June 29, 2010 marks the 150th anniversary of one of the most notorious crimes in Victorian England, as described in the 2008 best seller The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
The book details the investigation into the murder of the youngest child of Samuel Saville Kent, factory inspector, and his wife Mary, at Road Hill House, Road, on the Somerset/Wiltshire border.
Denbighshire Record Office has mounted a small exhibition to commemorate the anniversary and to highlight Denbighshire’s connection with the Kent family in the aftermath of the crime.
The murder of Francis Saville Kent, aged four, who was abducted from his cot in the middle of the night, shocked and scandalised Victorian society, and caused a major sensation. Many celebrities, including Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, were intrigued by the crime and its aftermath, which helped to inspire the birth of the murder mystery genre.
The fact that the victim was a member of a respectable middle class family and that he had been taken from inside his securely locked, affluent home, meant that the murderer most likely was a member of the household.
Constance, one of the teenage daughters, eventually confessed to the crime and was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but the scandal meant that the family was forced to move and Samuel Saville Kent was offered the post of factory inspector at Llangollen. The family originally lived at Tower, just outside the town, and then after Mrs Kent died in 1866, Samuel moved with his children to Rhydycilgwyn Isa, Rhewl, between Ruthin and Denbigh, where he lived until his death in 1872. Both Samuel and Mary Kent are buried in the churchyard at Llangollen.
