HAUNTED BY GRISLY DEEDS

A BEAUTIFUL CORNER OF COUNTRYSIDE WAS SCENE OF KILLINGS AND GIBBETING

- ZENA HAWLEY

YOU might imagine that a tranquil and beautiful corner of the Derbyshire countryside, where the silence is rarely broken other than by sheep and birds, could be the scene of one grisly murder, let alone two, and also a nasty highway robbery.

But between 1815 and 1826 that's exactly what happened, and there was also a family connection for two of the criminals.

The story starts in the area around Litton and Wardlow Mires, not far from Tideswell, and involves a young man called Anthony Lingard, who was described as being aged 21 in newspaper accounts about his trial but is likely to have been nearer to 24, according to parish records.

At Derby Assizes, now the magistrates’ court in St Mary's Gate, in March 1815, Anthony Lingard, of Litton, was tried for the murder of a widow called Hannah Oliver, 48, who kept the turnpike gate at Wardlow Mires.

It was stated that Lingard committed a robbery and murder on January 15. He took “several pounds in cash and Bank of England notes” and also a pair of women’s shoes, which he gave to a young woman who was pregnant by him, along with some of the money.

This was provided that she would say that someone else was the father of the child she was expecting.

However, the young woman heard about the murder and the missing shoes and gave them back to Lingard, who tried to reassure her by saying he had exchanged them for a pair of stockings for her.

The returned shoes, together with other evidence, established the guilt of Lingard, who had already pleaded guilty at a meeting of magistrates earlier.

A report in the Nottingham Gazette said: “The learned judge carefully summed up the evidence to the jury, who after a few minutes returned a verdict of guilty. His Lordship then passed the awful sentence of the law upon the prisoner”.