CHAPTER 10

The First Fred West
1894

Barnes Common is a rather lonely spot, and does not bear the best of reputations.

Exactly a century before grim revelations were made at Cromwell Road, Gloucester, one Fred West was at the centre of another murder investigation. Although his predecessor was almost certainly unknown to the multiple murderer of the early 1990s, it is an eerie coincidence. Although this case was not as terrible as the later one, it did leave the police and public with unfinished business on their hands, whereas at least the later case was cleared up.

James Robert Wells was born in Somers Town, London, in 1863. In 1891, he was living with his widowed stepmother and one of his sisters (both named Maria), in a house in Glenthorne Road, Hammersmith; indeed he had lived in Hammersmith for most of his life. His occupation was that of a butcher and he lived above the shop. Although he was a teetotaller, he enjoyed gambling and this may have led him to his untimely demise in 1894. He was also a bachelor.