Kent Murders and Misdemeanours

Kent is the largest and most heavily populated of the home counties. It is a county of contrasts: in the north and west it borders London and its population there has moved to and from the metropolis for centuries, but it is also known for agricultural produce and heavy industries including coal mining, as well as historic towns and cities such as Canterbury. Kent’s history has been shaped by its extensive coastline and today people and goods still transit through the county from its chief port of Dover.

Kent was famous for the number of smuggling gangs who plied their trade on its coastline in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries including the Hawkhurst Gang and the Romney Marsh Gang. Other crimes included the Train Robbery of 1855 and an attack on Charles Dickens by two rogues in 1862. There are a number of infamous murders linked to the county, such as Alphege, Becket and Arden of Faversham, the latter made famous in the play of the same name. The nineteenth century saw the unsolved murder of the Bonars in Chislehurst, the cruel murder by neglect of a wife and child in the Cudham of 1877, the death of a soldier in Bossenden Woods by Mad Thom and the death by opium of Dr Lyddon in Faversham in 1890. The murder of Ightham’s Caroline Luard in 1908 remains unsolved and the 1946 Wrotham Hill murder still resonates today. In more recent times, the Krays spent time in Canterbury Prison and the notorious criminal and murderer Kenneth Noye lived in the county. Kent was also briefly the home of serial killer Peter Tobin.

This collection of true-life crime stories gives a vivid insight into life in Kent through the centuries to the present. This book will fascinate anyone with an interest in the history of crime as well as those who want to know more about the history of this county in the south-east of England.