John Lee’s solicitor, Reginald Gwynne Templer, who is widely linked to the Babbacombe murder and suffering from a neuropsychiatric disorder affecting the brain and central nervous system, caused by syphilis infection, was reported to have been too ill to act properly for Lee’s trial in 1884. He carried on working for several years with the illness and was last reported […]
The News
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The events at the scaffold at Exeter in 1885 had created long lasting debate. A year after John Lee’s botched execution The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette – Saturday 06 March 1886 – had much to say. Scaffold Bungling It is a remarkable circumstance that, despite the extra attention given of late years to the subject of capital punishment, the cases […]
In 1907, no sooner had the prison gates closed behind him, John Lee, described by The Western Morning News as a “keen businessman”, struck a lucrative deal with Lloyd’s Weekly News to have his experiences (or at least his side of events) published to a hungry audience. The press were reporting that this fresh new Edwardian personality had sold the […]
Born 1855, F. G. Boughton’s police career lasted 31 years. Retired February 1913 whilst serving at Ashburton Devon, his penson was 60 16s 8d. He died Bishops Tawton, near Barnstable, Devon August 1924 “He shewed me his left arm. He said “Isn’t my arm bad” He said “I cut it in hitting the dining room window to let out the […]
In the 1920’s picture houses throughout the UK were packed nightly whilst showing the silent film of John Lee’s life. ‘The Man They Couldn’t Hang’ was an over dramatised, over-long kind of documentary displaying Lee’s side of events in his life. It featured his career in the Royal Navy, his life with Emma Keyse, events ‘below stairs, the murder (of […]
By the time John Lee was finally released from prison, he had become something of an Edwardian folk hero. Once the subject of morbid fascination, he now enjoyed a remarkable public rehabilitation—viewed by many as a wronged man, even a symbol of divine intervention. Clean-shaven, suited, and publicly repentant, Lee moved in circles where his infamy brought admiration rather than […]