Thomas Allen

Twenty Five year old Thomas Allen was a Zulu who had arrived in Swansea on a Cuban ship on which he served as a steward. On 10 February he called into the Gloucester Hotel, a dockside pub frequented by sailors, the landlord of which was Frederick Kent who was thirty eight. At 4am the next morning, the landlord's wife heard someone strike a match in their bedroom and woke her husband. Kent climbed from his bed and began to struggle with the intruder, who attacked him with a knife. His wife reached under the pillow for their revolver but hesitated to use the gun for fear of shooting her husband. She finally got the stranger in sight and shot him in the leg. He fled from the building, leaving Kent mortally wounded on the bedroom floor. Detectives found a sailor's cap which had been lost in the fracas. They soon traced it to Allen who was arrested when found hiding in the nearby docks. He was taken into custody after nearly being lynched by an angry public. It was alleged that he had hidden on the premises after closing time, and police suspected that he may have been guilty of other recent unsolved crimes in the area. He was hanged by James Berry in Swansea on the 10th April 1889.