Farm labourer George Nunn was another teenager obsessed with the idea of sex with an older woman. He waylaid Mrs. Eliza Dixon, 33, wife of a butcher and mother of six children, on the village green at Wortham in Suffolk and offered her sixpence for sex. When she refused, he “threw her down.”

Nunn was to claim later that he was with an accomplice who kicked Mrs. Dixon two or three times in the head to subdue her while they raped her in turn. But there was no accomplice – the story was a figment of his imagination. In fact Nunn alone raped Mrs. Dixon, then stabbed her 14 times in the head and neck.

He was hanged on Tuesday, November 21st, 1899, in Ipswich Prison, despite the jury’s recommendation for mercy on account of his age and ”imperfect education.”