No escape from the hangman’s noose...

YESTERDAY, the Chronicle’s resident historian MIKE PAVASOVIC took us on a chilling trip back in time to the 20th century executioners with links to Oldham. Here, he looks at the men who committed murder in the borough and were condemned to hang by the neck until dead . . .

SYMPATHY is the last thing a murderer might expect, but in 1913 the people of Oldham were incensed by the decision to hang Ernest Kelly.

Kelly had been found guilty of murdering a bookseller at 43 Yorkshire Street, on July 26, 1913.

Daniel Bardsley had been clubbed to death and there was no doubt about Kelly’s involvement. What angered the people of Oldham was that the death sentence imposed on Edward Hilton, who also took part in the crime, was commuted to life imprisonment.

Kelly admitted to owning the murder weapon but said he had only taken it to threaten Bardsley. He insisted that the blows had been struck by Hilton, who escaped the noose because he had been mentally defective from childhood and was under 18 when the crime was committed.

Feelings were so high that the Mayor, Alderman Herbert Wilde, had to call a public meeting at the town hall on December 15.

But there was to be no reprieve for Kelly. A letter from the Mayoress to Queen Mary also proved fruitless. On the day of the execution, December 17, hundreds walked from Oldham to Strangeways but were kept away from the prison by a large force of police. In a last letter to his parents, Kelly insisted Hilton had struck the fatal blows.

The first Oldhamer to hang in the 20th century was Henry McWiggins, known as Harry Mac, who killed his partner, Esther Bedford, at 22 Hopwood Street in August, 1902.

McWiggins subjected Esther to dreadful treatment. He threw scalding water at her, punched her blistered face and kicked her in the stomach, rupturing her bladder. Incredibly, when she was interviewed by the police as she lay dying, Esther denied she had been attacked and insisted the scalding was an accident.

Kate Garrity, who was murdered in Shaw on December 19, 1905, was a 17-year-old who had been given two shillings by her mother and sent out with a jug and a bottle to buy beer and whisky.

Her route took her past the corner of Greenfield Lane and Moss Hey Street. Her body was found the following day by her father lying beneath sacking in an entry.

Jack Griffiths, Kate’s former boyfriend, was quickly arrested. He had been seen in a pub in Greenside Lane. He was even identified by his clogs.

He had left two clear imprints where he had jumped from a wall. The right one showed a piece of clog-iron missing and that was the case with his clogs. Traces of blood also incriminated him.

John Tarkenter killed his wife Rosetta at 2 Hilton Street, Royton, on July 18, 1911. The couple had a stormy relationship and Tarkenter walked out four times, once for nine years. On the day of the murder, their son, George, heard them talking as he got ready for work at 5am. They seemed quite friendly.

But when he returned 12 hours later, he found the door locked, the house empty and no fire in the grate. He went upstairs and found his mother under a pile of blankets with her throat cut.

Tarkenter was arrested in St Mary’s Gate. He immediately admitted the crime.

Indeed, earlier in the day, when a constable had called to speak to him about the violent arguments, Tarkenter had tried to take him upstairs to show him the body. He was hanged at Strangeways alongside Walter Martyn who had strangled his girlfriend Edith Griffiths in Heywood.

The only case of child murder involves seven-year-old Ivy Woolfenden, who was attacked at 192 Edge Lane Road, Oldham, on February 14, 1920. Ivy was battered by her uncle, William Waddington, and was found in the cellar, barely alive. She died as the ambulance arrived.

Waddington, who had earlier been seen looking red and breathless, was tracked down in Todmorden. He was hanged with Herbert Salisbury who had shot this girlfriend Alice Pearson in Formby.

It seems that George Cartledge, who cut the throat of his wife Nellie at 2 Oak Street, Shaw, on January 2, 1929, may have had medical problems. He was found dazed and claimed he knew nothing of what had happened. Cartledge had been receiving treatment for headaches and there was an attempt to prove insanity. But the Crown was unmoved, ignoring a jury plea for mercy.

The last Oldham crime to end in a hanging was the murder of Percy and Alice Baker by John Gartside at Manor House Farm, Dobcross, on May 20, 1947.

Gartside, a dealer in second-hand furniture, insisted the bakers had been about to separate and so had sold him their furniture and car. After the police found blood at the farm, he said he had taken two guns to Percy to repair. An argument had started between the couple, and Percy had shot Alice with the rifle.

Gartside said he then tried to seize the revolver but it went off by accident, grievously wounding Percy. He said he shot Percy to put him out of his misery and then buried the bodies in a field. He had sold their furniture to make it look as though they had gone away.

However, friends said the Slacks were a devoted couple and forensic evidence showed that the bullet was fired at Alice from only three inches.