Esther Swinford – victim of a shooting tragedy

The re-imagined story …

Esther Swinford published courtesy of James Turner and Local Studies, Swindon Central Library

‘I watched him enter the pub from my seat beside the fireplace.  What did she see in him?  My sister said he was handsome in a dark and brooding fashion and that I was jealous.

She read too many romantic novels.  Where she saw dark and brooding I saw surly and ill tempered, but she was right about one thing; I was jealous.

I was in love with Hetty and had been for several years, since she first began working at The Ship. She was pretty and vivacious with a kind word for everyone.  Mr Matthews said she was one of the best barmaids he had ever employed.  She was like one of the family, he used to say.

I watched Palmer walk over to the bar.  He looked furtively around the near empty pub.  I inclined my head in acknowledgement.  I didn’t want to encourage him over to the vacant seat beside me.

I hadn’t seen him in many months.  Rumour had it that he had left for Canada nursing a broken heart after Hetty broke off their engagement.

My sister said she’d heard he’d spent Hetty’s savings, all the money she had put away for their future home together, on other pastimes.

But he was obviously back now.

I watched as Hetty appeared behind the bar.  She seemed unsurprised to see him and welcomed him with a polite smile, the smile she showed all her customers, the smile she always gave me.  Nothing special.

He ordered a bottle of Bass and a cigar.   She placed his drink in front of him and went out the back to get the cigar.

I watched as they exchanged a few words.  I couldn’t hear what was said, but suddenly I noticed her expression change.  The sound of the gunshot reverberated around the pub.  He placed the gun on the bar.

I watched as he took a long, slow draught of beer.  He lit his cigar and enjoyed a leisurely smoke while all hell broke out around him.

After his arrest they found a photograph of Hetty in his pocket.  He had written across the bottom ‘the curse of my life.’

The Ship Inn, Westcott Place published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library

The facts …

Esther, also known as Hester or Hetty, was born in Fairford, Gloustershire in 1883, the daughter of farm labourer Edwin Swinford and his wife Alice. By 1901 she had moved to Swindon where she worked as a barmaid at the Ship Inn for Mrs Isabella Groves. The following year the widowed Mrs Groves married Walter Ernest Matthews and together they continued to run the large establishment in Westcott Place.

It was Mr Matthews who paid for the funeral expenses while local people donated towards a memorial. A large cross stands on Hetty’s grave.  The inscription reads:

In Memory of Esther Swinford who was the victim of the shooting tragedy in Swindon on Sep 18^th 1903.  Aged 19 years

“In the midst of life we are in death.”

Cut into the stone is a cascade of passion flowers.  Is this how Hetty’s death should be remembered, as a crime of passion, like something out of a romantic novel?

Hetty’s funeral took place on September 22.  She was buried in plot A760 which she shares with one other who died in 1889; a railwayman by the name of George Frederick Palmer, could this just be a macabre coincidence?

Edward Richard Palmer hanged for the crime on November 17, 1903 in Devizes gaol.

The memorial was repaired and restored in 2009 by Highworth Memorials after a project by James Turner.