Back from the Crimean War, where he fought with valour, Charles Finch suspected that his girlfriend, Harriet Freeborn, had been sleeping with a man in London while he was on active service. He armed himself with a cut-throat razor, determined to avenge the slight on his dignity.

Finch and Harriet were walking across a field in the village of Rivenhall, near Witham in Essex, when Finch, 26, flashed the razor and cut Harriet’s throat.

He ran off, then ran back to where she had fallen and cut her throat twice more before sitting down and waiting to be arrested. He was hanged on Wednesday, JULY 29th, 1857, outside Chelmsford Prison.