garyd.widdington - Murder in the Village

Trial of John Pallett,

For the Murder of

James Mumford

1823

The Following is the Voluntary confession, which he made to his attendants on the eve of his execution

Coach and Horses Tavern Quendon 1823

8^th December, 1823 between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, the Walden coach from London, drove up to the Coach and Horses Tavern in Quendon, where Pallet had spent the afternoon drinking, in the company of Mr Kidman.

Mr Mumford who was an outside passenger, unfortunately decided to disembark and travel to Widdington by foot.

I have drawn the Coach & Horses public house as I think it could have looked like in the 1820s, it was subsequently renamed The Quendon Arms and is now a private house.

Up until the 1750s London was predominantly the central hub of the stagecoach services, within ten years the number of provincial links had increased dramatically. Stagecoach services were operating between most major towns and cities.

After 1702, when the role of Turnpike Trusts was fully implemented, roads improve sufficiently to allow faster and slightly more comfortable travel. Throughout the 1700s stagecoach design improved dramatically and by the end of that century different construction methods had turned these vehicles into robust and practical carriers of people. Stagecoach drivers, renowned for their superb horsemanship, soon became masters of the road.
However, not until the early 1800s when road-builders Metcalf, Telford and Macadam had improved the highways beyond all recognition, did travel become ‘almost’ pleasurable. Combined with the addition of suspension in the form of a C-spring, and later the elliptic spring, coaches were able to attain speeds of up to 10 mph cutting journey times by hours and in some cases days. in 1750 what had been a two-day journey from London to Cambridge (61 miles) was now possible in just seven hours by 1820.

James Mumford

James Mumford, was buried on the Sunday 14^th December 1823 in Widdington church yard

A Sermon, delivered at the Upper Meeting, Saffron Walden on Sabbath Evening. December 21st, 1823 ... in consequence of the melancholy, wilful, and cruel murder of Mr. James Mumford