Who murdered Great Yarmouth's Harriet Candler?

Harriet died an unimaginably horrible death on a cold winter night in 1844 - her head caved in with a blunt object, her throat slit twice while still alive - but doubts have been cast over the conviction of Samuel Yarham, who hanged for her murder in April 1846.

The rubbernecking public circus outside Norwich Castle saw 800 people alone travel to Norwich from Wymondham to watch Yarham hang, many sitting in bullock trucks in order to take their place in front of the hill to see the condemned swing.

It was so shocking that afterwards, a public meeting was held at St Andrew’s Hall by the Mayor, who said Norwich would petition Parliament for the abolition of capital punishment.

But we are ahead of ourselves: at the beginning of this sorry tale is poor Harriet Candler, a 43-year-old-widow who ran a grocery shop on the corner of Row 152 and Howard Street, demolished in 1971.

She shared the building with attorney-at-law William Catchpole who lived above the shop on an upper floor while his housekeeper, Sarah Yarham, lived in rooms next to and below him with shoemaker husband Samuel.

When police constable Samuel Waller and William Johnson went to check the shutters on the shop, as they did nightly, they noticed the folding door of the building was ajar.

It was the early hours of a cold November night and an open door was an invitation to burglars: gingerly, the men pushed open the door and then lit a candle to light their way. 

At first, they saw nothing in the gloom and made their way towards a partition behind which was Harriet’s sleeping quarters: her bed had not been slept in.

They searched the back yard and were preparing to shut the door and leave when Constable Johnson had the terrible realisation that he was standing in something sticky: blood.

Peering closer, the scene before him was one of pure horror: there, hunched beneath the counter, was Harriet Candler, her head smashed and her throat slit.

Next to her was an empty drawer used as a till and a bloodstained towel which looked as if someone – presumably her murderer – had wiped their hands.

Johnson ran to the police station, then at Yarmouth’s Town Hall, and fetched Sergeant John Willamant, who in turn called for Superintendent Benjamin Love, surgeon Harry Worship, the mayor and the deputy coroner.

Back at the scene and working in the dead of night, the team found a bloody knife – later identified as the victim’s own lard knife – close to the body.

The surgeon examined Harriet’s body: his findings were grim.

Her skull had been fractured with ferocious blows to both the front and back, her throat had been slit with two brutal slashes and one of her forefingers had been sliced off – tragically, it seems, as she had fought for her life.

Incredibly, Catchpole and the Yarhams didn’t wake during the commotion and had to be roused by continual ringing of the shop bell.

Yarham told police he had been tending his ill wife, Catchpole that his guard dog had been suspiciously quiet during the night and that he suspected it could have been poisoned.

As the pale winter sun rose, it became very clear that something dreadful had happened on Howard Street and speculation began to spread like wildfire around the town.

Gathering evidence, the police discovered that Harriet had recently received a large legacy of £100 in cheque form and £50 in bank notes, but further investigation of the shop revealed the cash was still on the premises, in a drawer.

Meanwhile, as she walked with her husband and daughter in the dunes just hours after the murder, Sarah Dick saw footprints leading to a disturbed area of sand where it looked as if something had been buried: there, she found a buried canvas bag and in it, Harriet Candler’s purse and some gold, silver and copper coins.

As she dug, she was watched by a man, Robert Royal, who helped bring the haul to the police, having aroused suspicion by muttering about a lost cheque.

Royal was promptly arrested, alongside friends Jeremiah Cooper, James ‘Jigger’ Hall and James Hubbard. Meanwhile, following a ‘confession’ to Sarah Dicks later in the day and an identification by a chimney sweep’s boy, Samuel Yarham’s name was being linked to the murder.

James Mapes, known to police, was also arrested having failed to come home on the night of the murder. Samuel Yarham, his mother and sister were also taken in for questioning.

Turning Queen’s Evidence, Yarham finally admitted he had heard and seen what had happened, but claimed he had not killed Harriet – he hoped this would save him from the scaffold and, for a while, this proved to be the case. 

In April 1845, three men - Royal, Mapes and Hall - were tried at Norwich Assizes for the murder, with Yarham as chief prosecution witness. All three were acquitted.

Sarah Dick, however, was to play another part in the saga when she said that Yarham had later made a full confession to her just before he left Yarmouth to start a new life in Gloucestershire.

Ignoring her husband’s plea to let sleeping dogs lie, Sarah went to the police and the Attorney General decreed that Yarham could be arrested and committed for trial.

In front of a crowded gallery in Norwich, Yarham was found guilty and sentenced to death: thrown into the cells at the Castle, he awaited his execution in April, as did thousands of keen onlookers, who planned a big day out to watch him hang.

Writing to wife Sarah from his cell, Yarham continued to protest his innocence, signing his letters from “your affectionate but unfortunate and innocent dying husband”.

When she visited him, he slipped her a piece of paper in which he outlined a plan to take his life before reaching the gallows, suggesting that she join him in a suicide pact: alarmed, she passed the paper to the authorities and the plan was thwarted.

It was widely expected that, due to the fact his conviction rested on the evidence of one woman, his sentence would be changed from the death penalty to a lengthy prison sentence. This did not happen.

On April 11, Tombland Fair Day, Samuel Yarham was hanged in front of a crowd of 30,000 – later, his body would be cut down and his face cast as a ‘death mask’ which can still be seen at Norwich Castle Museum.

A national report read: “All the roads leading into this city were crowded at a very early hour with vehicles of every description; and the number of pedestrians who flocked to witness this scene was greater than ever remembered on any similar occasion.

“The circumstances may, to a certain extent, be accounted for by the fact of Saturday being the second day of the fair, a market day and a day generally kept by the lower orders in this county as a holy day.”

Yarham spent the last five hours of his life with the Rev J Brown, prison chaplain, and at 12pm, “…the usual procession proceeded to the scaffold, and after a short space of time, the cap and rope having been adjusted, the fatal bolt was drawn and the soul of the culprit was in the presence of its Creator and Judge.”

Concerningly, the report adds: “From some cause or other, the muscular convulsions attendant upon violent deaths were unusually protracted.” Yarham’s death was not swift.

This was at the time when a slip knot was used rather than a noose – death did not come easily to those hanged, they would suffocate slowly, taking up to 20 minutes to die.

The report ended: “The above execution stands in one respect almost unparalleled in English history – that of a man being hanged for a murder after he had been allowed to give evidence against three supposed accomplices in the same offence.”

With all business suspended in Norwich while the hanging took place, the crowd on Castle Hill not only witnessed an execution, but also the circus that surrounded it: hawkers sold Penny Dreadfuls with lurid accounts of the murder and trial (“Young men all mend your ways, Lest like Yarham you may end your days”), vendors sold trinkets with Yarham’s face on and the pubs in the city were packed.

Following the execution, which was gleefully watched by Robert Royal and James Hall (they were later thrown out of pubs and told to go home), the city descended into drunken mayhem, as fights broke out and windows were smashed.

The Norfolk Annals of 1846 notes: “Owing to the scandalous character of the proceedings, a public meeting was held at St Andrew’s Hall on April 17th, under the presidency of the Mayor, when it was decided to petition Parliament for the abolition of capital punishment.”

It would be 22 years before public executions ended in Britain and 118 years before capital punishment ended, but while it was the end of this chapter of crime and punishment in the UK, 55 countries still have executions on their statue books.

In 2021, the BBC aired a programme – Murder, Mystery and My Family – in which the case against Samuel Yarham was revisited alongside his relative, Emmaline.

With the prosecution case resting largely on evidence of one witness who claimed Yarham had confessed, Emmaline suspected that her ancestor’s death could well have been a miscarriage of justice.