The Tollhouse Murders

Peppermint Billy: less sweet than his name suggests

This story has been told before, by Joanne Vigor-Mungovin, but I came to this tale (as I usually do) by a snippet of old newspaper sent to me by my dear friend, Claire Richardson.

Brown. A common name, almost impossible to trace through archives, but notorious in Scalford, just north of Melton Mowbray. John Brown lived there in the 1810s, with his wife (or wives: a common name makes marriage records very difficult to sift) and children. He made his living through nefarious means, but one of his few legitimate jobs was making peppermints to sell at the local fairs. So, the Browns became known as the Peppermints, and John Brown senior was known as Peppermint Jack.

Peppermint Jack was not liked in Scalford; nor were his four sons, William, Robert, James and John. It was said that Peppermint Jack held regular ‘courts’ in his house, teaching his children how to face a magistrate’s questioning. In fact, the Browns were so locally despised that, according to local legend, their home was pulled down around them to drive them out of Scalford.

William Brown, the eldest of the Brown children, was born in 1819. He had an issue with one of his eyes - it wouldn’t stay open - so he was known as Blinking Billy or, more infamously, Peppermint Billy. He was as dodgy as his father, and was first in court in 1837. He had stolen a magazine from a friend, and was tried with felony theft, which seems a little harsh but was perhaps an effort to quell the Browns notoriety. William told the courts a tall tale about having swapped the magazine for a few other items, and probably would have got away with it, had he not told an entirely different story when initially arrested. He went to prison for six months.

William’s next known appearance in court was in the Epiphany Assizes of 1843. In 1842, he was found in possession of three stolen, silver spoons: a teaspoon, a gravy spoon and a ladle. They were identified as having been stolen from a house in Newton Linford. Once again, William attempted to defend himself with a tall tale. They were his mother’s spoons! This was all a fix - he had been set up by a footman who was in love with a housemaid that preferred him! But the court were not convinced, and as he already had a conviction for felony theft, they transported him to Tasmania for seven years. Exeunt stage left.

In 1847, William’s two brothers, James and Robert, were caught stealing a horse from Plungar, and also transported. One wonders if they met up in Tasmania…

So, William went to Tasmania and things changed while he was away. His family left Scalford, apparently driven out, and went to live in Leicester on Bedford Street. His younger brother, John, was a good thirteen years younger than Billy. He seems to have been the only vaguely respectable member of the family, and set himself up as a shoemaker. He married Ann Kettle in 1854. Peppermint Jack lived with John and Ann.

William’s sentence expired in early 1853, but he did not return to England until 1856, arriving in Leicester on 24th May. He turned up on his brother’s doorstep, and borrowed some clothes because John was ashamed of William’s post-convict appearance. William left the next day, travelling to Nottingham, where his sister lived. While there, he visited a watchmaker. He went back to his brother’s house on 29th May.

And promptly ran off with his sister-in-law.

Depending on who was telling the story, either Ann Brown left the house of her own accord, and William followed her to ‘keep her safe’, OR they left together. Over the next four days, William and Ann travelled to Quordon, Derby, Belper, Nottingham and Grantham. They separated at Retford on 5th May, and Ann went to Market Overton to see her ailing mother. William’s whereabouts are unknown for the next seven days.

On 12th June, he rolled back into his brother’s house as though nothing had happened, but his brother was livid. They had a fight, and John threatened to stab his brother if it transpired he’d had sex with Ann. In response, William pulled a gun. He claimed that he’d bought the gun in Nottingham, but it was of Australian make so it’s more likely that he brought it back with him. Once the fracas had calmed, John and William discussed and examined the gun. They appear to have stayed in the house for four days, and then separated. John went to Market Overton to collect his wife.

William ended up in Scalford, his childhood home, on 16th June. He went to visit his old nurse, Amy Moore, and got her son, the village baker, to put him up for a couple of days. He began to scout out the village. His target was Ned Woodcock, the keeper of the tollgate between Scalford and Melton Mowbray. William went to see Ned when he arrived in Scalford, and was told to clear off. Whether it was this apparent insult or money that motivated his actions is unclear.

On 18th June, William did some work in a field between the village and tollhouse and claimed he would sleep in the hovel on the field.

At 2am, a man heard a gun go off near the tollhouse, but assumed it was the gamekeeper (or a poacher) and decided to ignore it. An error, but perhaps one that saved his life.

The gunshot was not a gamekeeper or a poacher. It was William. The exact circumstances of the murder are obscure, as they often are, but it appears that William knocked on the door of the tollhouse, and shot Ned Woodcock in the chest when he answered. Ned was seventy years old, but he fought back. One doctor estimated that the eleven stab wounds inflicted on Ned would have taken fifteen minutes to do, so this was no brief or impulsive act. Ned bled to death.

James Woodcock slept at the tollhouse, although his home was in Melton, to keep his grandfather company. He must have been woken up by the fight, and hid under the covers of his bed. William went upstairs, and stabbed the parts of James protruding from the covers: his groin and abdomen. Then he cut his throat. It was the day before James’ tenth birthday.

Then, William took some money and fled. He did not ransack the house, perhaps because he was disturbed. He left the gun behind, and abandoned most of his torn up clothes in a ditch near the tollhouse. He was seen in Harby by 6am.

The bodies were discovered at 4:20am and a manhunt ensued. William was found in Wetherby, eighty-seven miles away, on the evening of Sunday 22nd June, some three days later. He went to a pub looking for lodging, and the landlord was automatically suspicious of this southerner. William had four and a half sovereigns, some change, some clean razors and a bunch of religious texts, cut from Methodist periodicals. They were about repentance.

William was collected by Melton Mowbray’s police early on Monday morning, and taken back to Melton by train. The platforms were absolutely seething with furious people, and William was taken from station to gaol by omnibus to stop him from being lynched. He appeared in the magistrate’s court at lunchtime, unbelievable speed considering he woke up in Wetherby.

William captivated the local court journalist:

Public expectation might have looking for a man of sinister visage, of dark and furtive eye, of morose expression, of “villainous low forehead” in the prisoner but if such an expectation were entertained none was more completely falsified. Instead of such a person as that here pictured, a man not looking more than thirty years of age; a little above the middle stature ; with a fair and soft face, his cheeks embrowned by exposure to the sun of a warm climate; his light brown hair falling naturally and plentifully on the left side of a face, long and narrow, from which projects a very prominent straight nose – the only peculiarity in the features being in the right eye, which seems partially closed (though the other of deep blue has meaning enough); his chin being habitually thrown forward, - confronted the magistrates with an unabashed countenance, on which a good-natured simper frequently mantled […] In fact, he might be taken for a comely rustic – a Colin of the dale – by most people who passed him on the high road to market or fair: certainly not for the perpetrator of mediated and midnight murder.

He conducted his own defence, which speaks to his self-confidence, but this had not historically gone well and this was no different. He attempted to prove that he could not have killed the Woodcocks because he was on the road to Nottingham at the time! He flirted, joked and leered, cross-examining every witness to ask whether they knew him to be violent. He only became serious when his abandoned clothing was produced. When he was examined, his alibi fell apart and he was committed for assize trial, on two charges of murder.

William was much quieter and calmer when he appeared in the dock in Leicester on 11th July. Human skin and blood was found on his abandoned trousers, and although forensics was nowhere near advanced enough to make a link to the Woodcocks, it was suspicious. The watchmaker of Nottingham testified to seeing the small tobacco stopper found at the crime scene among William’s possessions two weeks before the murder. And, of course, the gun. There was plenty of evidence to place William at the scene of the murder.

The jury did not leave the court to deliberate. They barely conferred. A guilty verdict was returned within one minute. The judge donned his black cap and sentenced William to death, and asked him if he had anything to say. Of course he did…

“It’s all spite and malice. I can die happy and cheerful, for the Lord has always looked upon me, and I have no doubt he will again. I don’t blame these gentlemen, nor you Sir, but never mind. It’s all spite and malice. I am innocent as a newborn child.”

Seventy local gentlemen on William’s behalf attempted to raise an insanity plea, claiming he had been mad since childhood, was known as “Silly Billy”, and had spent time in an asylum in Tasmania. This was to no avail, and the Home Secretary refused to hear evidence from a doctor that knew William in Tasmania. The prison doctors found him sane, but ‘extraordinary’.

William refused to confess, writing to his brother claiming innocence and citing the Bible. The prison staff attempted to elicit a confession using increasingly bizarre methods. On 24th July, he was shown his own grave and told he would be denied burial rites if he did not confess. William threw the soil over himself, and recited the burial service. He was refused communion on the morning of his death, because he refused to confess.

His execution was scheduled for 9am on 25th July 1856. On the morning of his death, he ate well, and prayed (VERY LOUDLY) for some time. He asked for an hour to make a speech on the scaffold, and was accordingly taken out at 8am.

In the event, he bottled it. Thousands attended, with the most extravagant estimate being 25000 people pushing against the barrier. His father was in the pub opposite - The Turk’s Head - and waved a white handkerchief at his son as he went to the scaffold.

William’s execution was done quickly, without resistance or fuss. He died after a few minutes, and was buried within the prison walls.

I do not write these stories to give any insight into the mind of a murderer, but William’s case is unusual. He wasn’t known to be violent prior to the murders. He had an excellent knowledge of scripture, and was able to use his knowledge appropriately. He seems to have enjoyed reading: his earliest felony was to steal a religious magazine. He was very charming, and possessed of an unmerited self-confidence. He was thirty-seven, but appeared younger.

And he killed an old man and a child in a ferocious and prolonged attack, and simply refused to acknowledge what he had done. He carried newspaper clippings calling sinners to repent, but could not bring himself to do it.

Although this story has focused on William, it’s not William who we should remember. It’s little James Woodcock, eldest son of his parents. James Woodcock, happily going to stay with his grandfather every evening to keep him company on the lonely, and broken nights on the tollbar. James Woodcock, woken by the fight and killed for no reason other than his ability to identify his murderer, the day before his tenth birthday.

Edward Woodcock

(1786-1856)

James Woodcock

(1846-1856)