THE ODDINGLEY MURDER.
The annals of crime record few tragedies so fearful in their enactment, so mysterious in their present concealment, so singular in their ultimate discovery as the Oddingley murder. A clergyman is shot at noon-day, while walking in his own fields—the assassin and the motive are perfectly known, yet he eludes justice, and suddenly and for ever disappears. Some of the men to whom common rumour points as the probable instigators of the crime, pass to their account, and make no sign. At last, when twenty-four years have elapsed, the body of the murderer is strangely discovered, in a state of preservation and under circumstances which leave no room to doubt that he was himself murdered by those who had hired him to commit the crime they were afraid to perpetrate with their own hands.
Thus circumstance combined with circumstance to increase the romance of this tale of blood, and invest it with a fearful interest, creating an unparalleled excitement, not only in this neighbourhood but throughout the whole country. People delighted to point to it, as showing how, with silent footfall, justice ever tracks the murderer’s steps, and at last exposes his guilt to the gaze of day, with whatever care and midnight secrecy he has sought to hide and cover it. But it showed, also, that the punishment of murder, as of other crimes, is sometimes postponed to a more perfect time of retribution, and that men doubly dyed with the blood of others—shed under the influence of passions the most detestable—avarice, hate, and fear—can walk their lives long among their fellows with a smooth brow, and at last placidly turn their faces to the wall without, to outward seeming, one pang of remorse or outcry of conscience.
The first notice of this terrible crime appeared in the Worcester papers of June 26, 1806, and is as follows:
“The Rev. G. Parker, rector of Oddingley, in this county, was, on Tuesday evening last, most inhumanly murdered in a field near his own dwelling house. The perpetrator of this cruel deed discharged a gun at the unfortunate gentleman, the contents of which entered his right side; and afterwards, in a manner peculiarly atrocious, with the butt end of his gun fractured his skull. An inquest was held the following day, before R. Barneby, Esq., coroner, when the jury returned this verdict—‘Wilful murder, by some person or persons unknown.’”
Mr. Parker was an amiable man and benevolent to the poor, but there had been an unhappy dispute between him and his parishioners about the tithes, which was perfectly well understood to have been the cause prompting to his death. His predecessor had been in the habit of compounding with the farmers for his tithes, they giving him in lieu thereof £135 per annum. Mr. Parker, considering this inadequate, proposed raising it to £150. Captain Evans, one of his parishioners, however, prevailed on the farmers to join him in resisting this proposal, and Mr. Parker, in consequence, collected the tithe. After he had done so for two years, the farmers, finding themselves losers by the system, offered to accede to the proposal previously made. Mr. Parker told them he was still willing to abide by it, but required, as he had been at an expense of £150 in erecting a barn, and making other arrangements for collecting the tithe, that they should, in addition, repay him that sum, but this was refused.
The magistrates, immediately after the murder, issued a bill, offering a reward of fifty guineas for the apprehension of the murderer, and minutely described the person and dress of Richard Hemming, a carpenter of Droitwich, who was at once suspected as the perpetrator of this fearful crime. The report of the gun was heard by several parties, and two persons from Worcester saw Hemming escaping over some fields in the neighbourhood of the spot—indeed he was distinctly traced to a wood at Lench, but there all trace of him was entirely lost, and it was thought that he had left the country in security. A free pardon was offered at the time by Government to any accomplices in the murder who would become king’s evidence.
In June, 1807, a man, who had enlisted into the marines, was detained by the magistrates at Plymouth on suspicion of being Hemming. Mr. Carden immediately despatched parties to ascertain the truth of the matter, but it proved to be a case of mistaken identity. The affair, though public notice of it was hushed, was never forgotten—the country people had their beliefs and traditions concerning it, and though it was confidently affirmed by some that Hemming had been seen alive in America, the real truth was more than guessed at. It was by some firmly believed that Hemming had been murdered by the parties who employed him to assassinate Mr. Parker, and they themselves seemed scarcely anxious to avoid the imputation. Captain Evans, whom all pointed at as being the principal instigator of the assassination, constantly kept standing upon his estate a certain clover rick, which he had made three days only after Mr. Parker’s murder, and when he parted with the estate two years afterwards to a Mr. Barnett, this rick was still kept standing. The general belief was that Hemming’s body had been buried beneath this rick, and in 1816 Hemming’s widow (then married again) made a deposition before the Droitwich magistrates of her conviction that this was the case. A search warrant was granted, but in that same night the clover rick mysteriously disappeared, and though the ground which it had covered was carefully dug up, nothing was discovered. Captain Evans, at the time of Mr. Parker’s murder, lived upon the Church Farm, Oddingley; but in 1808 he went to reside on a small estate called New House, upon the confines of the two parishes of Hadsor and Oddingley. Here he remained till 1826, when he went to Droitwich, and there lived till his death, which occurred in 1829; he was then ninety-four years of age. He was formerly a captain in the 89th Foot, and received half pay up to the day of his death. He was a magistrate of the borough of Droitwich.
It may be well conceived that all idea of any further discovery of the circumstances under which this terrible crime was committed had long been given up, and that the discovery of the skeleton of Hemming created the most startling surprise. On the 21st January, 1830, a carpenter named Burton was engaged in removing a barn upon the Netherwood Farm, Oddingley, which, at the time of Mr. Parker’s murder, was occupied by Mr. Thomas Clewes. He had begun to remove the foundation when he met with a pair of shoes and carpenter’s rule. The story of Hemming immediately recurred to his mind, and, carefully covering up again what he had found, he went to the magistrates of Droitwich and the coroner of the county (Mr. William Smith). The further investigation of the spot was very carefully conducted by the neighbouring magistrates and Mr. Pierpoint of Worcester; and the whole skeleton of a man, of just such height and make as Hemming was known to have been, was disclosed to view. His former wife particularly identified the remains by the mouth and teeth, and declared her firm belief to be that the rule which Burton had found was that which Hemming used customarily to carry in his pocket. The bones of the skull had been beaten into many pieces. An inquest was commenced upon these remains on the following Tuesday, and, by adjournment, on the Friday; at the close of which sitting, Thomas Clewes was taken into custody on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of Hemming, and in the course of the next day he expressed his desire to make a confession. The coroner and jury accordingly went to him in the County Gaol, where, with great composure, he gave the following account of the circumstances under which Hemming was himself murdered on the evening of the day after that on which he had shot Mr. Parker. Whether it is the absolute truth or not, coming as it did from an accomplice, must always be a matter of doubt, but it is at any rate all that will now be known of this deed of terror.