A Tragic Event in Headley 1857: Murder and Suicide
by Andrea Keeling Hay
I was born and grew up in Farnham, my dad was from Wrecclesham. After I got married to Jim in 1985, I managed to get a Monday-Friday, daytime job, not common in nursing. We were able to do things in the evenings. One course that I had always wanted to take was Family History and I jumped at the chance. It was not such a popular pastime back in the days before the digital world. It was a case of going to London for the BMD certificates and to the right county archives to see parish registers and other documents. I decided to start on dad’s side, I didn’t have any known relatives so it wouldn’t take long plus grandad Keeling had been born in Selborne, which meant I only had to go to Winchester. The records were kept in a redundant church, before the modern Archives building. I had quick success despite a few shocks, mainly around illegitimacy. Gradually my search area widened as it turned out that all his ancestors were from the villages in the area we know as East Hampshire. Soon I reached back to a 3 times great grandfather who had come from outside Hampshire and I discovered why our family surname was so uncommon in Hampshire – he was from Staffordshire. In that area there are many, many Keelings.
He, Abraham, had moved south via London. He had married Mary Long at St George, Hanover Square in 1826. This is not proof that Mary was from that area – St George, Hanover Square was a convenient place for weddings. Even the words “of this parish” do not mean they had been there for very long. The newlyweds travelled to Alton, Hampshire (not Alton, Staffordshire) where their first child was born in 1828. This was my 2 times great grandfather Thomas Keeling. Parish registers in those days didn’t contain all the details we would like. Abraham’s occupation is given as ‘hotel servant’. This was the start of his career in ‘hospitality’. At that time Crowley had bought Baverstock’s brewery in Turk Street and of course hostelries, inns etc, were ‘tied’ to a brewery. Abraham must have done well, I have seen his beautiful handwriting, as he and Mary were installed at The Compasses in Selborne. Their second child John was born there in 1830 and was baptised by the unpopular William Cobbold.
Of course, 1830 was a difficult year, when farm labourers in many parts of England protested against the hardships of high tithes and low wages. As Jo Smith has written about, locally the first riot took place in Selborne in November, against the ‘hated Mr Cobbold’. It was decided by the parish officers to try to quieten the rioters by paying for 5 buckets of beer. This beer was duly brought out by Abraham. Perhaps he was a marked man from that act. Certainly, the newspapers were littered with reports of fires which involved buildings and hay-ricks, incendiaries were active. The Compasses was burnt on the night of the 4th of December. The story made the Norwich Mercury on 11th December, briefly as this had become all too common. “A public house at Selborne, near Alton, was destroyed by fire Saturday night”. On 13th December the Hampshire Chronicle was issuing a correction to its assumption that the fire had been accidental due to correspondence from someone in the location. The fire had started at 7pm in ‘a place where no light is carried at any time’. Worse, the fire had spread to thatched roofs of the neighbouring cottages, one of which was only just saved. Papers were also commenting that despite the many fires across the country there had been no charges of arson anywhere. I don’t know where Abraham, Mary and two small boys had to stay until their home was rebuilt – as The Queen’s Inn.
The family appears in the 1841 census at the Queens. Sadly that census doesn’t record place of birth as Mary only appears in that record. Abraham’s lovely handwriting is preserved in the Vestry Book in the entries he made, he served as an Overseer of The Poor. A respectable citizen with a business, he was also farming a few scattered fields. More children followed, Ann in 1832, Abraham in 1835 and lastly Mary in 1840. Sadly, their mother Mary died young in 1845 of ‘cancer in the womb’. She is recorded as 47yrs old, which is the only indication of when she might have been born. Her gravestone is large and prominently situated. Enter the gate of Selborne church, go immediately left, past the remains of the yew with the Trumpeter’s stone beside it, there is one large stone on that area of grass. That is Mary Keeling, my 3 times great grandmother.
Abraham and children moved to the Holly Bush in Headley. It is almost certain that this was before it moved across to the present site and would have been at what is the former butcher’s shop at Wakefords. This has a cellar which is essential for a pub. They appear in the 1851 census which revealed that Abraham had been born in Bradley, Staffordshire, which was useful information. At this time, I was still travelling to the records in Winchester but I soon discovered that brought a problem. Headley is in Hampshire but is in the Diocese of Guildford and at that time the registers were in a small and very formal place in Guildford called the Muniment Room. For a while I ignored it. In Winchester I found Abraham’s will, which gave me his date of death, another box ticked.
Eventually there came a day when I had a list of things which needed to be looked up in the actual parish registers for Headley. I didn’t have Abraham’s death on the list, I had seen his will. This was 1986. In the room there were places for 4 researchers and one was required to breathe very quietly. I worked through my list and one by one I couldn’t find anything, total blank. My evening class tutor had given us all a piece of advice; if you are having a bad day and not finding what you are looking for, look up something you know and it will restore your confidence in the records. As I knew when Abraham had died, I decided to look for his burial in the register. And there was nothing there . . .
That day I met the notes of Mr Laverty, to whom I am eternally grateful. Where Abraham should have been recorded was the burial of a child called Esther Fullick. Mr Laverty had put an asterisk in the margin which pointed to one of his footnotes. As I read it, sharp intake of breath and let out an OMG which earned me dirty looks. It revealed that Esther Fullick had been murdered by my own Abraham Keeling. That he had cut her throat and then his own. I spent money buying a copy of his death certificate: felo de se, self-murder, throat cut. That knowledge has been hard to accept but we can never judge those who have gone before us. As the years have passed, I have found out more information as well as how far it was reported.
The people of Headley wanted to bury the murderer at the crossroads, but that had been made illegal. So, he had been buried at midnight, face down, stones being cast upon the coffin with all mark of dishonour. If he had not cut his own throat, he would no doubt have been hanged and his body given to the anatomists. As it was the Rector Joseph Ballantine Dykes no doubt did what he could. I am led to believe that the body was interred by the churchyard wall, probably not quite inside. In his book about the history of the parish, Canon Tudor Jones refers to the story and says that a skeleton had been found when the Buttery was extended, now Churchgate House. A neighbour, of an old local family, told me that the bones were where the doorway is. I have yet to discover what has happened to what may be my ancestor.
There was an inquest into the two deaths but this only survives in newspaper reports. Abraham’s death certificate has caused some confusion, naming Farnborough as the place. However, this was just the registration district at that time. The tragedy had occurred, not at Stream Farm as Mr Laverty had thought, but at Lacey’s Farm, which was the home of Ann, the elder daughter, with her husband and small children. This appears to have been a small farm, only about 15 acres as recorded in the 1861 census. I have yet to pinpoint the exact location but that area, across the river, is labelled as Lacey’s Marsh on earlier OS maps. Few years later the name of Lacey’s Farm had disappeared from the record as family fortunes changed. When Ann’s husband died, the place of death was recorded as Deadwater Hill.
Who was the victim? A young girl of not quite 12yrs who was a regular babysitter to the children of Ann and her husband Noah. She is remembered as Esther Fullick but there were a couple of complications affecting the records of her birth. Her mother was Elizabeth Morris who had moved to Standford with her family from Porton, Wiltshire. Elizabeth’s mother had been born as Esther Clarke, a useful clue. When the new baby was registered at birth in May 1845, she was recorded as Hester Clark Morris, named after her grandmother. It is always unwise to be pedantic about spelling in old records. The families were often illiterate, the registrar at some distance and lettered, plus the issue of pronunciation. Baby Esther was duly baptised at All Saints church in Headley in June 1845. However, her entry is not obvious. The person who wrote up the register got a bit confused, or maybe the family did, and her entry records her as Elizabeth Clark Morris. These things happen. Elizabeth married William Fullick that August and the baby became Esther Fullick. Some have dismissed the idea of William being the biological father but there is no evidence to the contrary and it was not uncommon for a couple’s first pregnancy to be less, sometimes a lot less, than 9 months. The family grew to a total of 13 babies. William was a shepherd. There were many, many Fullicks in the area in those days, all related to some degree and it’s amazing how many of us can claim some descent, me included. That should be the subject for another time,
So, who was Ann’s husband? He was Noah Wakeford; he had been born at Headley Mill in 1830. His parents were William Wakeford, the miller, and his wife Elizabeth. The Wakeford family has also been extensive with connections to Hawkley, Liphook, the butchers in Headley, Farnham, just for a few. Again all connected to greater or lesser extent.
What took place on that awful day, 3rd February 1857? We can never know how it started, Abraham and Esther were alone in the house with the children. The inquest revealed that he was 67yrs old and had been retired a year, moving in with daughter Ann and her family. He had shown no signs of mental or physical deterioration. It was reported that the day before the murder he had walked to Alton and back: ‘as was his habit’. Esther had been sitting working on some sewing when for some reason Abraham had taken his razor, a cut-throat (!) razor to Esther’s throat so deeply as to have almost removed her head. Victorian newspapers never spared the delicate sensibilities of their readers. Murders were regularly reported in the press, from all parts of the country as well as abroad. Later subsequent editions would have updates, forming a literally blow by blow account. A quick search of the British Newspaper Archives for 7th February 1857 turns up no less than 700 instances of the word ‘murder’, one of which is from the Hampshire Chronicle, pages 4 & 5. This was quite a full report of the events, albeit with some errors. The report now follows as it was printed:
DREADFUL MURDER AND SUICIDE – On Monday last a horrible murder was committed at Headley. The murderer, Abraham Keeling, about 65 years of age, and formerly landlord of the Bush public-house, lived at Headley with a married daughter, named Wakeford, whose husband is a miller at Headley Mill, close by the scene of the tragedy. It appears that, between three and four o’clock, Wakeford’s mother came to the mill with some grinding, and, having deposited it in the mill, went towards her son’s house: passing the window she looked in, and saw Keeling lying on his back struggling. She ran back to the mill, and fetched her son. When they entered the house Keeling was dead. In the back kitchen they found the body of Esther Fullick, a girl of about twelve years of age, the daughter of a neighbour, who had been in the habit of coming in to nurse Mrs. Wakeford’s children in her absence. The girl’s throat was cut, and she had evidently been dead several hours. Keeling’s round frock* was lying near, from which he had scraped the blood, and he had been in the act of washing his hands, when he heard the footsteps of the elder Mrs. Wakeford. He had run into the front room to see who was coming, and fearing detection, had seized a razor which lay on a table near a looking glass in the room, and cut his own throat.
Yesterday a jury, under the coroner for North Hants, Mr. Shebbeare, met at the house of Mr. Lickhold, farmer, of Headley. Several witnesses were examined, but no clue could be obtained as to the motives which induced Keeling to murder Esther Fullick. The jury returned a verdict of Wilful Murder in the first instance, and Felo de se in the second, against Abraham Keeling.
*, a ‘round frock’ was that commonly worn garment which we call a smock.
The Hampshire Advertiser on the 14th of February gives a slightly different account. In this the elder Mrs Wakeford had gone to her son’s house with a present for his children. This account mentions a ‘front kitchen’ and a ‘back kitchen’. Esther lay dead in the back kitchen but had apparently been murdered in the front kitchen and dragged into the back kitchen.
Another account that I read said that Keeling had been alive when reached but was unable to speak, ‘weltering in his own blood’, and dying quickly.
I had never heard of this incident growing up. I don’t think my dad knew about the Staffordshire origins and he never mentioned anyone earlier than his great grandparents. Dad died in 1983, he was 56 years old. He was my only relative on that side and we had no further connections with Headley, as far as the Keelings were concerned. I did find an entry in the burial register, only 3 months before the murder, the burial of another Abraham Keeling, aged 21. This was the youngest son who had been a tailor in Alton but died of TB.
Ann and Noah Wakeford were non-conformists and not all of their children were baptised. This led to brief funerals, when there were inevitable child deaths. They would be conducted at the graveside. Noah died in 1887, through kidney disease. Ann had some sad years as a widow, with spells in the Union Workhouse and several admissions to Knowle Hospital, where she died of TB in 1903. At that time the hospital was the County Lunatic Asylum Fareham. One daughter, Adeline upset the family by marrying an Irish Catholic Soldier, only one sister maintained contact. After a good army career James became a warder at the prison in Wicklow and then the caretaker when the prison closed. They had 9 children.
After years in Scotland Jim and I, with our daughter Sarah, moved back south. After house hunting for a while we settled in Headley where I found a lot more family history. At a fete on the village green I met Jo Smith who had seen my original story about my ancestor which had been published in a magazine. He asked me if I could give him a copy for the village records and I said yes. This never happened for various reasons. I became increasingly embarrassed by my ancestry and withdrew from society. I was cut off by my family. I then had a very major breakdown and hid from the world. I now at last have confidence but a chronic back problem makes life difficult. At the start of January I had another birthday and realised that as I am not getting any younger I just had to attempt this. It’s much longer than the original version as, largely due to technology, much more information is available.
One last story. Many years ago, I think before I was ill, I drove Jo Smith and Joyce Stevens to Alton to a meeting of the Hampshire Genealogical Society. I tried to make small talk on the journey and, after establishing that Joyce had been a teacher, I asked her which school she had taught in. She replied that the first was St Peter’s Wrecclesham. I asked her if she remembered a boy named Keeling. She did, but not in detail. I told her, that was my dad. It’s a small world.