Everyone was relieved when a quarrel between two young labourers at the Malt and Hops in Bath was resolved with fisticuffs in the yard outside the pub. The protagonists, Charles Kite and Albert Miles, both aged 21, went back into the bar after the fight.

“Let’s make friends and shake on it,” Kite said. He offered his left hand. Momentarily confused, Miles pulled away, and as he did so Kite lunged at him with a knife he had hidden in his right hand. Miles collapsed and died on the spot.

Kite fled but was arrested within an hour while hiding in his mother’s house. He was hanged on Monday, February 25th, 1884, in Taunton Prison, and had the distinction of being the last man to be executed there.