By Bernard Phillips
There used to hang on the wall of Barclays Bank in Fakenham a
display case containing a pair of antique pistols and a vicious-looking blunderbuss with
an attached bayonet.
The weapons in the showcase
Bank tradition has it that the pistols were used by an 18th century
highwayman to rob and kill a gold-carrying bank messenger, John Raven of Burnham
Market. The highwayman was then killed by a guard armed with the blunderbuss.
As so often happens, tradition is only partially correct. On a
tomb to the south of Burnham Westgate Church is the following inscription:
IN MEMORY OF JOHN RAVEN
Who departed this life 1 March 1786, aged 59 years
Careful and Industrious, in his dealings just,
True to his friends and faithful to his trust,
He fell a victim to a man of wicked mind
Who shot him and his life he quick resigned.
He was a tender father, to his children dear.
One of the best of husbands now alas lies here. |
John Raven's Grave
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The local papers of the time contain a full version of
the grim story. John Raven was the Burnham carrier who, according to the Mercury,
"had conducted his business for many years with singular punctuality and maintained
in all respects the fairest and most irreproachable character".
His regularity may have been his doom. Every Tuesday morning at
five o'clock, he left Burnham for Norwich. In spite of the snow on the ground, the
last day of February 1786 was no exception. He was no more than a mile or so out of
Burnham, at the top of the hill on the road to Creak, when a figure loomed out of the
darkness beside his covered carrier's cart. There was no challenge. Instead,
two shots were fired and John Raven lay fatally wounded in his thigh. His assailant,
seeing that his victim had not died immediately, ran away across the fields. John
Raven drove on to North Creak for help. He was taken back to Burnham where he died
early on March 1st. He had identified his murderer and a hue-and-cry had been
called.
Behind the hedge where the attack had taken place, a power horn and a
coat were found. In the snow was a clear set of footprints with a distinctive
pattern of nails. They led across the fields to Docking, to the Hare Inn where John
Shilling, a notorious ne'er-do-well from South Creake, had spent the night in the stable.
An ostler at the Inn said he had seen Shilling in the inn yard at seven
that morning; shot in Shilling's pocket matched that extracted from Raven's leg; the
coat, powder horn and footprints in the snow were his; the previous summer he had
been committed for trial on a capital charge but acquitted for lack of evidence;
above all, there was the dead carrier's damning identification.
A coroner's jury returned the inevitable verdict. Shilling was
committed to Norwich Castle to await trial at Thetford Assizes. There, his defence
costs were met by the local clergyman, a Dr. Pointz, who had led the hue-and-cry to
Docking but was anxious to make sure that Shilling had a fair trial. Did he,
perhaps, have doubts about the extra-ordinarily convenient circumstantial evidence?
After a trial lasting seven hours, Shilling was found guilty and
executed on Castle Hill on March 25th. He admitted that he had led a wicked life,
but denied the Raven murder to the end.
A week after the execution, the Norfolk Chronicle printed a curious
item: "We are happy to hear that the report which prevailed last week in
Norwich (and which was currently believed) that the ostler who gave evidence against
Shilling was guilty of the murder for which Shilling was executed, is entirely void of
foundation.
However, one aspect of the case remains puzzling; what was the
motive? Nowhere in the contemporary reports is there the slightest hint that John
Raven was a bank messenger carrying gold. He was certainly alone and unarmed.
Shilling had a bad reputation. Was his name originally spelt Schilling? Was
there perhaps a connection with the smuggling which was rife at the time?
For it is intriguing to learn that John Raven's daughter had recently
married the local excise officer, Law Simms. Was there some connection here?
Was Raven carrying contraband? Certainly, Parson Woodford of Weston Longville on the
route to Norwich, used to buy smuggled goods from the local carriers and think nothing of
it. Had Raven been associated with the smugglers? Perhaps it was a settling of
accounts between rival gangs? Was Raven's son-in-law involved? The questions
are endless and, two hundred years later, unanswerable.
Where the gibbet is said to have been placed and not far
away from where the murder took place on the Burnham to Creake road
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Whatever his motive, Shilling was cut down and
taken inside Norwich Castle to be placed in irons. Many people came to see the
grisly object before it was taken back to North Norfolk to be hung from a gibbet beside
the Burnham to Creake Road. How long it hung there is uncertain, but the place is still
called 'Shilling's Piece' beside the bleak highway where the winds sweep in from the
North Sea. |
The story of John Raven's daughter and son-in-law and
of their descendants is dramatic and intriguing. It is told on other of these
pages.
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