Flashback: Winslade, the Basingstoke village that gave two sensational stories to the national press

On 16 July 1735, Samuel Prince, a farmer from Winslade, beat his wife to death. The inquest was held on 21 July. Before the inquest met, Prince had written to the coroner offering him “a round Sum of Money, to be serviceable to him in his Enquiry”. But the coroner ignored the bribe and did his duty according to the evidence. The coroner’s jury found that Prince was guilty of the wilful murder of his wife. Realising that his bribe was not working, Prince made his escape while the jury was still sitting.

On 24 July, Lord Lymington of Hurstbourne Park and Farleigh Wallop, Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, wrote to Thomas Pelham Holles, Duke of Newcastle, Secretary of State for the Southern Department, that Samuel Prince, “a man of some estate in this county”, committed “a most black murder upon his wife” and fled from justice. He asked Newcastle to “intercede with her Majesty that a hundred pound should be paid to any person that should apprehend him so that he may be brought to justice”.

The wanted notice issued in 1735 for Samuel Prince

Lymington described Samuel Prince as “a lusty man of a fresh complexion, stoops in the shoulders, near six foot high, above fifty years of age, with pretty long legs, not large for his height, remarkable long flat feet, he had on when he left his dwelling house at Winslade near Basingstoke on Monday ye 21st of July a black coat with close sleeves buttoned, a black waistcoat and Buckskin breeches, a light wig pretty much worn with a good hat, a smooth face for his age never having had the small pox. The sooner it is advertised it may prove the more effectual.”

On 29 July Newcastle placed the notice in the London Gazette and other newspapers offering the reward of £100 for information leading to Samuel Prince’s capture and conviction. The notice included the description that Lymington provided. Despite this publicity I can find no record that Prince was ever caught.

Winslade church

Gerald FitzGerald married his cousin in 1877, a “lady of great personal attractions”. They and their five children lived at Winslade Rectory where his father, a wealthy Irish landlord, was the rector. Gerald was described as being entirely dependent on his father, having no occupation nor any apparent prospects of making a livelihood.

In 1894, when he was aged 46, he sought a divorce from his wife on the grounds of her adultery with a Captain Arthur Brooking against whom he claimed damages. Mrs FitzGerald counter-charged her husband with cruelty and adultery with the family’s governess, Miss Melson.

Winslade rectory

The hearing at the Divorce Court lasted seven days and was extensively reported in the national and provincial press. The jury found that Mrs FitzGerald and Captain Brooking had committed adultery and that Gerald FitzGerald had been guilty of cruelty but had not been guilty of adultery with Miss Melson. They awarded him a farthing damages.

Part of the evidence provided to the jury came from Thomas Astridge and John Bennett, two farm workers. They told the court that at midday on 11 July 1893 they saw Mrs FitzGerald and Captain Brooking in the act of adultery in a wood near the rectory. They told the rest of the village what they had seen and over the next few days the story is said to have spread in the neighbourhood from one public house to another.

As was quite common in villages in when someone was deemed to have offended against the community’s values, for example by committing adultery, the more rowdy elements of the locality would parade outside the offender’s house making as much noise as they could with any available tools or household implements as a way of expressing public outrage. This shaming ritual was known as “rough music”. On the nights of 23 and 24 July 1893 a band of rough musicians got together and marched to the rectory where they serenaded the occupants by beating tin kettles and pans.

According to the report from the Divorce Court in the South Wales Echo and in some other papers, the counsel for Captain Brooking is said to have told the jury that the story of the adultery in the wood was “nothing but slander to set gossip going in Winslade, which was near Basingstoke, and was the most scandalmongering village in the world” – quite an achievement for a village with a population of only 59 in the 1901 census.