Schoolboy murdered in the street at Buntingford

London Daily News
19/10/1911

Dundee Chronicle 21/11/1911

Violent street crime is rare and when it happened in the past it was covered in newspapers all over country. Lisa is researching the Buntingford Tragedy back in 1911 for her father in law (Clive Hitch) as it was his uncle (George Hitch) which was murdered by a Mary Boddy.   She says she has some old news paper copy's of the little boy and his grave and would like to trace the originals of the photos, which will be far clearer.

Does anyone have any ideas as to where such pictures might have survived? The local papers, which may have included the pictures, are not yet on the British Newspaper Archive and even if they were the quality would not be very high.

Why Alice did not accompany Walter to Canada.

Just over a year ago Dennis asked about Walter Ginn and his wife Alice Barns, the parents of Olive Victoria Alice Ginn, born in 1891, and who ended up in the workhouse at Ware. He specifically asked "Would you have the date when Olive's mother and father immigrated to Canada." I pointed out that Walter seems to have gone on his own, and someone called Alice Ginn had died a few years previously.

Mike, who is researching the Ginn family in Hertfordshire (see his blog the blog www.Ginn-hertfordshire.blogspot.co.uk) has drawn my attention to a case history on the excellent Herts Past Policing web site.

A saying at the time was "A wife, a dog, and a walnut tree - the more you beat them the better they be." and clearly Walter hit Alice too hard ...The Policing web site quotes the contemporary newspaper accounts in detail and it would seem that both the all male coroner's jury, and the one trying Walter, took it for granted that a husband could normally hit his wife - and Walter was only convicted of unlawful wounding - despite the fact that the wound was fatal! As a result he had a comparatively minor sentence and went to Canada after being released from prison.

See my answer to Dennis's original question.