Edward Pritchard

On 31 December 1886. factory clerk Henry Allen who was fourteen, called at the local bank to collect over one hundred pounds in wages. Twenty year old Edward Pritchard and a friend called Noyes had watched the young lad make the journey on several other occasions, and when he left the bank they followed him down a quiet street on a hired pony and trap. Later that day the boy's body was found battered to death and evidence soon led the police to Pritchard. The pony and trap was traced and police found bloodstains upon it. Witnesses also testified that they had heard the two men planning the robbery earlier in the day, and that Noyes was seen in the area before the murder. Noyes was tried as an accessory to murder and for robbery. Pritchard was tried for murder, convicted, and hanged by James Berry on 17 February 1887 in Gloucester.