Edmund Reid

As for murder house detection aspects on the fivefold murderer
Stephen Forwood, the complete address of the Star Coffee-
House in Red Lion Street was not published in the contemporary
newspapers. The keeper of the coffee-house was named as Mr
Henry Clifford, however, and a person of that name is listed as
the proprietor of “coffee rooms, 21 Red Lion Street” in the 1865
Post Office Directory of London. The police file on the Forwood
case verifies this address. There are some remaining Georgian
houses in Red Lion Street, but alas! the murder house has gone,
buried underneath a large modern monstrosity. Nos. 25, 26 and
27 Red Lion Street survive in good order, and they probably give
an idea of what the old coffee-house at No. 21 once looked like.
Having narrowly failed to add a historic Holborn house to the
still standing Murder Houses of London, it was time to follow in
the footsteps of Stephen Forwood, and board the fast train to
Ramsgate from St Pancras, to ‘detect’ the murder house there.
There has been discord among earlier writers concerning the
situation of the Forwood murder house in King Street, Ramsgate.
Mr Roy Ingleton, in Kent Murder & Mayhem, puts it at No. 77
King Street, and reproduces a photograph of the ramshackle
old house. Mr Martin Charlton, who wrote about the Ramsgate
mass murderer in Bygone Kent magazine of 2010, put the murder
house at No. 61 King Street, although he changed the number to
No. 38 in a later Internet account. The number of the Ramsgate
murder house is not recorded in the Stephen Forwood police file,
but two independent contemporary newspaper accounts put it The late Victorian house at No. 38 King Street, Ramsgate
at No. 38 King Street. There is a No. 38 King Street today, with
the ‘Super King Pizza’ fast food outlet on the ground floor, and
two upper floors. It looks rather late Victorian in character, however, and it is very questionable whether it represents
the proper murder house from 1865, particularly since King Street has some houses that are undoubtedly Georgian in
character.
The Ramsgate Mystery, 1893
William Noel was born in 1860 and became a journeyman butcher in Whitechapel, before moving on to Southsea.
Here he met Miss Sarah Dinah Saunders, a woman of independent means who ran a lodging-house. Although Sarah Dinah
was ten years older than the sturdy, bearded young butcher, they began ‘walking out’, and married in 1878. After some
debate whether to stay in Southsea, or perhaps move to London, Noel made use of his wife’s money to purchase a
butcher’s shop at No. 9 Adelphi Terrace, Grange Road, Ramsgate. The butcher’s shop had a large display window to the
front, and a smaller window to an alley on the side. Behind the shop was a small sitting room, with a door to the side,
and another door to the kitchen and scullery. A small yard separated the house from the stables and workshops where
Noel and his assistants butchered various animals, and prepared their meat for sale.
Initially, William Noel’s butcher’s shop met with difficulties, and he had to borrow £150 from his wife’s father to keep
it running. A steady, industrious man, Noel worked hard to make his business a success, travelling into the countryside
to buy livestock, and employing two journeymen and a lad. The borrowed £150 was soon repaid, and Noel was able to
save some money. The two Noels were very respectable people, and pillars of Ramsgate lower-middle-class society. They
were strict Wesleyans, and active members of their church community. There was of course gossip about this out-oftown
childless couple, with the husband being ten years younger than the wife, but although mischievous people were
whispering that William Noel was fond of chasing the country lasses when he was out buying livestock, the two Noels
appeared to be getting along perfectly well.
On the afternoon of Sunday, 14 May 1893, everything seemed perfectly normal in the Noel household. After having
had his luncheon, William Noel sat in the downstairs parlour and read through the lessons, since he was a society steward
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