On September 11th 1904 ( the day this photograph was taken ) the landlord of The Bridgend Hotel in Pentre was murdered in the cellar of the premises by an intruder - one Eric Lange who stabbed the unfortunate victim to death.
08/08/08 05:05:59PM @ceri-shaw:
Thanks Ian...I might dig up a copy of that book...a useful source of new dates for the Welsh Calendar should we ever decide to spice it up with a few murders.
08/08/08 08:40:01AM @ian-price:
I'd hardly call them common place but these days the number of gun and knife related crimes have increased alarmingly - if the press are to be believed.
08/08/08 02:48:06AM @dave-martin:
back then murders were stories for the news of the world right upinto my youth the news of the screws was a must read on a sunday and murders were rare , i know see that murders are common place in the uk , although you must take into account how inept the elf service is , and its my guess that three quarters of the murder victims would live if they had promt trauma service
08/04/08 09:37:06PM @ian-price:
I just came across the following on www.walesonline.co.uk Look at the sixth paragraph.Tales are all too briefJun 19 2008 by Alex Moore, Rhondda LeaderA BOOK which brings together 36 murder cases, all capped by guilty verdicts and hangings, inevitably faces difficulty making them all sound fresh.Most of the cases recounted by John J Eddleston in A Century of Welsh Murders and Executions follow a clear pattern background, murder, arrest, trial, execution. But the best cases in his collection often tend to start somewhere in the middle.The story of George Stills, who beat his elderly mother to death at their Pontycymmer home in 1907, opens with two girls, aged 12 and 15, watching the fatal attack through a window during their school lunch break.Similarly, the 1928 case of Trevor John Edwards, of Aberaman who got his 21-year-old girlfriend pregnant then cut her throat and attempted suicide, rather than marry her starts with a conversation between her parents, still unaware Edwards had got their girl into trouble.Eddleston appears to have used contemporary newspaper accounts as source material, and some of the quotes he has unearthed sound faintly absurd to modern readers.In the 1904 case of Eric Lange, who stabbed a pub landlord during a botched burglary at Pentres Bridgend Hotel, we are told Mary Jones, the victims wife, called for her cellarman to come down quick there is a man here murdering us. The raid happened at 3.30am. I am certainly not as coherent at that hour.And, in a later chapter, are we really expected to believe that Howard Grossley, a Canadian soldier in 1940s Porthcawl, told passers-by to fetch a doctor I have shot my dear wife?No-one could accuse Eddleston of missing details he name-checks every policeman, coroner, magistrate, judge and executioner.But despite being fact-filled, his accounts are often frustratingly brief. He devotes just two pages to the 1947 case of 21-year-old Evan Hadyn Evans, who raped and beat to death 76-year-old washerwoman Rachel Allen after a row in the Butchers Arms, Wattstown. For a book described by its own publisher as aimed at anyone interested in the shady side of Welsh history, that is simply too short.Provided the Century of Welsh Murders is approached as a historical account rather than as a short story collection, it serves its purpose admirably but leaves a little too much to readers own imaginations to occupy seasoned crime thriller or horror fans.
08/04/08 09:00:49PM @ceri-shaw:
k...great...I'll go google A Dark Past...diolch.
08/04/08 08:59:01PM @ian-price:
Not a great deal. But there is a rather grim little book called A dark Past : a selection of rhondda murders by elaine hawkins & april evans that features several murders around the Rhondda valleys. More details may be found in there if you can get your hands on it. Ill send you a modern day photograph of the same scene in a minute.
08/04/08 08:39:55PM @ceri-shaw:
Know anything more about the details behind the case Ian?
Thanks Ian...I might dig up a copy of that book...a useful source of new dates for the Welsh Calendar should we ever decide to spice it up with a few murders.
I'd hardly call them common place but these days the number of gun and knife related crimes have increased alarmingly - if the press are to be believed.
back then murders were stories for the news of the world right upinto my youth the news of the screws was a must read on a sunday and murders were rare , i know see that murders are common place in the uk , although you must take into account how inept the elf service is , and its my guess that three quarters of the murder victims would live if they had promt trauma service
I just came across the following on www.walesonline.co.uk Look at the sixth paragraph.Tales are all too briefJun 19 2008 by Alex Moore, Rhondda LeaderA BOOK which brings together 36 murder cases, all capped by guilty verdicts and hangings, inevitably faces difficulty making them all sound fresh.Most of the cases recounted by John J Eddleston in A Century of Welsh Murders and Executions follow a clear pattern background, murder, arrest, trial, execution. But the best cases in his collection often tend to start somewhere in the middle.The story of George Stills, who beat his elderly mother to death at their Pontycymmer home in 1907, opens with two girls, aged 12 and 15, watching the fatal attack through a window during their school lunch break.Similarly, the 1928 case of Trevor John Edwards, of Aberaman who got his 21-year-old girlfriend pregnant then cut her throat and attempted suicide, rather than marry her starts with a conversation between her parents, still unaware Edwards had got their girl into trouble.Eddleston appears to have used contemporary newspaper accounts as source material, and some of the quotes he has unearthed sound faintly absurd to modern readers.In the 1904 case of Eric Lange, who stabbed a pub landlord during a botched burglary at Pentres Bridgend Hotel, we are told Mary Jones, the victims wife, called for her cellarman to come down quick there is a man here murdering us. The raid happened at 3.30am. I am certainly not as coherent at that hour.And, in a later chapter, are we really expected to believe that Howard Grossley, a Canadian soldier in 1940s Porthcawl, told passers-by to fetch a doctor I have shot my dear wife?No-one could accuse Eddleston of missing details he name-checks every policeman, coroner, magistrate, judge and executioner.But despite being fact-filled, his accounts are often frustratingly brief. He devotes just two pages to the 1947 case of 21-year-old Evan Hadyn Evans, who raped and beat to death 76-year-old washerwoman Rachel Allen after a row in the Butchers Arms, Wattstown. For a book described by its own publisher as aimed at anyone interested in the shady side of Welsh history, that is simply too short.Provided the Century of Welsh Murders is approached as a historical account rather than as a short story collection, it serves its purpose admirably but leaves a little too much to readers own imaginations to occupy seasoned crime thriller or horror fans.
k...great...I'll go google A Dark Past...diolch.
Not a great deal. But there is a rather grim little book called A dark Past : a selection of rhondda murders by elaine hawkins & april evans that features several murders around the Rhondda valleys. More details may be found in there if you can get your hands on it. Ill send you a modern day photograph of the same scene in a minute.
Know anything more about the details behind the case Ian?