Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in and Around Barnsley

236 Pages·2007·7.26 MB·English

by  Geoffrey Howse

TRUE CRIME FROM WHARNCLIFFE
Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths Series
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OTHER TRUE CRIME BOOKS FROM WHARNCLIFFE
A-Z of Yorkshire Murder A-Z of Yorkshire Murders Black Barnsley
Brighton Crime and Vice 1800-2000
Durham Executions Essex Murders
Executions & Hangings in Newcastle and Morpeth Norfolk Mayhem
and Murder Norwich Murders
Strangeways Hanged Unsolved Murders in Victorian & Edwardian
London Unsolved Norfolk Murders Unsolved Yorkshire Murders
Warwickshire’s Murderous Women Yorkshire Hangmen Yorkshire’s
Murderous Women
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Contents
Introduction
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 An Assortment of Crimes and Foul Deeds in Barnsley & District,
1854-1995
Chapter 2 Animal Matters, 1860-2007
Chapter 3 Suicides, 1876-1989
Chapter 4 Suspicious Deaths, 1865-1948
Chapter 5 A Stabbing, Silkstone Common, 1854
Chapter 6 Fatal Fight at the Shepherd’s Rest, Barnsley, 1864
Chapter 7 The Slaying of Norfolk Tom, Platts Common, 1856
Chapter 8 Attempted Murder and Suicide, Barnsley, 1892
Chapter 9 A Mother’s Murder of Innocents, Kendray, 1942
Chapter 10 Women’s Land Army Girl Murdered by Glassworks Engineer,
Barnsley, 1943
Chapter 11 The Green Linnet Murder, Wombwell, 1955
Chapter 12 The Springfield Street Murder, Barnsley, 1962
Chapter 13 Lucky Escape for a Killer, Monk Bretton, 1962
Chapter 14 Acts of Violence by Demolition Worker Ends in Tragedy,
Wombwell, 1962
Chapter 15 Convicted Sex Offender Rapes and Kills Teenager, Pilley, 1972
Chapter 16 Blame it on Poor Little Charlie, Wombwell, 2003
Sources and Further Reading

Introduction
True crime and foul and sinister goings-on seem to make fascinating reading to a
large number of people. Despite the often horrific content of some accounts,
particularly involving murder, the public is ever thirsty for more and more
gruesome details of what man is capable of doing to his fellow man, or indeed to
the animals in his charge. This is my fifth book involving true crime. My first
four featured crimes, mostly murders, committed in London. This is my first
book involving crimes perpetrated around the area where I grew up.
Sometimes a particular crime sticks in one’s mind above all others for one
reason or another. Growing up as I did, firstly in Elsecar and afterwards in
Hoyland, then as now at the epicentre of important historical events and
surrounded by magnificent countryside of unsurpassed beauty for many a mile
around, I was sheltered from some of the more sensational crimes of the late
1950s and 1960s that took place during my formative years. We had television
of course but my family didn’t spend an inordinately long time viewing because
there was always something else far more interesting to do. The occasional
cartoon, film, variety show, nature programme, important royal or national event
was our preferred choice and my father would tune in to watch the racing,
wrestling and football results on Saturday afternoons if he wasn’t off angling
somewhere. Sometimes I watched the news but didn’t take much notice of
events that seemed so far removed from the goings on in my own locality.
Crime, particularly murder, was confined to the odd gangster film (I remember
Edward G Robinson and James Cagney being firm favourites) or the early James
Bond films I managed to get to see at Elsecar’s Futurist cinema.
Apart from vague recollections of hearing about the Kennedy assassination
in 1963, the first real murders I can remember being aware of were the Moors
Murders of 1965, and I think that was because they involved children, and the
names of Hindley and Brady were on everyone’s lips. I can also remember the
Braybrook Street Massacre the following year.
From an early age I was an avid reader but my reading rarely extended to the
columns of our daily newspaper, the Daily Mail, or indeed the local weekly
journals, which my mother read with great interest.
It was to be the murder of a local girl in 1972 that eventually grabbed my
attention, and which subsequently encouraged me to take an interest in crime
and the darker side of human existence. Since that time both the name and the
image of the unfortunate victim, a strikingly pretty, fourteen-year-old schoolgirl,
has remained imprinted on my mind. She lived less than two miles from my own
home in Hoyland and the tragic circumstances surrounding her rape and murder
rocked not just Barnsley and district but appalled the sensibilities of the entire
nation. Researching the case of Shirley Boldy, that unfortunate victim of rape
and murder, brought memories flooding back of the closing years of my
schooldays. A more recent case included here involves one of my fellow
classmates at Kirk Balk School. She murdered her husband and it certainly sends
a chill down one’s spine when one is writing about a person one knows or knew.
Indeed, a short while ago in my book The A to Z of London Murders I had
occasion to write about the savage and as yet still unsolved murder of a personal
friend. I did not find it an easy task.
Writing about the long dead is not nearly so harrowing as when writing
about more recent cases. I have tried to deal sensitively with the subjects I have
chosen and, in some cases I have written about highly emotive events which can
be deeply upsetting to the relatives of victims of crime or indeed the relatives of
the criminals, or those affected by the perpetrators of the many foul deeds
included here. Ultimately these cases are a matter of record and I have drawn
from many sources in order to present as true an account as possible. I apologise
unreservedly for any omissions or errors.
It is perhaps a little insensitive to say that Barnsley and the surrounding area
has a rich history of crime. When one writes or talks about something having a
rich history one is not as a rule thinking about the darker side of existence.
Nevertheless the fact remains that since greater documentary evidence exists
from the closing years of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth
and twentieth century right up to the present day, it is apparent that there has
been a considerable number of killings and serious crimes committed throughout
the area; those I have been able to include here are quite literally the tip of the
iceberg. I have selected a cross section of serious crimes and foul deeds, some
seemingly petty incidents, others more quirky, in order to give the reader a
varied sample of Barnsley and district’s darker past.