“You owe me a shilling,” Richard Steed, 55, a coffee-shop owner, told Alfred Eldridge, 33, a labourer.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Eldridge replied.

The two men were in a pub in Herne Bay, Kent, and had been drinking hard all evening. Although on the surface they appeared to be amiable, the mood was decidedly ugly. The dispute about the shilling had been raging for three months, and had even resulted in Steed issuing a court summons.

Eldridge had been swearing to get even with his accuser when they met by chance in the pub on the evening of Saturday, May 2nd, 1863. He took his revenge after closing time, when he set about Steed and kicked him to death.

At Kent Assizes on July 30th Eldridge claimed that Steed attacked him first, but he was convicted of murder and hanged on Thursday, August 20th, 1863, outside Maidstone Prison, alongside Alfred Holden (see below).