When John Horton’s wife fell ill with a bout of the fever, Charlotte Lindsey (aka Charlotte Tarrant) was engaged to nurse her. When Mrs Horton and one of John’s eleven children finally succumbed to the illness, Charlotte was obviously a great comfort to the widower, since the couple then cohabited for several years. However, on 17 October 1885, something brought about the end of the relationship and Charlotte moved out of the home that she shared with John at Elms Cross and into a house at Tory, Bradford-on-Avon. At around the same time, she seems to have begun an intimate relationship with Edward, John Horton’s sixty-nine-year-old father.
To say that John Horton was furious is an understatement. His jealousy simmered for a few weeks, before finally boiling over on the night of Friday 20 November 1885.
On that night, Edward Horton and Charlotte Lindsey had gone for a drink at the Three Horse Shoes in Bradford-on-Avon. Lindsey left quite early, leaving Edward Horton still drinking and before too long, John Horton arrived at the pub. Edward offered to buy his son a drink and two pints of beer were brought to them, but it was not long before father and son began an argument that so was loud that a passing police officer took it upon himself to intervene and caution both men. The quarrelling men quietened down immediately but soon afterwards John Horton began to insult his father once more, telling him that he had heard that the old man had been thrown out of some very disorderly houses in Trowbridge and saying that someone had offered him a pint of beer to visit the Three Horse Shoes to see with his own eyes what sort of company Edward was keeping. The argument escalated to such a pitch that William Stokes, the pub landlord, was forced to ask the men to separate. As a consequence, Edward Horton left the inn at about 9.30 p.m., leaving John still drinking.
Edward Horton shared his home in Lower Westbrook with his grandson, John’s son, who was also called John. When Edward arrived home from the pub he went straight to bed, while his grandson stayed up until 11 p.m. before finally retiring for the night.
Bradford-on-Avon, 1910. (Author’s collection)
John Horton junior was awakened at around midnight by the sounds of shouting and tremendous crashing noises. It was a bright, moonlit night and through the open door of his bedroom, he could see Edward standing on the landing, shouting, while from downstairs came the unmistakeable sounds of crockery and furniture being smashed.
Without a thought for his grandfather’s safety, eighteen-year-old John bolted into the back bedroom and hid under the bed. As he peered out from his hiding place, John clearly saw his father walk up the stairs and push his grandfather into the other bedroom.
Seeing the bedroom door slam shut behind the two men, young John seized his chance and ran to neighbours for assistance. He returned minutes later with two men, Mr Hobbs and Mr Preedy and, as he approached his grandfather’s cottage, he saw his father run out of the house and disappear into the night.
The scene in the cottage was one of utter devastation, a mess of broken crockery and furniture, which had, in the words of a contemporary newspaper, been ‘smashed to atoms’. In the midst of it all lay Edward Horton, bruised and bleeding, with one of his legs very obviously badly broken.
A doctor was called and the compound fracture was set. However, a closer examination of Edward Horton revealed that he also had many other wounds. The old man had numerous cuts and bruises on his legs and arms and a sizeable chunk of flesh had been completely removed from his left wrist. By the following morning, his throat was hugely swollen and it became apparent that the left side of his chest appeared to have been completely crushed. Edward’s injuries were very much worse than first thought and the old man was to die later that day. A post-mortem examination, conducted by Dr Highmore, showed that Edward had several broken ribs and the cause of his death was attributed to the crushing in of his ribs and to shock.
When John Horton left his father’s house in the dead of night, he did not return to his home but instead went to seek out Charlotte Lindsey, banging on the door of her house and demanding to be let in. When he was refused entry, he picked up a large stone and used it to break the door down and, when he finally got inside the house and confronted Charlotte, he proceeded to beat her almost to death.
John Horton went to work as normal on Saturday, the day after he had violently attacked both his father and Charlotte. Once there, he had a conversation with a colleague, John Mead, that amounted almost to a confession to his involvement in both attacks. Mead told Horton that he had heard that he had been to Tory and beaten Charlotte Lindsey. ‘Our old man got it worse than she,’ replied Horton. Mead told him that it is was ‘a thousand pities’ if he had anything to do with it and that he expected the police would be arriving soon. ‘I expect so too,’ said Horton, going on to say that he didn’t expect to go to prison when the police heard both sides of the argument. ‘It might cost me £10 to get out of it,’ he told Mead, before shrugging his shoulders and saying philosophically, ‘It’s done now and I shall have to put up with it.’
When the police called at his home to question him he was still at work but his daughter, Caroline, was at home and she told the police that when her father had returned home in the early hours of that morning, he had demanded a clean shirt as the one he was wearing was bloodied around the cuffs. Horton was apprehended when he returned home from work by PC Alfred Bailey, who promptly arrested him and charged him with the attack on Charlotte Lindsey. ‘Ain’t I also charged with assaulting my father as well?’ asked Horton.
‘Not at present,’ replied Bailey.
‘Because I gave both of them a damned good hiding and, if I had done my duty, I should have done for the pair of them, I was so provoked,’ said Horton. Horton was asked the whereabouts of the stick that he had been seen carrying in the pub at Bradford on 20 November. ‘I’m not bound to tell,’ replied Horton. ‘If I am to be charged with assaulting my father, I shall keep things dark.’ At the police station, he was informed that his father was dead. ‘Then I shall swing for that,’ was Horton’s only response.
By now, there were serious concerns that Charlotte Lindsey would not survive the brutal beating she had received and it was thought prudent to take her deposition. Horton was allowed to be present and heard Charlotte naming him as her assailant. The timing of the deposition proved fortuitous as Charlotte died from her injuries on the Monday after she had been attacked.
Horton’s home had been thoroughly searched on the Sunday and a mattock was found hidden behind some garden tools and a loose board in an outhouse. As well as being covered in blood, the mattock bore traces of human hair and tiny fragments of glass. The mattock was shown to Horton at the police station and he was asked if he knew anything about it. Having examined it closely, Horton said, ‘That is my old hoe. Where did you get it from?’ When he was told where it had been found he insisted that that was not its proper place. ‘But I could never have used that on my old father, could I?’ he asked, adding, ‘Then I may. I don’t know.’ He was also asked to account for the blood on his shirt cuffs, which he explained away by saying that he had cut himself shaving.
John Horton was charged with the wilful murder of both his father and Charlotte Lindsey. His trial opened at Devizes on 12 January 1886 before Mr Justice Groves, with Mr Murch and Mr Lopes prosecuting and Mr Charles Mathews defending. The proceedings got off to a bad start as, when the trial began at ten o’clock, it was immediately discovered that vital witnesses for the prosecution had not yet arrived. The judge was forced to delay proceedings to await the arrival of the 10.08 a.m. train from Bradford, which, in the event, was actually twelve minutes late. By the time the witnesses arrived at 10.30 a.m., the judge was furious, insisting that if they couldn’t have stayed overnight in Devizes then the least they could have done was caught an earlier train.
There had been some questions about the legality of the declaration made by Charlotte Lindsey, hence it was decided that her case should be held in abeyance and Horton was tried only for the murder of his father, to which charge he pleaded ‘Not guilty.’
Mr Murch, for the prosecution, related the events on 20 November and called several witnesses, including Samuel Hobbs, the neighbour who had gone to John Horton junior’s assistance, the landlord of the Three Horse Shoes, Dr Highmore and the investigating officers. However, his chief witnesses were Caroline and John Horton junior, the defendant’s own children.
Once all the evidence had been heard it was left to Mr Mathews to address the jury on behalf of the defence. Having called no witnesses, he immediately admitted that John Horton had been at his father’s home on the evening of 20 November, but cautioned the jury against drawing any conclusions from that admission. The onus was on the prosecution to prove that, not only was the prisoner there at the time, but that he was there with the intention of taking his father’s life. There was no way of knowing exactly what occurred at the house, said Mathews. What was done by the prisoner and what was done by the deceased man himself was a matter of great uncertainty and Mathews cautioned the jury that they would be taking a great leap in the dark – and taking that leap with awful consequences – if they returned a verdict of guilty of wilful murder against the defendant.
The motive put forward by the prosecution, Mathews continued, was that the crime was inspired by jealousy. ‘Jealousy of what?’ asked Mathews, somewhat scornfully. There was no evidence to support the notion that Charlotte Lindsey was the cause of any jealousy between Horton and his father and, without such evidence, there was no suggestion of a motive.
Mathews then went on to describe John Horton’s previous good character, describing him as a good father, a good workman and a good friend. Horton had paid the rent on his father’s home, suggesting that there was a normal and friendly father and son relationship between them. He urged them to believe his client, who had categorically stated, ‘I intended no harm to my old father.’
He reminded the jury that although John Horton junior was adamant that he had seen his father entering his grandfather’s room that night, he was unable to recall whether or not his father had anything in his hands at the time. If there had been an implement or weapon of any kind in John Horton senior’s hands, said Mathews, then his son would have seen it and there was an excellent reason why he hadn’t seen it – it wasn’t there.
After John junior had run from the house to seek assistance, nobody but Edward and John Horton knew what happened. The jury might draw inferences conclusive to their own minds but these would be merely inferences and a matter of pure speculation on their part.
Did Edward Horton go downstairs? If he went downstairs and found his son smashing up his furniture, did he then interfere to try and stop him? Mathews told the jury that he could not justify any violence by the prisoner but if John Horton had become engaged in a scuffle with his father, his blood being up, he might have grabbed the old man’s throat and thrown him down. He reminded the court that Dr Highmore had stated that it was not impossible that Edward’s injuries could have been incurred as a result of him falling downstairs.
Horton, by his own admission, had gone to his father’s house with the intention of wrecking the furniture so that the old man would be unable to make a home with ‘that old whore’ Charlotte Lindsey. There simply wasn’t sufficient evidence to show that John Horton had engaged in a deadly encounter. It was equally possible that Edward Horton, who was elderly and disabled, had engaged in a struggle with his son and tried to get back upstairs and, in doing so, fell down and sustained the injuries that ultimately caused his death. With that in mind, the jury would be quite justified in returning a verdict of guilty of manslaughter rather than guilty of murder.
The jury listened to the judge’s summary of the case before retiring to consider their verdict. They returned after eighteen minutes and announced that they had found the prisoner ‘Guilty of wilful murder’.
The judge put on his black cap and addressed the prisoner. He told him that he sincerely believed that the jury had reached the only possible conclusion open to them from the evidence that they had heard. Referring to the murder of Charlotte Lindsey, the judge stressed that he was unable to comment on any case that was not before him at this moment. However, he pointed out that Horton had acted in a perfectly reckless, wild state of passion, possibly fuelled by drink and had cruelly battered an old man who, until woken by his son, was in all probability in a state of perfect sleep in his own dwelling house.
Horton remained unmoved by the judge’s speech and by the pronunciation of the death sentence that followed it. However, as he was leaving the dock, he muttered something unintelligible – only those who were closest to him at the time heard him complain that some of the witnesses had not spoken the truth.
His protest was to no avail as he was hanged by James Berry at Devizes on 1 February 1886. Since Horton had been convicted of patricide, there was nothing to gain from trying him for the murder of Charlotte Lindsey, although the indictment against him for her murder remained on file and the case was considered solved.
[Note: On occasions, Charlotte Lindsey’s surname is alternatively spelled Lindsay.]