by Jill Evans
Ronald George Wells in The Citizen, 29 January 1935. (Gloucestershire Archives)
On the same day, an inquest into the death of George Wells was opened by the City Coroner, Trevor Wellington. At this time it was only intended to formally identify the deceased man, so a burial order could be issued. Frederick Williams identified the body and then the inquest was adjourned.
On 7 November, George Wells, who was about sixty-two years old, was buried at Gloucester cemetery. It was a bitterly cold day with a strong northerly wind, yet hundreds of onlookers gathered to watch the hearse arrive. The coffin was covered with wreaths from friends and neighbours, and a dozen mourners followed the hearse in two motor coaches. The local newspapers revealed that Wells had left no money or estate with which to pay for a funeral, and the authorities would have buried him in a pauper’s grave but for his former employers, Messrs Smith Bros, who had come forward with an offer to pay for his burial.
Ronald Wells appeared in court and was remanded twice more before his case was finally heard on 27 November. His mother, who he hadn’t seen since he was six, was in the court, and smiled at her son as he sat down.
It was revealed that George Wells had seven or eight wounds to his head and neck, and a puncture wound over his right eye which had penetrated the brain. The injuries had been inflicted by a blunt instrument with a pointed end. The doctor who carried out the post-mortem, William Washbourn, believed Wells had been struck while sitting down in his chair. The doctor summised that Wells had died sometime between 18 and 24 October, but from the evidence of the neighbours, probably on 22 or 23 October.
At the end of the hearing, Ronald George Wells was committed for trial at the assizes.
Justice Hawke and the County High Sheriff in The Citizen, 3 February 1940. (Gloucestershire Archives)
The trial began at Gloucester on 29 January 1935, before Mr Justice Hawke. A crowd had gathered outside, hoping to gain admission, but many were left disappointed as the courtroom quickly filled up. While waiting for the trial to start, Ronald Wells had been held in Gloucester Prison. He was brought to the court early in the morning, when the streets were still deserted. When he was led into the dock between two warders he looked slightly flushed, but was otherwise calm. He wore the same navy blue suit in which he had been arrested. His mother took a seat directly behind the dock.
The case for the prosecution was led by Mr St John Micklethwait KC, while Mr Cotes-Preedy KC defended the prisoner. The jury consisted of nine men and three women. Silence fell in the court as Judge Hawke took his seat and the Clerk read out the charge, to which Wells replied in a firm voice, ‘Not guilty.’
Mr Micklethwait then began to outline the case for the prosecution, telling the jury that the story he had to tell was ‘a gruesome and horrible one’. He described how the police had entered the house in St Mary’s Square on 2 November and found George Wells lying dead on the stairs. The case for the prosecution was that Wells had been killed downstairs in the sitting room, where all the bloodstains were found. His shirt and vest were removed and a clean shirt put on his body, which was then carried upstairs as far as the landing. The head and torso were then covered and the body left there for a number of days.
Front page of The Citizen, 29 January 1935. (Gloucestershire Archives)
Mr Micklethwait told the jury that the defence counsel would suggest that Ronald had killed his father in self-defence, because the older man, who was bigger and stronger, had attacked him. However, the neighbours, who could hear coughing and sometimes conversations through the walls, had not been aware of any disturbance, fight or quarrel. Moreover, the prosecution would argue that Mr Wells had been struck from behind while he was sitting in a chair.
The case for the defence largely concentrated on the idea that George Wells was a man with a violent temper. Detective Sergeant Ward, after giving his evidence about finding Wells’s body, was asked by Mr Cotes-Preedy if he had discovered in the course of his enquiries that Wells was a violent man. Ward replied that the neighbours had said Wells was a very hot-tempered man. He wouldn’t like to say that he had been violent – more hasty tempered. Ward also said in reply to a question from Mr Cotes-Preedy that he understood that at the age of nine, Ronald Wells was made to work with his father at slaughtering.
Frederick Williams said he had been living at 2 Mount Street when Mrs Wells was still with her husband. He believed they parted because Wells used to come home sometimes and start ‘carrying on’. Asked if Wells was brutal to her, Williams replied that she ran out of the house on several occasions and stayed away for some time. He believed she had been frightened of her husband. Regarding Wells’s temper, Williams recalled how on one occasion Wells had gone for him with a whip in his hand, but, ‘I stood up to him and served him in the same way’. He said that Ronald Wells had been staying out late, which had annoyed his father.
Detective Constable Franklin said he had known George Wells for about eleven years. Asked by Mr Cotes-Preedy whether Wells was a man with a violent temper, he said, ‘I would not describe him as strongly as that. I would say he had a very hasty temper.’
Dr William Washbourn, the police surgeon who had conducted the post-mortem on the body, said George Wells was five feet ten inches tall, muscular and well-developed. Death took place some time between a week and a fortnight before his examination of the body. Wells’s death had been due to extensive fracture of the skull, resulting in concussion and shock. All the blows had been given by the hammer found, some with the sharp end and some with the flat end, and he believed they had been inflicted from behind.
Mr Cotes-Preedy said, ‘I presume it is only surmise on your part when you tell the jury that you think the blows may have been struck while the father was sitting down?’ Dr Washbourn agreed that it was. It was possible that most of the wounds could have been applied from the front, but not the one at the back of the head. Dr Washbourne conceded that the wound at the back of the head might possibly have been caused if Wells’s head had fallen forward after being struck a few times before.
Mr Cotes-Preedy then called to the witness box Dr Graham, the medical officer of Gloucester Prison, who had assessed the mental state of Ronald Wells and sent a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions. He said that Wells was a highly strung, nervy and temperamental youth, who, when faced with a sudden emergency, would be likely to overreact.
At half past five, a hush fell in the courtroom as Ronald Wells entered the witness box. He seemed calm, but owing to his pronounced stammer, his voice could not be heard in the court. His words were repeated for the judge and jury by Mr Musson, the defence counsel who examined him.
Wells said that on 22 October 1934 he got home at about a quarter to eleven. His father had sat up waiting for him and was angry. He sat down on a chair in the living room to take off his boots. His father went to get some coal for the fire and came back holding the coal hammer. Wells heard him say, ‘I’ll teach you to come here like this. You won’t go out of here again.’
Realising that his father had raised the hammer, Ronald jumped up and pushed him towards his armchair, then grappled with him for the weapon. He managed to wrench it away but then his father came at him to get it back. He realised he would have to hit him to stop him getting the hammer again. So he hit his father, and lost his head, and continued hitting him. The next thing he knew, his father was on the ground. He lifted him into his armchair, which was a struggle, but he managed it. Then he sat down in his chair and looked at his father. Later, he went out to the scullery to wash his hands and face, which had blood on them. He went back into the living room and put some coal on the fire, and then sat in his chair all night.
At about five the next morning he woke from a doze and saw that his father was dead. He lifted him out of the chair, because he was afraid someone might come in. There was blood all over his father’s smock and shirt, so he laid him on the ground and took them off, and put a clean shirt on him. He wanted to take him upstairs and lay him on the
bed, but he couldn’t get the body round the corner on the landing, so he had to leave him there, halfway up the stairs.
He didn’t tell anyone what had happened because he was afraid. He had no one to confide in and wanted time to think it out. He went halfway to the police station several times, but was too afraid to carry on. He slept for several nights on the couch, in front of the fire. He scrubbed the floor because there was blood all over it. The hammer was under the table all night, then he put it in the coal cellar.
On 1 November, he took some clothes to Mrs Taylor’s shop to sell, because he had no money. He went to Hereford with the money he got from that, then went about selling cheese. After Hereford, he went to Abergavenny, Pontypool and Cardiff, all on the same day. Then he went to Newport and spent a night in a lodging house there. He couldn’t pay his bill, so left his bicycle and his father’s watch. He then walked as far as Woolaston, where he handed himself in at the police station.
Having given the main part of his evidence, the judge adjourned the trial until the following morning. The members of the jury were put up overnight in the Ram Hotel, in Southgate Street.
On the following morning, Ronald Wells was cross-examined by Mr Micklethwait. In reply to questioning, Wells said he began to help his father in the cheese-hawking business in July. His father put him in charge of the money and he had got someone to show him how to keep accounts properly, but he denied that his father had complained there was not so much money coming in from the business as there ought to have been, or that there was trouble between him and his father over money matters.
Wells admitted that he had begun to stay out late, going to public houses, and this had caused quarrels. Asked where he got the money to go to public houses, Wells replied that he could take what he wanted. He denied that he gambled with money he received from selling cheese, or that he went to greyhound races. His father usually went to bed at about half past nine, and on the night of 22 October he had come home at about a quarter to eleven. His father was sitting up in his chair and started grumbling about him being out so late: ‘He shouted at me and asked where I had been.’
Old postcard of Southgate Street, with the Ram Hotel on the left. (Author’s collection)
Asked why his father had gone to get coal for the fire at that time of night, Wells replied that he did not know, adding, ‘I thought it was unusual.’ He also didn’t know why his father would have brought the coal hammer back with him. Asked why he did not escape through the scullery, Wells replied that it would have been impossible from where he was, without the risk of being hit. Asked about the blows he inflicted on his father, Wells replied, ‘I don’t know where I hit him. I lost my head.’ He wasn’t angry when he hit his father, just afraid. He had been sorry for what he had done. Asked why he didn’t get a doctor, he said he knew it was too late to save him. He hadn’t placed the case of knives on the stairs – they were always kept there.
Wells admitted that he had gone to public houses occasionally after that night. In fact, he had been to the Leather Bottle in Archdeacon Street nearly every night. He had also gone to a party in the Forest of Dean. Pressed to say why he hadn’t told the neighbours what had happened, Wells said he had wanted time to think. Asked why he had not told the truth when he was arrested, he said they didn’t ask him to explain, just arrested him, and he told them he didn’t murder his father. Mr Micklethwait said, ‘I suggest to you that this story is quite untrue, that your father was sitting in the armchair, and that you got the hammer and hit him while he was sitting down.’
‘I didn’t,’ Wells replied, in a low voice.
Mr Mickelthwait then began his final address to the jury, and said that to reduce a charge of murder to one of manslaughter he had to prove that the act of killing someone was justified, because it had been done in self-defence. He could hardly imagine that the rain of blows they had heard about on this occasion had been justified. If Wells’s story of his father attacking him was true, then after getting the hammer off him, all he had to do was run away. It was quite clear that there had been rows between father and son over the latter’s staying out late drinking. However, the only threat the father had made to his son was that he would have to find new lodgings. Was it not instead true, as Dr Washbourn suggested, that George Wells was struck from behind when he was sitting in his chair? Ronald Wells had said there had been a struggle with his father, but the neighbours hadn’t heard a thing, although they usually knew if George even coughed.
In his address, Mr Cotes-Preedy said he was going to ask the jury not only to find the defendant not guilty of murder, but not guilty of manslaughter either. They should try to picture the two parties in the case, and imagine the sort of man the father was, and contrast him with the young man who had stammered out his evidence a short while before. The father was said to be much taller and stronger than his son, and he had a bad temper. He was a man who had driven his wife from home, thereby depriving his son of a mother’s love and affection.
There had been many rumours about the case. It had been said that a short time before his death, Mr Wells had received £200 compensation following his accident, but it was entirely untrue. When arrested the boy had not a penny on him, and there was only a farthing in the house when the police searched it. ‘We have a squalid home and the father was a slaughter man,’ Mr Cotes-Preedy said. His boy had helped him from the age of nine, which explained why he was not more disturbed by the sight of blood. The allegation of the prosecution that Mr Wells had been struck from behind while sitting down rested solely on the evidence of Dr Washbourn, and he had not expressed a definite opinion on the point. In conclusion, the counsel for the defence asked the jury to believe Ronald’s story – that he had not meant to kill his father.
Summing up the case, Judge Hawke said that the prosecution had not suggested for one moment that this was a premeditated murder. If the members of the jury were satisfied that the death of George Wells was the result of provocation which no reasonable man could withstand, then they were entitled to bring in a verdict of manslaughter. If they thought the blows were necessary for self-defence, and Ronald Wells did nothing more than was necessary to defend himself, then they could find him not guilty.
The jury retired to consider their verdict, returning to court after an absence of thirty-five minutes. Ronald Wells was brought into the dock and the foreman of the jury announced that they found the defendant not guilty of murder. At this, applause broke out from some women in the gallery, which was quickly suppressed by the judge. The jury foreman then said that they found Wells guilty of manslaughter. The judge said he would deliver his sentence after lunch.
When the judge resumed his seat after the break, Detective Sergeant Ward gave evidence regarding Wells’s character, and revealed his previous criminal record. Although he had a history of theft, there had been no violence involved in any of his crimes.
The judge then addressed Ronald Wells, telling him, ‘I am afraid I must pass a severe sentence upon you, Wells, but because you are comparatively young it will be less than it otherwise would have been.’ He added that Wells had done a very wicked thing, and that lack of self-control was not a defence to committing crime. ‘The sentence which I pass on you is that you will be kept in penal servitude for five years.’ Ronald Wells was hurried from the dock by two warders.
Front page of The Citizen, 30 January 1935. (Gloucestershire Archives)
In June 1939, a convict out on licence appeared before the Bench at the Somerset Quarter Sessions in Taunton, charged with stealing £20 from his stepbrother, with whom he had been living at Compton Durville, near Yeovil. Ronald George Wells, aged twenty-four, said he had taken the money in order to go and join the army, with the intention of concealing the fact that he was a convict on licence. He had taken the £20 off a roll of notes containing £50 in total. He had been arrested in Birmingham, having already joined up.
The court was told that Wells had been employed by Captain Firth at Compton Abdale as a gener
al labourer and stable hand for about five months. Firth had found Wells to be honest and hardworking. The accused was single and a native of Taunton; his family had moved to Gloucester when he was a baby.
The magistrates said they were inclined to give Wells another chance. He would have to serve the unexpired period of penal servitude, and on release he would be placed on probation for three years. Ronald Wells was taken back to prison.
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