Lincolnshire Echo let alone Who’s who. They simply represent the first areas of settlement as any traveller crossing the Boston Fens makes their way north into the Wolds.  Mother’s home was in East Keal, or more accurately a mile or so north of East Keal to the far side of Marden Hill. From the 1920s the family lived on a small farm which years earlier had been the site of clay workings and a brick furnace. Although she had moved away in the early 1950s, after she married, her brothers and sister remained in the area. Uncle Ted retired from farming several years ago to a modest bungalow a couple of miles away at Toynton close to his son’s home. It was to the small Methodist chapel adjacent to his bungalow that we were heading for a surprise party. Nothing too elaborate, a few friends from the village had been invited alongside a dozen or so relatives who had been alerted to the fact that he was turning 90. And it was clearly a surprise. He had been enticed from the warmth of his fireside on a damp Saturday afternoon by the promise of a trip to a local garden centre to buy a few bulbs for his back garden. Instead he had been waylaid by his nearest and dearest only to be dropped a hundred yards or so round the corner of the lane at the chapel door. If the embarrassment of being taken by surprise was not enough on entering the room he was greeted by his daughter who ceremoniously pinned on him a badge proclaiming ‘Birthday boy.’ 

Arthritis may have taken its toll on his joints over the years but Uncle Ted remained very much the life and soul of the gathering chatting about his life in the local farming community. I had sent several enlarged snaps of family members past and present which had been conveniently arranged on a table by Ted’s side to help the reminiscences flow. Not that he needed much prompting. He was soon regaling us with stories of catching poachers down on the west fen, driving herds of beast to the Spilsby market on a Monday three times a year and attending the local sheepdog-trials at Skendleby Hall. His best story was, however, commemorated on the magnificent birthday cake that his daughter in law, Angela, had made especially for the occasion. The square cake was surmounted by a raised area of icing representing the slopes of Marden Hill behind Brickfield House, where Ted had spent most of his young life. Next to this lay a kidney shaped slab of pale blue icing portraying the Clay Pit that, fed by springs, provided  fresh water for the all the farms’ stock.

Plum in the centre of this stood two plastic figures of heavy horses sporting full harness and another of a man. Those of us unfamiliar with the tale thought it was simply depicting some romantic impression of a bygone era. It was soon revealed to us that behind it all was one of Ted’s favourite tales. With a little prompting he revealed to everyone that when he was just 15 he had been sent out by his father on a cold winter’s afternoon to fetch the horses in from the Bolingbroke end of the West paddock back to the stables, so as to be ready for the blacksmith who was expected the next morning. Ted had duly gone out and to his fathers surprise arrived back through he kitchen door some 45 minutes later. Expecting that the job should have taken him the best part of a couple of hours his father asked him what was he playing at leading them in at a gallop with all their gear on. Ted said he hadn’t but that he had managed to bring them in quicker by taking a short cut through the pit field and had in fact led them across the frozen ice of the clay-pit lake itself. His Dad had told him to “give o’er” and that he was pulling their legs as it was impossible to lead two heavy horses, each weighing the best part of a ton, over the pit, “frozzen with ice or not.” Ted  said that if they didn’t believe him they’d better go and look for themselves because the hoof prints were still there in the ice across the top of the pit to prove it. It was not a short cut he ever took again.

    



The Brickfield Pit