The Sun.
London, England, 1851-11-08 00:00:00

SHOCKING MURDER OF A FARMER

BY HIS SON.

STOW.ON-THE.•WOLD, WEDNESDAY.—This quiet
and retired district, in the centre of the bleak Cots-
wold range of hills, has been thrown into a state of
consternation by the murder of a wealthy farmer, Mr
George Hambidge, by his illegitimate son.
The circumstances as elicited in evidence at the
coroner's inquest terminates yesterday before the dis-
trict coroner, Jos. Lovegrove, Esq., are as follows :
The deceased, Mr. George Hambidge, was a respect-
able farmer advanced in life, and resided at the village
of Iccombe, near this town. The prisoner, whose
mother's name was Fisher, and who was an illegiti-
mate son of the deceased, was also a farmer well to
do in the world, and living in the same neighbour-
hood.
On Saturday the prisoner went to the house of a
Mrs. Watts, a neighbour, residing at Churchcombe,
and asked her to go to his father's house, as he wished
her to keep house for him
,while he went out with
him (the prisoner). Mrs. 11, atts accordingly accom-
panied him to his father's, and there she found the
old man in the kitchen by the fire. The
prisoner's wife was also sitting with him, with her
child. Mrs. Hambidge, or Fisher, went up stairs
with Mrs. Watts and the child to dress, and left the
father and son together in the kitchen. This was
about one o'clock in the afternoon. They had scarcely
been up stairs ten minutes when they heard the re-
port of a gun in the kitchen, and Mrs. Fisher, fearing
some catastrophe, ran down stairs, and there to her
horror beheld her husband standing in the room with
a gun in his hand, and his father lying a mangled
corpse in his chair. She screamed out for help, and
on Mrs. Watts going down she found the prisoner
supporting his father in the chair, but he was quite
dead. Others of the neighbours rushed in, and found
the poor old man in the state described, with his blood
flowing on the floor of the room, and his daughter in
a violent fit, from which it was some time ere she re-
covered. The prisoner, who had been drinking, but
was described as in a state to know what he was
about, repeatedly exclaimed that he " had killed his
father," and he added, in an apparently cool and
collected manner, " I nicked the gun twice, and it
didn't go off, but it went off the third time.'
The police shortly afterwards arrived, and took the
prisoner into custody, and while in the house he
went to a cupboard in one of the rooms, and took
from it a paper. The policeman immediately took it
from him, and replaced it. It proved to be the de--
ceased father's will. When in custody of the police-
man he said, " I have shot him, and must take the
consequences. I shall be tried for my life. It was a
good thing my wife was up stairs, for it was as likely
to be her as him. If Mary Ann had not snatched
the gun out of my hand I should have shot myself."
Mr. Jenkins, the surgeon, who was called in to exa-
mine the body, described its appearance and the cause
of death. There was a gunshot wound in the upper
part of the chest, and two of the left ribs were frac-
tured. The wound was three inches in length and
two in width. The immediate cause of death was
perforation of the windpipe. When he first saw the
body he found a piece of flesh attached to the wall
behind the chair in which the deceased was lying. Mr.
Jenkins thought the muzzle of the gun must have
been close to the deceased at the time he was shot.
The shot passed completely through the clothes and
the body, coining out at the back.
At the close of the inquiry the Coroner addressed
the jury, who after a short consultation found a ver-
dict of " Wilful murder against John Hambidge,
alias Fisher ;" and the Coroner thereupon committed
him for trial at the next Gloucester assizes.