Enoch WADLEY 1861 - 1887 (General)

by slowhands , proud of his ancient Dean Forest roots, Monday, March 11, 2024, 12:51 (250 days ago) @ philrmoon11

"
Enoch WADLEY was born in 1861 in Herefordshire. At the age of 17 he enlisted in the 2nd Gloucestershire Regiment and was sent to India.
During the next nine years, he saw a lot of fighting and in January1887, he was taken to hospital in India and declared insane by the army surgeon K.M. O'Callighan. In March he was sent to Netley with a certificate saying that he was of an unsound mind and he had been eccentric for months. Dr Welsh of Netley hospital said he could not return to the service because he had been "affected with insanity", so he was discharged and sent home on the 7th June 1887."

On the 15th June 1887 he killed Elizabeth Hannah Evans after meeting her from her work in the barleyfields, and after a trial, was found guilty and sentenced to death.

"..... execution at Gloucester was that of Enoch Wadley on Monday the 28th of November 1887. 27 year old Wadley had murdered Elizabeth Evans – a girl of 18 who did not accept his romantic overtures. He had stabbed the poor girl some 40 times.
There was evidence of mental illness put forward at the first trial and the jury were unable to reach a verdict so a second trial took place where a new jury rejected the insanity argument and found Wadley guilty of the murder."

"A TEENAGER was stabbed to death by a discharged soldier in Herefordshire in 1887.

Hannah Evans was found dying in a ditch with stab wounds to her chest and her clothing disarranged in Much Marcle, near Ledbury, in June 1887.

A man named Enoch Wadley, who had recently been discharged from the army, and whose attentions Miss Evans was said to have refused, was arrested for the murder after he was seen running away from the spot where the 19-year-old was found.
Wadley, who was reported to be medically unfit for further service, had been visiting family in Kempley and had taken a trip to Bickerton Court Farm to see his brother's wife, who was weeding barley with the unfortunate Miss Evans.

He later told his sister-in-law he was going to walk Miss Evans home, and the pair were seen talking at around 6pm by a man named Mr Dyer, who was tending his sheep nearby.
But their chat soon turned to cries of distress, and as Mr Dyer rushed towards them he saw Wadley running away, while Miss Evans was in the ditch, bleeding from several terrible wounds.

She told Mr Dyer that 27-year-old Wadley had made improper proposals before stabbing her, leaving her with a deep wound across her face, another on her arm, and three or four across her chest, from which blood was reported to be rapidly flowing.

Mr Dyer placed her on his cart and took her to her parents' cottage, but she died from her wounds on the way.

Police found evidence of a struggle and blood at the scene, while Wadley's clothes were found in the garden of a house on the way to Dymock.

Wadley was arrested wearing the blood-saturated trousers he had been wearing at the time of the attack and carrying a pocket knife, and an inquest jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against him,

He was sentenced to death for the murder at Gloucestershire Assizes in November that year having been found guilty despite trying to claim insanity as a defence."

possible

First name(s) Enoch
Country England
Last name Wadly
Volume 6A
Birth quarter 2
Page 434
Birth year 1861
Record set England & Wales Births 1837-2006
Mother's maiden name -
Category Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records
District Ledbury
Subcategory Civil Births
County Herefordshire
Collections from

1871 Near Redlands, Much Marcle
James Wadley Head - Male 51 1820 Ag lab Upton Bishop, Herefordshire, England
Hannah Wadley Wife - Female 47 1824 - Upton Bishop, Herefordshire, England
Matthew Wadley Son - Male 11 1860 Ag lab Much Marcle, Herefordshire, England
Enoch Wadley Son - Male 9 1862 Scholar Much Marcle, Herefordshire, England

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