On Thursday 3 November 1859, George Trowbridge ate breakfast with his wife Anastasia as usual and kissed her goodbye before walking the half-mile path to his work. It was to be the last kiss he and his wife would share. When he returned to their cottage in Ashcombe Wood, Tollard Royal for lunch, he found the door locked against him. Looking through the window, he could see Anastasia lying on the floor, her head resting against the wall at an unnatural angle and one arm propped on a chair.
Trowbridge’s first reaction was to scream very loudly, attracting the attention of their nearest neighbour, Mrs Parsons, who hurried to see what the matter was. By the time she arrived, George had managed to climb through a back window of the cottage and was sitting on the floor, cradling his dead wife in his arms.
Anastasia had been attacked and now lay surrounded by a large pool of blood. A doctor was summoned and, when Mr Foot the surgeon arrived from Ludwell, he found the dead woman to have been dreadfully mutilated, with numerous wounds to her face and head. Her body was still warm and he concluded that she had been dead for about two or three hours. Dr Richard Shittle, of Cann, near Shaftesbury, later carried out a post-mortem examination and catalogued her terrible injuries. He determined that Anastasia had first been viciously beaten about the head and face. She had lost several of her teeth and many of her facial bones were fractured.
Once she had been rendered unconscious, her attacker had seized a saw from the cottage and proceeded to saw at her head, penetrating her skull in several places and causing horrific damage to her brain.
The saw was left at the cottage, its blade covered with blood, brain matter and hair. A razor was also found in two pieces, the handle on the threshold of the cottage and the blade outside, close to the front door, although only one wound – a clean cut across Anastasia’s knuckles – appeared to have been inflicted with a razor. The house had been ransacked and a large chest that stood by the bed upstairs had been broken open, its contents scattered around the room. George Trowbridge was able to tell the police that a number of items of his clothing had been stolen. In all, two coats, three waistcoats, a pair of leggings, a pair of boots and an umbrella were missing from his bedroom.
The police searched the cottage and found that the outside of the front door was heavily blood spattered and that there were large quantities of blood stretching from the door to the place where Anastasia lay. They concluded that she had been initially attacked while she was outside, close to the front door and then dragged inside, where her attacker had savagely mutilated her in the relative privacy of the fairly isolated cottage.
Once the police began their enquiries, they quickly learned that a stranger had been observed loitering in the area for several days before the murder. Numerous people gave the same description of a man who was around thirty years old, 5ft 7in tall, slender, with a dark complexion and a pronounced foreign accent.
Alice Stingimore of Alvedistone had encountered him four days before the murder when he knocked at the door of her cottage and asked in broken English for a bit of bread. She particularly remembered the man because her children had initially answered the door to his knock and had been unable to understand what he was saying. She added that the man was carrying a bundle tied up in dirty blue cloth.
James Stracey, bailiff to Lord Rivers at Rushmore Lodge, recalled that, three days before the murder, the man had been wearing a ‘wide awake’ hat and, on the same day, Caroline Parsons remembered him coming to the door of her workplace, Ashcombe House, and begging for food.
Three people had seen him at Berwick-St-John on the Tuesday before the murder and all remembered his dirty blue bundle. Nothing was seen of him on the following day, but, on the morning of the murder, Samuel and George Bench had seen him about 300 yards from the Trowbridges’ cottage, still wearing his hat and still carrying his bundle.
Armed with these descriptions, the police began an extensive manhunt involving officers from several areas. The cottage was almost on the county border with Dorset and police from both Dorset and Hampshire joined the officers from Wiltshire, led by Superintendent Harris of Hindon, scouring the country night and day in search of the foreign tramp.
Within a couple of hours of the murder, the man had been spotted near the Blandford toll gate and, with the aid of many more witnesses, the police tracked him through Wareham, across Dorset and into Hampshire. There, the tramp had walked through the New Forest towards Southampton.
As he went, he disposed of some of the spoils of the robbery. On the day after the murder, he sold a pocket-handkerchief to Mr Green, a labourer at Piddletrenthide, Dorset. A waistcoat was sold to another man and, on the Monday after the murder, John Jeffreys of Church Knowle paid him 2s for another waistcoat and a necktie. In the New Forest, the tramp called at a public house in Fawley, where the owner, Mr Richard Martin, parted with 7s for a blue coat.
Eight days after the murder, a sharp-eyed policeman, Sergeant Cook, thought he spotted the fugitive at Hythe on the south-western bank of Southampton water. The man boarded a ferry and Cook followed. By the time the ferry reached Southampton, Cook was absolutely positive that he had his man. He arrested him and returned him to Hythe police station for questioning.
The High Street, Hythe, in the late 1950s. (Author’s collection)
The man gave his name as Serafin Manzano. A Spaniard, he spoke very little English but Sergeant Cook was able to establish that he had arrived in England from Boulogne. When Manzano was searched, it was found that he was wearing two pairs of trousers and that the outer pair appeared to be bloodstained. He also had a recent cut on the middle finger of his right hand.
A message was despatched to Hindon and Superintendent Harris set out for Hythe immediately, accompanied by George Trowbridge. Trowbridge was able to identify several items of his clothing found in Manzano’s possession, including a hat, coat, leggings and the umbrella. The coat was particularly unique, since it had been presented to Trowbridge by the Sturminster Agricultural Society. Manzano had cut off the very distinctive buttons.
Manzano’s clothes were sent for testing and he was taken back to Hindon, appearing before magistrates there on 23 November. As he spoke only a little English, Sir G. Cornewall-Lewis, the Secretary of State, made arrangements for an interpreter to attend. Due at the court at eleven o’clock, the interpreter had still not arrived at two o’clock, by which time the magistrates were beginning to tire of waiting for him. A member of the Spanish Consulate in London was attending court and he was asked to act as interpreter for the prisoner – he agreed and the case finally commenced. (The official interpreter finally arrived at 4 p.m., just as the case was closing.)
Through his newly-appointed interpreter, Manzano explained that he had spent many years serving in the Queen of Spain’s Army and had arrived in England earlier in 1859 and spent some months travelling around Wales on foot. He denied any involvement in the murder of Anastasia Trowbridge, saying that he had bought the clothes from another tramp, a Pole, who had recently arrived in England from Boulogne.
However, by now analytical chemist Mr William Herapath had examined Manzano’s clothes and determined that there were twelve distinct spots of blood, which appeared to have spurted rather than dripped onto his trousers. There were also traces of blood on his shirt, although the garment appeared to have been recently washed.
Mr George Chitty, a solicitor from Cann, near Shaftesbury had been appointed by the court to defend the itinerate Manzano and he assured the court that his client was confident that he could prove that he hadn’t been involved in the murder. However, given the evidence of Mr Herapath and the chain of witnesses across three counties who were able to associate Manzano with items stolen from the Trowbridge’s home, the magistrates had no hesitation in committing him to stand trial at the next Wiltshire Assizes.
The trial at Winchester was virtually a repeat performance of Manzano’s appearance before the magistrates at the Hindon Petty Sessions. Once again, the court heard evidence from witnesses who had bought stolen items from the accused as he walked across the country and their testimonies, coupled with Mr Herapath’s report, ensured that the jury ignored Manzano’s protestations of innocence to find him guilty of the wilful murder of Anastasia Trowbridge. He was sentenced to death and despatched to Devizes Gaol to await his fate.
Once he was incarcerated in the condemned cell, prison authorities made every effort to ensure that he was as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. This included the provision of a spiritual advisor. The Mayor of Devizes, Mr Burt, fortunately understood some Spanish and managed to elicit the information from Manzano that he was a Roman Catholic and wished to speak with a priest. This was duly arranged and an image of the Virgin and Child procured for his cell.
In the days prior to his execution, Manzano, who was described in contemporary newspapers as ‘a quiet, gentle man’, drew great comfort from his religion. He gradually revealed a little of his background to prison staff, telling them that he was the son of a Spanish millionaire who owned two silver mines and that he had two sisters, both of whom were nuns who lived in a convent. He told prison officers that God had chastised him for disobeying his father.
Shortly before his death, Manzano wrote two letters. One was to Mr Alexander, the prison governor, thanking him and his wife for their kindness towards him while he was imprisoned. He assured them that he had never committed any crime. He then wrote a letter to the governor’s children, advising them to always be obedient to their father.
On the eve of his execution, Manzano slept badly, refusing breakfast when he awoke and accepting only a few sips of tea. At about 11.30 a.m. on 11 April 1860, he was asked if he had any statement or request to make before meeting his death. Manzano stated that he wished for nothing more than the prayers of those assembled and continued to protest his innocence of the murder of Mrs Trowbridge. He was escorted to the gallows where, having stood for almost ten minutes while the Catholic rite of Plenary Indulgence was administered, he made one last desperate appeal to the officials, asking them to ‘Pardon me’. His plea was in vain and, seconds later, he died instantly at the hands of the executioner, William Calcraft.