In April 1850 a teenager was brutally murdered in Nunney. The case raised headlines across the country.
We’ll start at the beginning. The boy’s father, Joseph George, was born in 1802 in Chitterne, Wiltshire. Chitterne lies about 9 miles east of Warminster in the middle of the Salisbury Plain.
You drive through it if you take a shortcut from Warminster to Stonehenge and the A303. The village had 469 people, according to the 1801 census.
Joseph’s parents were Betty Sainsbury, age 40, and Thomas George, age 42. He was baptised at the 12th century font in All Saints Church, Chitterne. This is not the church you find in Chitterne today, for it was in such a poor state of repair that the church was rebuilt in 1863.