Practically every day of the year is a landmark of some sort in the annals of crime. Here’s where you can find out what happened this week in years gone by...
Stories from the week beginning July 9th.
Not Enough Energy To Finish The Job
Britain was still a pitiless place for the poor at the dawn of the 20th century. An unemployed man could starve to death without wages. That thought depressed Samuel Rowledge, who didn’t have a job, and therefore had no hope of marrying his sweetheart, Alice Foster.
When Rowledge’s brother found him a few hours’ work he was so despondent he couldn’t summon up the energy to take it on. And when Alice heard about that she got cross and raged at him for being lazy.
Fed up with it all, Rowledge went to the pawnshop, redeemed his revolver, walked to Alice’s house in Kingsley Park and shot her dead from a distance of just three feet. He told police that he had intended to shoot himself as well, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to do that either.
On Wednesday, JULY 13th, 1904, Samuel Rowledge, 37, paid for his crime on the gallows at Northampton Jail.
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