Ebeneezer Samuel Jenkins

Ebeneezer Samuel Jenkins, otherwise known as Wheatcroft was convicted of the murder of his fiancée at Godalming. Jenkins was an artist who rented a studio in the town. His fiancée had told him she wanted to end the relationship but they agreed to meet later that week on 7 January at the Three Crowns Inn, Godalming. After leaving the inn, they walked to his studio where she was found strangled the next morning after he had confessed to his crime. He left a note for his mother saying that he would never let his fiancée leave him, and when arrested he told detectives that he wanted to be buried next to her. Hanged by James Berry. who experimented at the execution when he stood Jenkins on the drop and strapped seven pound weights to each leg to compensate for the prisoner's small & light frame. The additional poundage allowed Berry to use a drop of six feet six inches which resulted in a satisfactory execution. This was the only time the procedure was adopted. The sentence was carried out on the 6th March 1889 in Wandsworth prison. Jenkins was only twenty years old when he died.