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Edmund Hubert Wells

Age: 35

Sex: male

Date: 21 Feb 1920

Place: East Meon, Hampshire

The body of a nude man was found in a ploughed field at East Meon, Hampshire. He was identified three months later as Edmund Hubert Wells.

It was thought that he had died from exposure but there was the possibility that he had been robbed for his clothes.

Edmund Wells was a demobilised soldier and had been a baritone singer until October 1919 with a concert party appearing at the Clarence Pier in Southsea. At the time of his identification his wife and children were living in the Portsmouth Workhouse.

After October 1919 he had gone to London and then a few weeks before his body was found was said to have joined a company which was going on a tour in the West of England. After that the next that was known of him was when he was found dead in the field.

He was described before his identification was made as being about 35-40 years old, with curly auburn hair, very small ears, blue eyes, long lashes and was about 5ft.10in. tall.

The only clue was a track of foot prints made by bare feet in the soft ploughed land leading to the spot where he had dropped. The place was near a railway bridge crossing a road and the man had come from the direction of the bridge where a bloodstain was found on the brickwork. It was thought that he could have come from the directions of London, Portsmouth or Winchester.

A police theory was that he had been mentally ill and had risen from his bed and had thrown off his pyjamas and gone off into the dark although his feet did not suggest that he had walked far.

It was also suggested that he was the victim on a man that had been on the run from the police and who was suspected of several other murders across England, including that of Sidney Spicer, Frances Buxton, James Kelly, Nellie Rault, Reuben Mort, Gerald Griggs and Florence Shore and who was himself shot by the police in a shoot-out in Penrith.

It was thought that he had only been dead for two hours when found.

He was buried in East Meon churchyard.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Nottingham Evening Post - Wednesday 02 June 1920

see Sunday Post - Sunday 13 June 1920

see Derby Daily Telegraph - Wednesday 02 June 1920

see Gloucestershire Echo - Monday 19 April 1920