Florence Jackson

SO FAR: Grantham man Dick Rowland had seen action in the trenches from 1915 until 1918. Unlike his two brothers, he survived, but was wounded and gassed. Spring 1919 found him back in Grantham, aged 29, just another ex-soldier. He had, however, met and fallen for a Fulbeck girl, Florence Jackson. She was ten years his junior and there, I think, lay the problem. She was pretty, fun-loving and with no shortage of local suitors, not to mention dashing officer types from what was to become Royal Air Force College Cranwell. Florence’s mother thought Dick Rowland too old for her daughter, but she could never have envisaged the events of 31st May 1919. It was the day of Caythorpe Feast, an annual event always held on the last Sunday in May. Dick and Florence were there, with hundreds of other local people both young and old. Dick Rowland had become insanely jealous, and every smile or wave Florence gave to some other young man cut him to the quick. He was particularly vexed when Florence decided to share a fairground ride – the wooden swing-boats with some other chaps.

Sometime around 10.00pm, Dick and Florence decided to walk home to Fulbeck. That road, now the A607, was known as the Lincoln Road. Many other people were on that road, but they would have been spread out and it was very dark. I have no idea if there was a moon that night, but one man heard something in the darkness as he rode his bicycle up to Fulbeck. He was later to give evidence at a Coroner’s inquest. This a verbatim report from a local newspaper:

Richard James Nelson, dairyman, Welbourn, spoke of visiting Caythorpe feast on Saturday night last. He saw the deceased girl in the swing boats with a man called Edward Knights. He left the feast about 1045. When he had reached Gascoigne’s gate in the parish of Fulbeck a man called out to him:
“Chummy, stop!”
He stopped, and man who was a stranger asked him to fetch a motorcar from the top as there had been a nasty accident. Witness asked him what it was, and he said:
“A girl has tried to cut my throat and now she has cut her own.”
He noticed the man’s throat was cut and bleeding and he also saw the body of the girl lying on the ground just inside the gateway. Witness attempted to go through the gateway towards the girl. but the man pushed him away and told him to get on his bicycle and fetch a motor car. He then rode off for the police.

There is a horrible irony in that the next people to arrive at the scene were none other than Florence’s older sister and her young man.

Laura Emma Jackson, the deceased’s sister, a land worker employed at Fulbeck Heath, said on Saturday night she was at Caythorpe feast where she saw deceased with Dick Rowland who was courting her. They seemed alright together. Witness left the feast at 10:15 and walked towards home with Percy Graves, a friend. When they got to Gascoigne’s gate she saw a man standing there. He said,
“Mr, Mr, come and look what I have done.”
She told Graves not to go as the man was drunk, but the man came towards them holding out his hands and said,
“Is that Laura?”
Witness replied,
“Yes.”
And he then said,
“I am Dick – I have killed your Flo. Another man wanted her. I have tried to kill myself but could not. Go and tell them at home.”
Witness noticed that Roland had blood down the front of his clothing and was bleeding from the throat. She did not notice her sister. She went home and reported the matter to Mr Palethorpe. Rowland was not drunk but seemed to be rather excited. Witness was at the Grantham statute fair on 17th May with her sister and Rowland. Flo went to speak to some soldiers and Roland asked her to keep an eye on her and watch that she did not go with the soldiers. She told him not to be so silly and that she would not go. Rowland shook his head and remarked,
“Flo’s alright. If I don’t have her I will see no one else does.”
Flo was with the soldiers three or four minutes and then she rejoined Rowland and witness.

The Fulbeck Doctor also gave evidence at the inquest:

Dick Rowland was arrested for the murder of Florence Ann Jackson. The Coroner recommended that he be charged with murder and the case was sent to the Sleaford Magistrates who agreed, and arranged for Rowland to appear at the Summer Assizes in Lincoln. Rowland’s bizarre defence that somehow Florence had received her fatal wounds in some kind of struggle for the razor was abandoned, and his legal team asked for a postponement of the trial so that further investigations could be carried out into the man’s mental health. This delay was granted, and so it was that Dick Rowland appeared before the Lincoln jurors and judge Mr Justice Greer (left) in November 1919. He was found guilty and sentenced to death despite the jury recommending a merciful punishment. There was an immediate appeal against the death penalty, but that was thrown out, with the appeal judge famously opining that Rowland was no more mad than Othello,(the newspaper managing to mis-spell the village name, and relocate it to Essex}

So, Dick Rowland sat in his condemned cell awaiting his fate, probably unaware that he had been compared to one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragic characters. Othello, of course, racked with guilt, stabs himself, which is precisely what Rowland claimed he had tried to do on that fateful evening back in May, but he was to have better luck than the Moor.

In the event, it appears that Dick Rowland was released in April 1935. He married, and the records tell us that he died in Cleethorpes in 1954. Had he become unhinged by his wartime service, a victim of what we now call PTSD? Or had his own chilling words – ” If I don’t have her I will see no one else does.” become a dreadful deed? You must make up your own minds. Incidentally, the fatal spot where Florence died is still there for anyone wishing to stand and contemplate.

Incidentally, a local man, Jonathan Wilkinson has written a novel based on the events I have described. It is very well written, and focuses on what the author believes happened in the months and weeks leading up to Florence’s death. It is available from the Fulbeck Craft Centre (07410 968333)

I have been researching and writing about historic Lincolnshire murders for some years,and those wishing to find out more about our county’s macabre past should click this link

Fulbeck sits amid the hills and hollows of what is known as The Southern Lincolnshire Edge whose most obvious geological feature is the cliff-like ridge which is easy to see when driving along the A17 from Newark. Nearby Leadenham seems to perch on the very edge of this cliff. Fulbeck could almost be mistaken for a Cotswold village, with its abundance of limestone buildings, but most of that stone came from the quarries around Ancaster, just a few miles away. In 1919 the railway ran nearby and there was a station at Caythorpe. These days, the village is bisected by a very busy main road, the A607, which links Leicester and Lincoln. It was just beside this road that the tragedy of the title took place, but our story starts a few years earlier in Grantham, just over ten miles to the south.

The 1911 census shows that at 50 New Street, a tiny terraced house which still stands, lived the Rowland family.

There was another brother, Joseph William Rowland, but he had left to join the army, and in 1911 was overseas with 1st Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. By the time war broke out, he had married and was living in Portsmouth. The Rowland family was to pay a heavy price during that war. Both George Richard – known always as Dick – and brother John answered the call of King and Country. Dick joined the Lincolnshire Regiment but John, although he enlisted in Grantham, would go on to serve with The Seaforth Highlanders.

On 1st July 1916, Joseph Rowland was with the 2nd Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment facing the German front lines at Ovillers.

The story of that dreadful day is well known, and not strictly relevant to this story, but suffice it say that Joseph Rowland was one of the 20000 British men killed on that day. A letter would have been delivered to 50 New Street, Grantham, initially saying that Joseph was ‘missing’. Another letter would have followed saying that he was ‘missing, presumed dead’. His body was never found, and his name is one of the 72000 engraved on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.

Worse was to follow. Ever anxious to deliver the final crushing blow to the enemy, the British High Command devised yet another huge offensive to punch a hole in German lines. This was to be east of the city of Arras, 20 miles or so north of the Somme killing grounds. The offensive, more properly known as The First Battle of The Scarpe, began at Easter 1917, in a snow storm. Once again, a death notice would find its way to Grantham. This time, although it would have been of little consolation, a body was found and given a decent burial.

Dick returned to Grantham in late 1918, apparently unscathed, at least physically, but we know he had been in action since 1915, and had been both gassed and wounded. Once the euphoria at ‘beating the Hun’ had died away, there was little awaiting men like Dick Rowland in a country that should have been – but wasn’t – grateful. He managed to get work at Rustons in Grantham. On a side note, it is worth remembering that it was at the Ruston works in Lincoln that the first tanks were developed, as well as the iconic aircraft known as the Sopworth Camel.

Now, though, we must return to Fulbeck. Only a grainy newspaper image of Florence Jackson remains, but it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination to picture a pretty, round-faced girl with a confident gaze for the camera. Once again, the 1911 census is of service. She lived in Fulbeck with her family. Florence would not live to be noted in the 1921 survey. Opportunities for young women of humble birth in rural communities in those days were limited to farm work, or domestic service. There are suggestions that Florence has been in service at Barkston, or had returned to Fulstow in anticipation of a similar post. At some point she met Dick Rowland, and he was smitten, considering himself deeply in love. He was now 29, with a lifetime of horrors condensed into four years of hell on the Western Front, Florence was just 19, pretty, vibrant and untouched by the death and misery of The Great War.