BUCKSKIN Farmhouse is now in the middle of a housing estate.
But in 1832 it was “a lonely situation, at least a mile from any other residence”.
William Crockford lived at the farmhouse with John Duckett, his carter, and Joseph Pound, his 14-year-old farm servant.
Mr Crockford was a wealthy man who was known to keep large amounts of cash in his house.
On the night of 17 April 1832, four men tried to break into the house, but they couldn’t get in as the windows were securely barred.
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So they had to find a different way of gaining entry.
They came up with the idea of opening the farm gate and driving the cows into the garden.
This had the desired effect.
The noise of the cows woke Mr Crockford.
He looked out of his window, and, by the light of the moon, saw the cows trampling all over his plants.
Assuming that Joseph Pound hadn’t shut the gate properly, he woke him up and told him to drive the cows back and shut the gate.
Joseph went down, and as soon as he opened the back door, the four men rushed in.
One grabbed Joseph, and the other three ran upstairs.
Hearing the footsteps on the stairs, Mr Crockford woke John Duckett and gave him a gun while he prepared his pistol.
But it was too late.
John Duckett managed to fire his gun, but with no apparent effect.
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One of the men struck him down with a heavy crowbar.
The mark of one of the blows was still on his head two years later.
William Crockford was still preparing his pistol when one of the men seized him before he had a chance to fire.
While he was struggling with that man, the other man – who had put John Duckett out of action – struck him on the head with the crowbar, and continued hitting him, smashing his right hand so that he lost one of his fingers.
The robbers ordered Mr Crockford to tell them where his money was.
To avoid further injury he showed them a wooden chest.
The robbers broke open the chest.
Inside was a smaller chest in which was some old parchments and a canvas bag containing £205 in sovereigns, £30 in Bank of England notes, and a promissory note for £200.
The robbers took the chest, three gold rings, some silver items, and a horse pistol and went off in the direction of Hatch Warren Farm, where the empty chest was found the following day.
Messrs Cole, Lamb and Brooks, Basingstoke solicitors, issued a notice offering a reward of £50 for information that would convict at least three of the four villains.
The notice also offered the reward to an accomplice who gave such information.
Shortly after, three men from Cliddesden – James Dibley, Charles Dibley, and William Ledger – were charged with the robbery, and sent to Winchester gaol to await trial.
About five weeks after the robbery, Charles Silver, who had once worked for Mr Crockford, applied for the reward.
He said that he and John Young, John Blay, and Daniel Higgins, who were known to be “a desperate gang of freebooters who have long infested the upper part of Hampshire and Surrey”, had robbed William Crockford.
He told John Renouf, the Basingstoke constable, that, after the robbery, they walked to Farnham and on the way there they buried the parchments in a mound of earth.
Silver retraced his steps with Renouf, and they found the parchments near Greywell.
The hunt was now on for Silver’s accomplices.
The constables managed to catch John Blay.
His trial took place at the Hampshire Summer Assizes in Winchester on 17 July 1832.
Silver told the court that John Young had asked him where they should find a lone house in the country where there was any money.
He suggested Buckskin Farm as he knew Crockford was a wealthy man.
The judge sentenced Blay to be transported for life and freed the two Dibleys and William Ledger.
On 31 May 1834, the Egham police captured Young in Buckinghamshire.
Young offered “a most desperate resistance”, and was brought to Basingstoke Gaol chained and pinioned.
A few days later, John Renouf captured Daniel Higgins near Brentford, where he was working in a brickfield, and carried him to Basingstoke.
Young and Higgins appeared before Mr Justice Patteson at Winchester Assizes on 14 July.
Charles Silver testified that, about a fortnight after he suggested to John Young that his old employer’s house would be good place to rob, he met Young, Blay and Higgins near Virginia Water.
The four of them made their way to Basingstoke and reached the farm around midnight.
He said it was Young who hit Crockford and Duckett with the iron bar.
Justice Patteson said that Young and Higgins were both found guilty of burglary committed under circumstances of great cruelty, for which the punishment was death.
However, as Higgins did not use any violence, the Judge sentenced him to be transported for life.
With regard to Young, the Judge said that it was evident that he went to the farm with a determination to use any violence that was necessary to possess himself of the money.
There were no mitigating circumstances, and he would be left for execution.
John Young was executed on the morning of 2 August 1834 on a scaffold outside the County Gaol in Jewry Street.
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Due to the extreme length of the rope, he died almost instantly.
He was aged 25, and lived at Egham with his wife and two children.
It is almost certain that he was guilty of the murder and robbery of a John Richardson near Epsom in February 1834.
But it was for the Buckskin Farm burglary that he was hanged.
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