The Sun. — 1851-11-08 (London, England)

SHOCKING MURDER OF A FARMER  BY HIS SON.  STOW.ON-THE.•WOLD, WEDNESDAY.—This quiet and retired district, in the centre of the bleak Cotswold 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 district coroner, Jos. Lovegrove, Esq., are as follows : The deceased, Mr. George Hambidge, was a respectable 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 illegitimate son of the deceased, was also a farmer well to do in the world, and living in the same neighbourhood. 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 accompanied 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 report 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 recovered. 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 policeman 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 examine 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 fractured. 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 verdict of " Wilful murder against John Hambidge, alias Fisher ;" and the Coroner thereupon committed him for trial at the next Gloucester assizes.