The Maidstone Journal dated 31 May 1808 reported that the victim had been accompanied by George Holmden and Richard Keeys.
The Hever parish register records that he was buried by affidavit on 30 May 1808. This page of the burial register replaced the original which was heavily blotted and smudged. The same fate happens to the post 1812 register when the Rector does not complete entries. Reverend John Claus de Passow had become Rector in 1799 and this was his first burial of a murder victim although he was unfortunate in having to refer several deaths to the Kent Coroner see my blog about William Goodwin. my transcript of the hever Register of Burials is available at Kent Online Parish Clerks Hever Parish page and here.
John Humphrey Junior was a farmer, one of the farming family who farmed the largest farms on the Hever estate. Hever Castle was occupied by the Humphrey family and John Junior was amongst other families occupying the lodges and castle itself. He had been to market at Westerham and was returning home on a footpath when he was shot by his assailant.
The Coroner on this occasion held the hearing at Hever Castle.The verdict of the Coroner's Jury was that he had been murdered by "some person unknown" and it appears that despite rewards offered and reported in the Maidstone Journal and widely syndicated throughout England no evidence identified the murderer.
John Humphrey's widow remarried Henry Rowed on 18 November 1809 at Saint Botolph Bishopgate London. Suspiciously Henry Rowed was a farmer who took on her murdered husband's tenancy from 1809-1818. There are reports of a haunting at Hever Castle supposedly the widow of John Humphrey being haunted by him.
In the Hever archives there is a letter of 1898 alledging that the farmer who married her "knew more of the matter than he ought" and refers to an exorcism involving Red Sea water and candles by local clergy. This is the stuff of many old buildings in England and it no doubt interests visitors to Hever Castle and is an addition to the Castle history.
In the 1841 census Henry Rowed is farming at Hopkins near Dormansland Lingfield aged 70
Mary Rowed was buried at Hever on 22 December 1849 aged 78;she was resident at Lingfield Surrey at the time of her death. It appears her husband died in 1850. Both Mary and Henry indicated to the census enumerator that they were born in Surrey.
Was Henry Rowed a likely killer? He seems to have farmed elsewhere before and after his tenancy at Hever and apart from local gossip is there any suspicion about his suggested motive for killing in order to marry a widow. If he had been guilty of murder would he at the time of his wife's death have made arrangements for burial at Hever rather than Lingfield?
As so often "some person unknown" committed murder and was never discovered.
© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020
Brilliant! My husband is a direct descendant of John Humphrey and his wife Mary nee Dives.
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