The Death of Martha Sheward

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The picture above shows Norwich Cathedral. I was fortunate enough to work in the Cathedral Close for many years and it was so tranquil. Until I went out into the city of Norwich at lunch time you'd never have thought that there was a bustling city within a couple of hundred yards. But the area hadn't always been so tranquil. In the mid 19th century body parts were found strewn across the city . The police thought it had been done by medical students who had used a dead body for dissection and, having a very macabre senses of humour, had distributed the body parts hither and thither across the city. The police had no reason to believe that there had been foul play and nobody knew whose body it was until almost 20 years later. One of the main reasons the body wasn't identified was that no head was recovered. William Sheward. a tailor by trade, and his wife Martha lived in a terraced house in Tabernacle Street (now known as Bishopsgate) situated just behind the cathedral. Their marriage could, by no stretch of the imagination, be called happy. Eventually things came to a head; a row broke out. William's temper snapped and he cut Martha's throat. That day he had an interview for a job at Great Yarmouth some 20 or so miles away so, not wishing to miss the chance of securing a better job, he washed and dressed and left Martha laying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor. When William returned he was relieved to see that nobody had discovered Martha's body but now he had to think how to get rid of her. He decided the best way to do it was to cut her into pieces, boil her in a pot and then go out under cover of darkness with her remains in a bucket and scatter them around the city. This took longer than he'd imagined and, as the weather was warm, Martha's remains began to putrefy so he had to forego the boiling and just distribute the less than fresh body parts. William was worried that the neighbours may have noticed the smell and, not having seen Martha for several days, they may put two and two together. So William told them that Martha had left him. It was no surprise to them as they'd heard the arguments over the months so the crime remained unreported. Time passed and William, after several years, remarried and he and his wife took over a public house in Norwich. William could have got away with it but for some inexplicable reason on New Year's Day 1869 while he was on a trip to London he walked into a police station and confessed. Whether he was drunk or whether he was fed up with carrying the guilt we'll never know but he was tried and found guilty and was hanged at Norwich Prison on 20th April 1869. Martha's head was never recovered and I suspect some 150 years later its never likely to be.