Marlborough

 I wrote a brief history of Marlborough, a historic market town in Wiltshire 

Alfred Rouse - the burning car murder

 Alfred Rouse was hanged for the murder of an unknown man. Rouse was born in London on 6 April 1894. In 1914 he joined the army but he married Lily May Watkins before he departed for France. In 1915 he was wounded. He suffered head injuries and as well as injuries to his leg. Rouse slowly recovered. He was discharged from the army with a pension in 1916. However In 1920 a doctor examined him and his pension was stopped as he had completely recovered. However Rouse found work as a car mechanic.

In 1929 Rouse got a job as a salesman. It was a well paid position and it involved a lot of travelling by car. Rouse was also a womaniser who had many affairs. He had several illegitimate children and faced having to pay maintenance for them. With his financial situation strained Rouse looked for a way out. He turned to murder.

Rouse thought of a plan. He would offer a lift to a down and out and then kill the man. He would set the car on fire. He hoped he could make it look like an accident. The man’s body would be so badly burned it would be unidentifiable but the cars number plates would survive. Rouse hoped the police would identify the car as his and assume the dead body was him. If he was believed to be dead he could make a fresh start. 

However, Rouse bungled the murder. In Britain 5 November is Bonfire Night when people light bonfires and fireworks. At 2 am on 6 November 1930 two young men were returning from a Bonfire Night Dance in Northamptonshire. They saw a fire in the distance. Strangely they saw a man on the opposite side of the road climb out of a ditch. He was carrying a briefcase. The man said ‘It looks like someone is having a bonfire’. He then walked off in the opposite direction to the two men. They soon discovered the burning car. As Rouse hoped, the police quickly identified the burning car. 

The police spoke to his wife. She said she had last seen Alfred at 2 am on 6 November. (Rouse later said it was actually about 6.30 am). They showed pieces of the dead man’s clothing to Mrs Rouse. She was not certain if they were his. 

The police were naturally keen to talk to the mysterious man who climbed out of a ditch. It had been a moonlight night and the two young men who saw him were able to describe him to the police. He matched the description of Alfred Rouse. So if he wasn’t the victim who was? 

Meanwhile, Rouse went to his house in London then hitchhiked to the house of his mistress, who was heavily pregnant in Wales. She asked where his car was. He told her it had been stolen. 

However his mistress showed him a newspaper that named him as the owner of the burned car. Rouse decided to leave and he caught a coach to London.  He told his mistress where he was going and she told the police. They were waiting to arrest him when he arrived. 

The police also found that the fire was not accidental. The feeder pipe from the petrol tank to the carburetor had been loosened allowing petrol to leak out. Across the two front seats of the car was the body of a man burned beyond recognition. The post mortem showed he was alive but unconscious when the fire started. 

Rouse had a not very convincing explanation for the fire. He had picked up a man near St Albans and later stopped the car to go to the toilet. He asked the hitch hiker to fill the petrol tank with fuel from a can. The man then asked if he had a cigarette. Rouse did not smoke cigarettes but he had a cigar and gave the man one. He then went into a field. Looking back he saw the car on fire. According to Rouse the passenger must have accidentally ignited the petrol when he lit his cigar. Rouse claimed he tried to rescue the hitch hiker from the burning car but he could not.

The police were skeptical. Why had Rouse taken his briefcase when he got out of the car to relieve himself? (The two men who discovered the burning car saw him carrying one). Rouse claimed that he panicked and fled the scene. 

However the police soon discovered that several of Rouse’s mistresses were taking out had child maintenance orders against him. He would be unable to pay them so he set fire to his car with an unconscious hitchhiker inside hoping he would be mistaken for the dead man. 

He hoped could begin a new life with a new identity. On 27 November 1930 Rouse was arrested for the murder of an unidentified man. 

His trial began on 26 January 1931. Expert witnesses testified that the victim was unconscious when the fire started. It was also revealed that a fragment of his clothing, which had survived the fire had been soaked in petrol.  Rouse stood by his claim that the death was an accident. However the jury did not believe him. On 31 January he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Alfred Rouse was hanged on 10 March 1931. 

While awaiting execution Rouse sent a letter to a newspaper, the Daily Sketch confessing to the murder. Rouse claimed he met a man outside a pub in London and promised him a job in the Midlands and arranged to drive him there. Rouse got the man drunk by giving him a bottle of whisky. When he was sufficiently drunk Rouse strangled the man until he was unconscious. Rouse admitted he had deliberately loosened a pipe to let petrol flow out. He also poured petrol over the man. He then set the car on fire. 

Jack the Stripper

 The Thames Nude Murders were a series of murders in London in the 1960s. Because the killer removed the victims’ clothes, he became known as Jack the Stripper.

It’s not certain how many women he killed but on 2 February 1964, the body of Hannah Tailford was found floating in the River Thames near Hammersmith Bridge in London. 

She was naked apart from her stockings. The unfortunate woman was strangled and several of her teeth were missing. Her knickers had been stuffed down her throat. 

The police surmised she had been dumped in the river at Dukes Meadows, a parkland in Chiswick, London. Hannah was a sex worker. She was from Northumberland, and she was 30 at the time of her death.

On 8 April 1964, a second body was found on the shore of the Thames at Chiswick. The victim was Irene Lockwood, aged 26. 

Like Hannah Tailford she was a sex worker. The police realised that both women were probably killed by the same man.

A third victim was found on 24 April 1964 in an alleyway in Brentford. The woman had been strangled, and three of her front teeth were missing. She was identified as Helen Barthelemy, aged 22, from Glasgow. She was naked and specks of lead-based paint were found on her skin. It was the kind of paint used in the car industry and the police surmised that her body had been stored in a workshop where a high-pressure paint sprayer was used.

A fourth victim, Mary Fleming, was discovered on 14 July 1964 in Berrymede Road in Chiswick, London. Mary, a Scottish woman was a sex worker. She was 30 years old. This time, too, specks of paint were found on the victim’s body.

Another victim, Frances Brown AKA Margaret McGowan, was found in a car park in Kensington on 25 November 1964. Frances was a sex worker. She was born in Glasgow. At the time of her death, she was 21.

On 16 February 1965, the body of Bridget O’Hara, known as ‘Bridie’ was found by a shed behind the Heron Trading Estate in Acton, London. Again, flecks of paint were found on the body. Bridget was born in Dublin, and she was 27 years old.

The murders then stopped, perhaps because the killer committed suicide. Or perhaps he was arrested for an unrelated offence. Thames Nude Murders, also called the Hammersmith Nude Murders, were never officially solved.

Forced Contraception in Greenland

 By chance, I found out about this scandal of forced contraception in Greenland 😠

Thomas Crapper Day

 27 January is Thomas Crapper Day. He was a great designer of toilets, but Mr Crapper did not actually invent the flushing toilet.

Wellingborough

 I wrote a little history of Wellingborough in Northamptonshire

Newark on Trent

 I wrote a little history of Newark on Trent in Nottinghamshire