GEORGE HUTCHINSON

From the Casebooks of
a Murder House Detective
The Acton Atrocity, 1880
and
Charles Dickens and The Murder House in Chatham
By JAN BONDESON
The Acton Atrocity, 1880
Mr John Shepherd was a successful builder and house decorator, who employed several workmen. He lived at No. 3
Herbert Villas, Cowper Road, Acton, with his second wife, his young son, and his four daughters. The oldest daughter,
ten-year-old Ada, was reliable enough to take care of her younger sisters when this was required. On Friday, 22 October
1880, Mr Shepherd and his wife went to visit Mrs Shepherd’s mother, who lived at Norwood Junction. He brought with
him a large cheque for a house he had just sold, which he cashed in a bank on the way. Mrs Shepherd took the baby with
her, but Ada was instructed to take the other three children to Mrs Perry’s private school at No. 2 Churchfield Villas,
where they were pupils, and to give them their luncheon. George Pavey, a workman who had been in Mr Shepherd’s
employ for six months, was left in charge of the house, which doubled as Mr Shepherd’s office. Pavey was a ‘cripple’
affected with partial spastic paralysis in one arm and leg, and he was supposed to be very grateful to Mr Shepherd, who
had shown him much kindness in the past.
Just before two o’clock, the three
children came home to No. 3 Herbert
Villas, where Ada made sure they were
fed, before she escorted them back to
school. But when some customers of
Mr Shepherd came knocking at around
three and four, nobody answered the
door. When the little children arrived
home from school a little later, they
were equally surprised that Ada was
not there to let them in, and they went
off for a stroll. Mr and Mrs Shepherd
returned to the deserted house at half
past six in the evening, wondering
where Pavey and the children had
gone. In the back kitchen, Mr Shepherd
stumbled over a large object lying on
the floor. He gave a cry of horror when
he realized that it was the dead body of his daughter Ada, lying in a large pool of blood. Her face was covered with a
handkerchief.
The discovery of the murder of Ada Shepherd, with a view of the murder house,
from the Illustrated Police News, 6 November 1880
At first, the distraught Shepherds thought that their entire brood of children had been murdered, but the other three
eventually turned up, none the worse for their late-afternoon stroll. Police Constable Walter Millar, who had been on
patrol nearby when he heard an excited local shouting ‘All of Mr Shepherd’s children have been murdered!’ as he ran
along the pavement, went to Herbert Villas to investigate. He expressed relief when he saw the remaining children alive
and well, and then horror as he was confronted with Ada’s mangled corpse. The surgeon Mr Clement Murrell also arrived
and examined the blood-soaked corpse, declaring that Ada had been brutally ‘outraged’ [raped] and then deliberately
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