The neighbours first discovered Elizabeth Wilson, her throat cut in the kitchen. Upstairs, George Chennel senior lay in his bed, his head nearly severed from his trunk. On a morning in November 1817, the house of George Chennel in Godalming became the scene of a double murder. His son, George Chennel the younger, and John Chalcraft, the household carter, were tried together at the Guildford Assizes on the 12th of August 1818.
The father was a prosperous currier, possessed of some property. Elizabeth Wilson, known to witnesses as “Bet,” had kept house for him as housekeeper for many years. George the younger customarily took his meals beneath his father’s roof, but rented his own lodgings in the town. Neighbours spoke of ill blood between them. Henry Causton recalled that the young man had wished his father dead; he had likewise heard him express a desire that the housekeeper be turned out of doors. These reported remarks preceded the murder, yet did not in themselves establish a motive. William Coombes, an ostler, recounted another conversation some months earlier: Chennel had said he would return to his father’s house to eat, but not to sleep, for Bet would know the hour of his coming. He was said to have added that he would not grieve to find her dead, nor would he peach upon her murderer. James Tidy, the keeper of the Richmond Arms, likewise maintained he had heard him wish the housekeeper dead. These utterances were retrospective testimonies; at the trial, however, they lent substance and colour to the enmities already described.
On the Monday evening, several townsfolk caught sight of the two men near the passage leading to the house. Charles Woods saw them in the alley near the kitchen door; passing twice, he believed he recognized them, still in the selfsame spot, by the glare from a baker’s shop opposite. William Stillwell saw Chalcraft making towards the house, with Sarah Hurst following behind him. The groom William Cooper observed them standing face to face in the street, both clad in smock-frocks. George Chennel also spent part of the evening at the Richmond Arms. According to the publican, he arrived at seven o’clock, stepped out at about nine, leaving his pipe upon the table, returned towards a quarter to ten, and departed at half-past eleven. Some days earlier, Chalcraft was said to have remarked to a wheelwright that an explosion louder than any yet known would soon be heard in Godalming; the phrase was produced at trial, though none could say what it portended. That very night, the witness William Cobely heard a sharp cry near the passage, followed by the sound of a fall. He perceived Chennel in the midst of the alley, speaking with a woman, but saw neither an entry into the house nor any blow struck.
Sarah Hurst related that Chalcraft had invited her, about five o’clock, to walk down into the town that evening. She met him shortly after nine, a few doors from the house; he then bid her keep watch over Chennel’s entry. She paced before the dwelling while he went within; she likewise saw George the younger go in. When Chalcraft came out, she heard a cry and asked him what they had done. According to her testimony, he replied: “We have done for both of them.” She saw blood upon his sleeves. On the morrow, he offered her four pounds to hold her tongue. She refused the money, declaring she would hear no more of the business.
Hurst was herself entangled in the secret she disclosed. In the witness-box, her part in watching the door and her initial silence were subjected to rigorous cross-examination. Her deposition was thus not that of an indifferent onlooker; it had to be weighed against the testimony placing both men near the house and the stain observed upon Chalcraft’s sleeve.
On the following morning, the testimonies once more converged upon the house. John Ourrington, a farm labourer in Chennel’s employ, arrived with the horses about half-past six. He found the stable door open and Chalcraft holding a grain sieve; he had never known it unfastened before the master was stirring. John Knight the younger arrived presently in the passage. Opening the kitchen door, he saw Wilson stretched upon the floor. Chalcraft hung back, declaring he could not go upstairs. When the alarm was raised, he already knew where both bodies lay: Bet in the kitchen, and the master above.
It was Chalcraft, moreover, who summoned John Earl, stating that the master was nowhere to be found, and that there was blood in the kitchen. Earl went in, discovered Wilson, and then went upstairs with other men to the elder Chennel’s bed. He came down and found George the younger near a door. When Earl informed him that his father was dead, Chennel cried out, “What is to be done?” and went upstairs to view the body. He sat down in the bedchamber, a handkerchief pressed to his face, uttering groans. Earl remained in the house for two or three hours thereafter.
On the Tuesday, George Austin perceived what appeared to be a stain of blood upon Chalcraft’s right sleeve. The carter still refused to look upon the bodies. On the following day, Austin returned with John Kean and Chalcraft, who was by then in custody. The carter consented to the visit on this occasion: he stepped over the housekeeper’s corpse and mounted the stairs. He then pretended never to have seen that room, nor to know which was his master’s bedchamber. The record contains no explanation offered by him regarding the stain.
The money discovered at Chennel’s lodgings was likewise the subject of testimony. A constable searched his room and found in a chest two bank notes and fourteen shillings; one of the notes appeared stained with blood. Allathorp, a shopman, identified the notes by the name of Mrs. Baker, which he had endorsed upon them. He stated that he had paid them to “Mr. Chennel” on the 4th of November. The record does not make clear which of the two men bearing that name was intended, nor how the mark came to be left upon the paper.
Chennel’s movements remained a matter of dispute. Johnstone related that he had accompanied him towards Hascombe on the Monday, and that the young man then had but two pence upon his person. His landlady, Elizabeth Stillwell, stated that she had not seen him on the Monday, but had heard him go out about ten o’clock in the morning; he did not return until after midnight, and was then five weeks in arrear with his rent. Other witnesses saw Chennel and Chalcraft near the house. Their statements juxtaposed routes and hours without fully accounting for every interval of the night.
At the Assizes, on the 12th of August 1818, the two men were indicted for the murder of George Chennel senior, and, upon a second bill, for that of Elizabeth Wilson. The indictment set forth that the skulls had been fractured with a hammer and the throats severed; no eyewitness had seen the deeds committed. Hurst recounted the order to watch the door, the cries, the marks of blood, and Chalcraft’s words. The defence dwelt upon her complicity in the concealment. The jury returned a verdict of guilty against both prisoners.
Chalcraft protested that he was as innocent as the child unborn; Chennel kept silence. Their families visited them on the 13th of August; they maintained their innocence throughout. On the following morning, two clergymen came to exhort them to confession. They still refused. Brought together in the same cell to receive the sacrament, they returned the same answer. After the service, the Reverend John West conversed with them alone. They wept at last, yet without confessing to the murders. On the 14th of August, they were hanged in a meadow to the north of Godalming, before a vast concourse of people that covered the neighbouring heights. To the very last, they protested against the verdict that had condemned them.