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THE ROAD HILL HOUSE MURDER

26 April 1865

Yesterday afternoon Sir Thomas Henry, the chief magistrate of Bow-street, received information that Miss Constance Kent, formerly of Road-hill-house, near Frome, had arrived in London from Brighton for the purpose of surrendering herself to the officers of justice as the perpetrator of the above memorable crime.

The circumstances of this mysterious murder have never been forgotten, – how, nearly five years ago, the body of a male child, which had been missed from its cot, was found in a privy outside the house, and how, suspicion having been directed towards Miss Kent, the eldest daughter of Mr. Kent by a former wife, she was examined before the local magistrates, at the instigation of Inspectors Whicher and Williamson, of the London Detective Police, and acquitted of the charge. It is hardly a secret that nearly a year afterwards, in consequence of an alleged confession of the crime by Miss Kent to one of her relatives; another attempt to investigate the matter was made by the detective officers, who had incurred the censure of a large proportion of the press and the public for their proceedings in the case. They found it unadvisable, however, to act upon the fresh information which had reached them, and it subsequently transpired that Miss Kent had been sent to a convent in France. Nothing more of a reliable character was heard of the case until yesterday, when the startling intimation was conveyed to the chief magistrate that Miss Kent was in custody upon her own confession upon the terrible charge, having been accompanied to London by the Rev. Mr. Wagner, of St. Paul’s, Brighton, to whom she had revealed her guilt.

Shortly before 4 o’clock Mr. Superintendent Durkin and Mr. Williamson, chief inspector of the Detective force, conducted their prisoner to the private room of Sir Thomas Henry. Miss Kent was attired in deep mourning, and wore a thick fall, which almost screened her face from view. She is slender, and much taller than she appeared to be when before in the custody of the officers. She spoke firmly, though sadly, and occupied a seat during the inquiry. She was attended by the Lady Superior of St. Mary’s Hospital, Brighton, in which establishment she had been a visitor during the last two years, and she appeared about 21 years of age.

In 1860, Britain had been transfixed by the investigation of the murder of three-year-old Saville Kent, whose body had been found with his throat cut in the outdoor privy of his well-to-do family’s house in Wiltshire.

The suspicions of the detective in charge of the case, Jack Whicher, had centred on the child’s half-sister, Constance, who was 16 and thought to be angry that her father had remarried. The public, however, and indeed newspapers such as The Times, thought that the police’s ideas were driven by class prejudice. Scotland Yard was forced to call off the inquiry and Whicher’s reputation never recovered. The events inspired books by Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins.

Constance Kent was sent to France, but in 1865 she told a clergyman, Arthur Wagner, that she had committed the crime. Although many had doubts about the validity of her confession, she was sentenced to death, but this was commuted to life imprisonment. After her release in 1885, she emigrated to Australia, where she died aged 100 in 1944.