Frome in Wessex
The Dreadful Murder at Rode
Abstract
© 1998. Contents Updated: Thursday, 26 October 2006
The Dreadful Murder at Road
There are good reasons why Frome should be an interesting place to the curious, its many interesting buildings and place in the antiquity of England being two. But Frome, or rather the nearby village of Rode, has a more gruesome attraction for the curious. It was the setting of the dreadful murder which fascinated Victorian England in 1860 and then again when the convicted murderer was released from prison in 1885 and which still finds its way into compilations of gruesome or mysterious murders.
The crime was a shocking one—child murder. It seemed to have been committed by the victim’s sister, a member of a rigidly respectable household, who was only sixteen herself. No convincing motive was ever found, the detailed evidence was contrary and the validity of the verdict is questionable even though a quarter of a century in jail was the punishment.
In June 1860 Constance Kent, aged sixteen, and her younger brother, William Kent, were back from school for their summer vacations at their home, Road Hill House, Road (now Rode) on the border of Somerset and Wiltshire. Mr Kent had several daughters and a new wife and had decided they should enjoy better society. He purposely chose to move near to Bath, still a fashionable place forty years after Jane Austin. He chose Road Hill House about eight miles from Bath and four from Frome. The house was large and open with a bay window, beautiful garden and views on to fields, lanes and a row of cottages. There were stables, a shrubbery with an outdoor privy and a yard at the back.
On 29 June the Kent’s baby, Francis Saville, whom they knew as Saville, went to bed early having been given a purgative by the family doctor, Dr Parsons. The child habitually slept soundly but that night he had cause to sleep better than ever, not having napped during the day because workmen had been in the house sweeping chimneys. The Kents had two dogs, one kept chained in the yard and one which roamed the house. Mr Kent went out as usual at 10.00pm to feed the outside dog. Constance and William, and Mary Anne and Elizabeth, their older sisters, went to bed about the same time, 10.00pm. Mr and Mrs Kent stayed up talking until some time after 11.00pm when they also retired.
It emerged at the various inquests that Mr and Mrs Kent slept all night without being disturbed, Mrs Kent not waking until daylight when she thought she heard a sound like a drawing room window being opened. During the night a man fishing in the river Frome heard a dog barking and the village constable also heard it and saw a light in a downstairs window and in the nursery window. The children’s nurse, Elizabeth Gough, awoke briefly at 5.00am and saw that the infant Saville was not in his cot but that the sheets had been replaced tidily. From this she assumed that his mother had taken him into her room and so she fell asleep again unconcerned.
Mrs Kent was pregnant again so when the nurse did arise at about 7.00am and went to Mrs Kent’s room, getting no reply to her gentle knocks, she decided not to disturb her but returned to her room to read scripture. At 8.00am the assistant nurse arrived and Elizabeth Gough finally went to Mrs Kent’s room to find her mistress had not taken Saville from his cot and angry that the nurse supposed her to have been in a condition to wander the house at night with babes.
The nurse was naturally worried and sought out the children to ask them if they knew where the baby was. They didn’t. Getting increasingly frantic, she asked the parlour maid, Sarah Cox. Sarah said she had not seen the baby but had found the drawing room window open—she supposed left open intentionally to air the room. It is not clear whether she shut it or left it open. The alarm was now raised.
A boot boy was sent to the parish constable, then to the village constable who always insisted on the presence of the parish constable because the parish was actually just in Wiltshire and the village in Somerset. The two policemen went to the house to find that the boy had been kidnapped. They told Mr Kent he had no need to go further than Southwick, a village about a mile along the road to Trowbridge in Wiltshire, to report it to the Wiltshire police. Instead of sending a messenger, Kent himself rode off on horseback to report the crime.
Meanwhile the villagers helped to arrange a search. They did not like the Kents, as they freely admitted. Kent was not too tactful and not wanting to be overlooked by cottages adjacent to the house he built a tall fence to spare his family the indignity of being seen by the rabble. Naturally the cottagers were not pleased to have their outlook spoiled in this way. He also asserted his sole rights to fishing a fruitful stretch of the river, the Frome below its confluence with the Mells, which ran through the village. The unpopularity of the family in the village was most evident with the village children who, as children do, made it plain jeering and taunting the Kent children.
But the villagers were not inhuman or so bitter that they would refuse to help seek a lost baby. Two men, William Nutt and Thomas Benger, set about searching the grounds. Constance had once run away dressed as a boy, had cut her hair and left her locks in an old privy in the shrubbery. There they found a pool of blood on the floor but no splashes on the seat or anywhere else. But they could not see into the cesspit and Nutt went for a lamp. As Benger’s eyes got used to the dark he saw something light in colour which he retrieved and found was a blanket heavily marked with blood. Nutt returned with a candle and its light revealed the baby lying on a splash board which had been added by Mr Kent unknown to other family members. Without it the baby would have fallen down into the sewage. The blanket had been lying on top of the child. Further searching and the drainage of the water from the pit revealed a blood stained piece of flannel, a piece of woman’s clothing and a newspaper which had been used to wipe a knife
Messengers were sent after Mr Kent to Southwick and for the doctor, Mr Parsons, in Beckington. Mr Kent had meanwhile reached the toll gate in Southwick and reported that his child had been stolen in a blanket and anyone with a child in a blanket was to be stopped. This was curious prescience! No one knew that a blanket was missing until it was found with the dead baby after Kent had supposedly already left for Southwick. The nurse, Elizabeth, had thought the cot had been properly made up and had not known that a blanket was missing.
Soon after the messenger caught up with Kent with the news that the baby was dead. Kent had set off an hour and a half before by horseback but had not even reached Southwick only a mile away. The discrepancy of time was never explained.
Back at Road Hill House the investigation had been taken over by an inspector Foley. It emerged three months later that Foley’s policemen had found a blood stained woman’s shift above the kitchen boiler. No one knows why this evidence was suppressed for so long. The consensus among the investigators was that the crime was an inside job. The murderer had smoothed the cot, opened the window just wide enough for it not to creak, knew about the toilet in the shrubbery, knew their way around the house. But Kent would not hear of it suggesting it was someone with a grudge against him. All the night dresses in the house were examined. One had bloodstains but the doctor was able to affirm that they were menstrual stains.
Examination of the corpse showed it had had its throat slashed apparently with a razor and had died instantly, but that it also had a wider, blunter, deeper chest wound incompatible with a razor. The weapon had pierced the child’s night gown and vest and been twisted but had not bled much. Two other small wounds to the left hand had also not bled. The body had been face down and the blood in settling had darkened the area round the mouth.
On the Monday the parlour maid collected the laundry. When she collected Constance’s night dress the girl went with her and when she was packing the dirty linen, the girl asked for a glass of water. The maid went to get one forgetting that the girl had a jug of water in her room. The next day the laundress found that Constance’s night dress was missing but when four policemen arrived she first denied anything was missing then, later in the day, she admitted the night dress was missing. Constance claimed that she had had three night dresses until that one had gone missing in the laundry but the bloody shift found in the kitchen was not Constance’s. It’s owner was never found.
An inquest opened at 10.00am in the Red Lion Inn before the night dress was admitted as missing. New evidence was that the blood spilled was not more than a pint and a half and more would have been expected from such a wound. The doctors confirmed this. The jury wanted to question the members of the household especially Constance and William but feeling against the children was such that the inquest had to adjourn to the Kent’s home lest the children be molested by the crowd. Constance said that she had retired to bed at about half past ten on Friday night knowing nothing about the disappearance of her brother. She had not left her bed, did not hear anything odd, knew of no resentment against the boy or stresses within the house and that the nurse had always been kind and attentive. William gave the same sort of evidence, adding that the child was a great favourite of everyone, and no one in particular. The verdict was wilful murder by unknown persons.
A further hearing of magistrates was held in private after the child had been buried which added the information that the murderer might have used the back—servants’—staircase.
Scotland Yard was brought in because of the public outrage at the crime. Whicher of the Yard surveyed the evidence and quickly concluded that Constance was chief suspect. He confronted her with the fact of the missing night dress but Constance averred that it had gone missing in the laundry. Nevertheless Whicher charged Constance with the murder of her baby brother. The girl burst into tears pleading her innocence.
At a committal hearing at Devizes on 27 July the nurse swore she had never known Constance behave any other than well toward the child and that the walls of the girl’s room were so thin that she could not have sneaked out without being heard. Constance said that on the Friday before the discovery she had brought the child a present of a picture, they had played together and then the infant had been making beads for his sister. But her two school friends did her no favours.
Both said that Constance had confessed to them of being resentful of her stepmother’s attitude. Louisa Haverhill said Constance felt her parents favoured the two youngest children, treating the children of the original Mrs Kent as servants, making her always wear black, for example. Poor William had to wheel the baby about like a nurse maid much to his embarrassment and he was made to walk upstairs by the back stairs like a servant, ostensibly because of the mud and clatter from his boots. She also felt William was always compared unfavourably with the baby, Saville. Constance and William had been protective of each other always. On another occasion with the end of school term imminent, Constance confessed to her friend Emma Moody that she was not looking forward to the holiday at home because her stepmother preferred the younger children to her and William. Overall the evidence was insufficient and, though Whicher was sure she was guilty and she was not formally acquitted, she was discharged into her father’s care.
What was the background to the resentment that Constance’s school friends swore on oath she bore against her stepmother? The history of the Kent family was in some ways sad, though they were financially not badly off.
Mr Kent, Samuel Saville Kent, had married Miss Mary Anne Windus in 1830. He had been 28 and she 21. They both came from respectable middle class commercial families enjoying the benefits of the boom years of Victorian invention and creativity. Samuel Kent had been a partner in a London company since the age of 25 and the couple lived with Mary Anne’s parents in a comfortable London house where the men enjoyed a mutual interest in matters antiquarian. Mary Anne became pregnant almost immediately and in the next three years had two girls, Mary Anne and Elizabeth and a son who died.
But Mr Kent became ill and the family were advised to move to the sea-side for better air. They had to give up their home and he his partnership and they moved to Sidmouth in Devon. Mr Kent took the job of Assistant Inspector of Factories at a salary of £800 a year, a prosperous if not rich income when a day labourer would be well off to earn ten shillings a week and bread was about a penny a quart loaf.
A boy, Edward, was born in 1835 but four more children, two boys and two girls born between 1837 and 1841, all died within a few months of birth. Perhaps the trouble was Mrs Kent’s own weakness for she had shown the symptoms of consumption in 1835 when she was pregnant with the boy Edward. She seemed to recover however only to display signs of mental instability. On one occasion she had taken out two of the children and got lost. On another occasion she was found to have a knife concealed under her bed.
Their physician had advised Kent to take on a housekeeper to help to keep an eye on her and the children so Kent engaged a Miss Pratt, recommended by the doctor. Miss Pratt seems to have been a good choice of nanny come housekeeper. She was sensible and fair in treating the children, having trained with a physician at Tiverton and having had a good education, her mother being middle class and her father a farmer, considered worthy but rather lower class in those days.
Thus it was that in February 1844 the family waited with some anguish while Mrs Kent gave birth to her ninth child in fourteen years. The child was a girl and was named Constance Emilie. She was, not surprisingly perhaps, not strong but in the care of Miss Pratt, who realised how delicate she was, she put on weight and regained normal health by the time her mother became next pregnant the following year, this time with another boy, William. By now Mary Anne the elder was quite mad and Kent found it impossible to impregnate her each year. He simply kept his wife in seclusion apparently saying nothing about her nor seeking appropriate treatment.
The two young children, separated by a decade from their older brother and sisters, became strongly attached to each other but other than having a mad mother family life was uneventful.
When Constance was four her elder brother, Edward, was sent to a naval school at Gosport, Portsmouth, and then to Bristol and the family uprooted themselves to live at Walton in Gordano near Bristol where they remained until Constance was nine. That year, 1853, the family moved to an isolated house apparently because of Mr Kent’s concern about Mrs Kent. On 2nd May that year while Miss Pratt was visiting her relatives in Devonshire, Mrs Kent suffered an obstruction of the bowels. A surgeon attended her but she died in three days.
Miss Pratt had lived with the family for a decade as the governess of the children and caretaker of their mother but perhaps they were nevertheless surprised when in August Mr Kent announced his engagement to her. The marriage was in London where Miss Pratt had an uncle who was a banker and the three girls were bridesmaids. Edward was at school and apparently only found out about his father’s new wife when he returned. He was so astonished and disgusted that he had a row with his father and stormed out of the house for good. He went to sea.
It was at this time that the Kents moved to Somerset. Mr Kent had been relieved of the problem of a mad wife and decided that the isolated house at Baynton was in any case too expensive.
Constance had never been a pleasant child and had taken her father’s remarriage badly. She was sensitive to unintended slights, morose, sulky and quite often rude, apparently taking her cue from Edward’s behaviour. The reaction of the village children who jeered and taunted them was not helpful and she seemed to get worse when she came to Road. Though the new Mrs Kent was evidently a patient woman, Constance must have tried her patience sorely and on occasion Mrs Kent had to discipline her with smacks. Furthermore, now that she had become the woman of the house she became less attentive to the children of the former Mrs Kent. She too had a miscarriage, puerperal fever and then a second confinement which resulted in a daughter upon whom she concentrated her attention.
Constance became a nuisance to her and the Kents decided to send her to school in London. Constance evidently resented this and it did not improve her behaviour. Returning from school on holiday she found that Mrs Kent had again had a child, a boy who was named Francis Saville, and who the Kents now doted on.
In 1854 Mr Kent was distraught when news came that Edward had been lost at sea. After an anguished period a letter came from Edward saying he had survived by the skin of his teeth, the only officer to be so lucky. But four years later he died of yellow fever.
Constance’s brother William with whom she was so close had also been sent to school but in Worcester, plainly a further upset to them both. At the end of one holiday from school Constance complained of sore ankles. She could hardly walk and so was unable to return to school. The doctor had strapped up her feet with bandages and she had to be wheeled about in a bath chair. William was also on holiday but Mr Kent was away on business.
One morning William and Constance could not be found—they had run away to Bristol, the ankle pains plainly being a subterfuge. To disguise herself as a boy, Constance had cut off her long hair—the locks of it were found in the shrubbery privy—and made use of old clothes of William which she had kept and carefully repaired. The two runaways walked all the way to Bristol where they tried to get accommodation in a hotel but were turned over to the police. Returned to Road where Mr Kent had arrived back home, Constance asserted that she had wanted to leave England and was not sorry.
The Kents decided they had to keep her under closer scrutiny so moved her to a local school at Beckington, just three miles from Frome. Much to the surprise of the locals, since the school was only a mile away from the Kent home, they enrolled her as a boarder. Though difficult at first she seemed to adjust to school and, though just as churlish as ever at home, she won a prize for good behaviour at school. It was her schoolfriends here however who informed the world of her resentment of her stepmother.
Following her release through lack of evidence, her father sent her away to a convent in France though she was a Protestant in her beliefs, presumably to get her out of the limelight and away from the taunts of the local youth and into safe hands. She stayed there for two years quiet and unremarkable except for her kindness to children. Back in England she attended a religious school in Brighton registering as Emilie. It seems that under these Catholic and High Church influences she became deeply religious.
The High Church school encouraged confession and the story is that sometime between 1863 and 1865 Constance confessed to the murder of her stepbrother and at Easter 1865 asked that her confession be made public. The Superior of the school had bizarrely asked whether the child had begged for mercy but Constance said no because he was asleep when he died. It seems certain that the High Church vicars and the Superior of the school had encouraged her to confess publicly to expiate her sin when notionally Christianity only requires the sinner to confess before the highest court of all—God. They heaped upon Constance the seriousness of the crime before God, which Constance by then must have known clearly enough, and the further seriousness of aggravating the sin before God, by which they plainly meant keeping the confession private.
On Lady Day 1865 accompanied by the school authorities Constance appeared—dressed in black—before the Bow Street Magistrates and confessed publicly and in writing. When the confession was read out in the court she fell down in tears. The school authorities declared that no pressure had been put on her but that she had been admitted to the school two years before because of some difficulty respecting her. The Lady Superior continually sought assistance from beyond by turning her eyes towards heaven.
Constance always sought to deny any cruelty by her father and stepmother as letters written from jail prove. Her father read about the confession and visited her but she was sent for trial at Salisbury in July where she appeared as ever in black and pleaded guilty thus preventing the admission of any fresh evidence. She stood grave and noble before the court, a plain looking woman of above average height according to press reports. Summing up the judge stated that she had admitted feelings of anger and jealousy into her heart, to which Constance clearly said: "Not jealousy". Her quiet fortitude was such that observers, the jury and even the judge himself could not restrain their tears when he passed sentence. As he did she too pushed back her veil and fell into uncontrollable sobs.
According to her detailed confession she had obtained a razor from her father’s wardrobe a few days before the crime, though apparently he never noticed the razor was missing throughout. She had placed candles in the privy and on the night of the crime she went to bed and waited until about midnight when all the family were asleep before rising. She went downstairs and opened the shutters on the windows. She went to the nursery, lifted the child from the cot, putting the blanket to one side, replaced the other covers then wrapped the boy in the blanket. Taking the child downstairs, still in her nightie, she put on her galoshes. Then with the baby still asleep in the blanket in one arm she opened the window, climbed out and walked round the house to the shrubbery where she cut Saville’s throat with the hidden razor. She says she thought the blood would never come, a curiosity because it should have gushed instantly and in profusion. Saville was not yet dead, she thought, so she thrust the razor knife-like into the child’s chest, another curiosity because the autopsy indicated that the body wound could not have been inflicted by a razor. She put the baby’s corpse with the blanket still around it into the toilet, yet another inconsistency because the men who found the body were certain the blanket was not round the body but had been retrieved first from on top of the body. The piece of flannel was from one of her old flannel skirts which she had saved to wipe herself.
Back in her bedroom she found only two spots of blood on her night dress, an almost incredible claim when she had supposedly just cut someone’s throat while holding them in her arms. She washed out the two spots, disposed of the water into a foot basin she had used earlier and put on a dry night dress. The next day her washed night dress was dry which seems unlikely and she folded it and put it away. Her night dresses were seen by two people neither of whom saw any marks, though she says that a few days later she had to burn the night dress because the marks had not thoroughly washed out. She then had to claim that the night dress had been sent to the laundry and lost when in fact she had distracted the maid’s attention and retrieved it for burning.
The next morning she had time to clean the razor and replace it where it had been originally.
Her motive, she confessed, was revenge against her stepmother who she felt slighted the children of the original Mrs Kent and she harboured these slights in a resentful way.
The bloody garment above the boiler in the kitchen was never explained, nor the lack of blood at the scene of the crime.
The description of how she lifted the child from the cot and put the blanket to one side is taken almost verbatim from a book about the crime written in 1861. It seems incredible that she was able to do things like opening the window with one hand and more remarkably putting on her galoshes with one hand, all in effective silence. Finally Mrs Kent was sure she heard the window open when it was daylight, though perhaps she heard the window closing, either by the murderer or simply when the maid found it open.
The barking of the dogs is also not explained. And did she put on the lights as the policeman says or did she move about with ease in the dark? What also of the behaviour of Mr Kent? Why was he so keen to go when someone else could have been sent? Why was he so slow travelling to Southwick? What was he doing for a missing hour? How did he know the child was in a blanket when no blanket was thought to be missing? Did he know of his daughter’s crime and try to cover it up somehow? Could William have done the deed and Constance covered for him?
Constance spent 20 years in Portland and Millbank prisons. At Millbank she became a nurse and was described as of high intelligence. In 1885 she was released aged 41 and disappeared from history. Enquiries have been made but apparently no one knows where or when she died.
Yet bar room and back-yard banter on the borders of Wiltshire has it that she was as insane as her mother, though cunningly so. Some of the gossips claim that she hated women because of her hatred for her stepmother, regarding them all as whores. Just three years later women began to die in the East End of London of horrible mutilations carried out with some medical knowledge using razor-like instruments or scalpels. The murderer could not be caught and one speculation is that Jack the Ripper was really Jill the Ripper. The police were not seeking a woman and therefore a woman could get through the police searches. A woman could also hide her implements under her skirts.
Did a mad woman commit suicide in London in 1889? Is this what became of Constance? Did she leave the country for foreign parts as she had intended when she ran away with her brother? Or did she disappear because she entered a nunnery to atone for her sins? If anyone knows please let us know too!
From Amelia Coffen
We had some interesting information from Mrs Amelia Coffen who is descended from one of Constance Kent’s sisters. She has allowed us to use her letter here.
I am, apparently, a descendant of Constance Kent on my Mother’s side. My Grandma has been telling me stories about her since I was little. In answer to your question about what happened to her when she came out of prison, an extract from my Grandma’s recently written memoirs follows:
Constance Kent Saga
Constance Kent was the Aunt of my Grandma. She was the daughter of Edward Kent, who was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Kent, son of King George III. Edward Kent was married to her Mother and had 2 sisters, Caroline and Elizabeth. According to my Grandma and also a diary of a detective who investigated the murder of her half brother, the marriage of Edward Kent’s Mother to the Duke of Kent was dissolved because she was a commoner. Quite a substantial settlement was made to her, a carriage and horses and a large house. The detective said a settlement of that kind was unheard of in those days, so it must have been for a good reason.
Edward Kent was married twice and had 2 or 3 more children. The stepmother was unkind to Constance and the young ½ brother was spoilt and pampered. In a fit of jealousy, Constance pushed his head down the “water closet” (old-fashioned bucket with wooden seat over it) and held his face in the water until he drowned. Her Father, fearing the scandal, injured his face and body and told the police that a burglar broke in and did it. This detective wrote in his diary that he was very suspicious and was sure Constance did it as they never caught anyone. It wasn’t until 20 years later that Constance confessed.
In the meantime, she was sent to France to be educated in a convent for some years. She was charged with the murder and served 20 years in a London prison. Well, after a few years, the convicts at Portland (Verne Prison) built their own small church from Portland stone and decided to have a mosaic floor for the altar. They knew Constance was an expert, as she had learned mosaic work from the nuns in France, so she was taken down to Verne and showed them and supervised the work. I wonder where she stayed? I have a photo of myself taken by David [Grandma’s son—AC] sitting on the steps by the altar rail and mosaic floor.
In his diary, the detective said Constance came back when she was an old lady and was seen sitting in her carriage by the gates at the end of the drive and was staring at the house for a long time. She went to the U.S. on her release from jail and married out there.
My Aunt [Grandma’s Aunt—AC] told me that my Grandma [my Great Great Grandma—AC] was more ashamed of the illegitimacy in the family than the murder! If they were discussing it, she would cover my youngest Aunt’s [Grandma’s Aunt—AC] ears with her hands, when she was 3, and say “don’t talk about it in front of the younger ones!”
[Just to clarify, Edward Kent was (according to my Grandma) the illigitimate GRANDSON of George III. Edward Kent’s father was George III’s son, the Duke of Kent—AC]
Hope this is interesting. I would be delighted to hear if you are contacted with any other information to “fill in the gaps”.
Our thanks to Mrs Coffen and her grandma. She tells us her grandma’s memoirs are at present private ones but might be published in future. Has anyone anything to add? Does anyone know what happened to Constance when she went to the US?
From Susan Deal
Susan Deal replied. She is a member of the Victorian Society and has a particular interest in Victorian Social History. Martin Fido, who is a criminologist specialising in Victorian crime, told her about Constance’s subsequent career, but she did not know his sources. Information about the Duke of Kent was from a book called The Children of George III, and about about Queen Victoria’s paternity was from another book called Queen Victoria’s Gene. Susan wrote:
Re Constance Kent case: I have heard that Constance went to Australia after her release from prison, not the USA. She worked as a nurse. She certainly changed her name, but there seems to be no evidence as to any marriage. She is said to have received a 100th birthday telegram from King George VI in 1944, the only convicted murderer ever to do so. I must say I think it unlikely that Edward Kent was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Kent, who was of course Queen Victoria’s father. He was at this time living in France with an actress, to whom he was devoted and with whom he lived for many years, and they were childless. He is not recorded as having any children at all until Victoria, and some surprise was expressed at the rapidity of his success with his bride! It has been suggested that Victoria was not his child. He was by the time of Victoria’s birth 52 years old, and the birth was extraordinarily convenient, doubly so as he died only a few months later. This is not to say that he might not have been capable of fathering a child at the time of Edward Kent’s birth in 1802.
Thank you, Susan, for this information about the “Dreadful Murder” at Frome. Further contributions are invited.
From Janet Player
Regarding Constance Kent and the murder at Road Hill House, her father was Samuel Savile Kent b 1801. His father was a carpet manufacturer, owning a business at London Wall. Savile was his mothers maiden name, her family owned property in Colchester.
Anyone interest in this case should read Saint—With Red Hands, by Yseult Bridges. This book is a chronicle of the crime that took place and the case against Constance Kent. This book takes you through the sequence of events that took place, giving an insight into the questionable things that took place during the investigation, which seem to imply Samuel Savile Kent was shielded by his friends in high places and that every effort was made to prevent the truth from coming out.
This book appears to have been thoroughly researched by this lady. If this is a true account of what took place, which it appears to be, I would agree with the author that it defies all logic to believe Constance Kent was capable of commiting this crime. Today her so called confession would never have stood-up to scrutiny and would have been totally discarded before even getting to court.
Contrary to your story it appears nothing was found suggesting that Constance had been an unpleasant child, in fact she appears to have been extremely well liked by all who knew her!
People in and around Southwick believe Constance Kent went to Australia after she left prison, where she became a very dedicated nurse and lived to a very old age.
From Jan Brian Kingshott
I read with interest your article on Constance Kent and it rang a bell with me. I have a book called The Law’s Strangest Cases, by Peter Seddon. In this there is a small chapter on Constance Kent describing her death on 10 April 1944 in a hospital in Strathfield, near Maitland, New South Wales, Australia. She was 100 years old and was, at that time, known as Ruth Emilie Kaye. She apparently arrived in Australia over 50 years previously, and worked as a nurse with under privileged children, then as a matron in her own nursing home.
Many thanks for what you have been able to tell us about Constance Kent. I shall add it to the page.
R Bellchambers
Mike, I have the following comments on: The Dreadful Murder at Rode. From my searches the following:
- Savile, Constance Emma Beresford birth registered Okehampton 1st quarter 1845
- Savile, Constance Emma B. death registered St Thomas (Exeter) 3rd quarter 1888
It would seem that these are likely to be the Constance of the above Dreadful Murder. If so she did not last long after her release from prison. I should also add that at death, Constance below was aged 43 which ties up nicely. But it may be a coincidence of similar names and dates so may be a red herring.
Many thanks for this useful information which I shall add to the page, if you do not mind.
Source: The Step-Daughter’s Revenge: Constance Kent’s Confession, Katharine Garvin, in The Fifty Most Amazing Crimes of the Last Hundred Years, Ed J M Parish and J R Crosland, Odhams Press, London,1936.
