History
Newspaper Extract
Highway Robbery and Suspected Murder
December, 1861Another dreadful crime was committed in the neighbourhood of Sheffield on Thursday evening last.
The victim is Alfred Hinchcliffe, a gardener, who resided at the village of Treeton, a few miles from Sheffield, and was 27 years of age.
On Thursday Hinchcliffe sold a pig for £10. 8s. to Mr. J. W. Watts, grocer of Attercliffe, which forms one of the suburbs of Sheffield. He obtained the assistance of an old schoolfellow named Thomas Fawley, who lives at Attercliffe, and is a butcher, in killing the pig, and, the weight of the carcass having been ascertained, Hinchcliffe received £10. 8s., the price of the pig. He left the premises of Mr. Watts about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and went with Fawley to a neighbouring beerhouse, where the two remained drinking until about half past 5 o'clock, when they left in company. Hinchcliffe was "fresh", but apparently able to walk home.
Shirland Lane, a dark narrow road, leads from Attercliffe to the village of Darnall, and was Hinchcliffe’s nearest way home. The two friends parted at the end of this lane, Fawley declining the invitation of Hinchcliffe to go into an adjoining public house and have a final glass of "something short" and advising him to go straight home. A few minutes afterwards Hinchcliffe was seen a short distance up the lane, with his clothes in a disordered state, by a young man named Wood. He had not then been attacked, but Wood heard the sound of approaching footsteps when he had passed Hinchcliffe only a short distance, and also heard a conversation between two men who had gone up to Hinchcliffe. He, however, proceeded forward to Darnall, not supposing that anything was wrong. Between 7 and 8 o'clock two miners named Simpson found Hinchcliffe lying helpless on the footpath in a dark part of Shirland Lane, about 200 yards from the main street of Attercliffe. They supposed the man was intoxicated and reported the circumstance in Attercliffe. Some of the residents went to the place, and found the man was dead. The body was removed to the Queen public house, and it was then found that one of the deceased's trouser pockets had been cut out and the other torn open. He had been robbed of £10. 8s. and any other valuables he might have upon him, nothing being left in his pockets except a pocketbook. There were no marks of violence on the body externally, except that the face appeared to be a little swollen. Death is believed to have been caused by strangulation, but as yet that is not positively known. The deceased's eyes were filled with mud, which had evidently been thrust in by his assailants, probably to prevent him from recognising them. At a late hour on Thursday night the police apprehended Fawley on suspicion of being concerned in the robbery and murder, but no money was found upon him. Deceased was a single man, but was making preparations for being married at Christmas. An inquest of the body was opened yesterday afternoon.