Edmund Reid

The murder house at No. 9 Adelphi Terrace [today No. 20 Grange Road]
as it stands today
There was dismay in Ramsgate when Mr Justice Grantham
and the Grand Jury threw out the bill against William Noel,
and the butcher was set free. Over £50 was subscribed to
a testimonial to Inspector Ross, who had been so severely
criticized by the judge. Local opinion was very much against
William Noel, and he never returned to Ramsgate: the
butcher’s shop was sold, and Noel’s name erased from the shop
front. Did Noel change his name to William Jolly, and did he
open another butcher’s shop in a different part of the country,
and marry another wife; on a quiet Sunday afternoon, did he
sit contentedly in his parlour, having a swig from his tankard
of beer, and giving the dog Nip a nice meaty bone? Or did
he become William Furtive, a Ramsgate Ahasverus wandering
from town to town pursued by his notoriety, accompanied only
by the Black Dog of Guilt; and was he fearful that his sinister
companion, the sole witness to the murder of Sarah Dinah
Noel, would one day become a formidable Dog of Montargis,
bent on vengeance for the dead, and devour him?
The evidence against William Noel for murdering his wife
largely rests on the persistent local gossip that he was a
philanderer who indulged in immoral conduct with various
floozies, behind the back of his wife. It may be speculated that he was tired of his much older spouse, and wanted to
get rid of her to be able to remarry and have children. Experienced policemen suspected that the burglary was staged,
and the dog Nip would not appear to have barked at the murderer, perhaps because it was his own master. And would a
burglar have shot the woman dead and allowed the large and powerful dog to live? In defence of William Noel, it must
be pointed out that he had a rock-solid alibi from 2.20 pm, when he was seen walking to the Sunday school, until 3.55
pm, when he was seen returning to No. 9 Adelphi Terrace. If the woman Sarah Dyer, who claimed to have heard the
dog growling and barking at 2.45 pm, and then the report of a shot, was telling the truth, then Noel must be innocent.
Noel did not have a criminal record, he had no access to firearms, and he was not taken in any lie or contradiction by
the police. And what kind of hypocrite would murder his wife in cold blood,
before going to the Sunday school to disseminate his unctuous sentiments
to the wide-eyed scholars? The evidence against William Noel was clearly
not sufficient for him to have been found guilty in a court of law, and Mr
Justice Grantham did the right thing when he threw out the bill against him.
The forthright Judge was also right to criticize the Ramsgate police, who
made their minds up that Noel was guilty from an early stage, and failed
to investigate alternative suspects; quite inexperienced when it came to
investigating mysterious murders, they would have been well advised to
apply for an experienced Scotland Yard detective for assistance.
According to Ramsgate directories from the 1880s, Adelphi Terrace had
originally been a terrace of eight Victorian houses in Grange Road, between
St Mildred’s Road and Edith Road, with shops on the ground floor and two
upper stories. Separated from the others by a small alleyway, No. 9 and
No. 10 were later additions. The houses were later incorporated into the
numbering system for Grange Road, No. 9 Adelphi Terrace becoming No. 20
Grange Road. The former butcher’s shop is today the ‘China City’ takeaway,
but the building looks virtually unchanged since 1893, except that the side
door has been moved to the rear extension. At the bottom of the yard
behind the house, William Noel’s stables still remain, albeit in a dilapidated
condition. 2
2 P MacDougall, Murder and Mystery in Kent (London 1995), 59-84;
contemporary newspapers.
Noel’s stables at the rear of No. 20 Grange Road
Ripperologist 147 December 2015 35