Murder Most Foul – July 2018

60 Murder Most Foul Irene,16, Found In A Trunk

FROM ROTHERHAM

A younger picture of Irene Hartley

• cinema visit enraged her uncle

How a hero turned killer and

a man with many names met

his end on the gallows

IRENE, 16,

FOUND IN

A TRUNK

I

N ROTHERHAM he was William

Smith, in Liverpool he was Arthur

Wilson, and in Nottingham he

was known by his real name, Andrew

Bagley. But wherever he went and

whatever name he used, Bagley was

considered a well-educated man

from a working-class background, a

prolific writer of short stories and an

accomplished musician.

He had also proved himself capable

of the highest heroism – in the late

1920s he was awarded the Royal

Humane Society’s silver medal for

risking his life to rescue his mates,

who were trapped when a slag-heap

collapsed at Rotherham’s Holmes Mills.

Yet Andrew Bagley was afraid of being

arrested for debt: hence his aliases.

It was his wife’s death in October

1932 that turned his life upside down

and made him a fugitive. She died

owing around £80, and Bagley refused

Case recalled by

JOHN

BROWNELL

to accept responsibility for her debts.
He had more than £500 in cash, but he
refused to pay his wife’s creditors, and
went on the run, moving around the
country using his various aliases.
He had a handicapped son named
Ambrose, to whom he was devoted.
Ambrose lived in Rotherham with
his married sister and brother-in-law,
Mr. and Mrs.Walter Hart, and their
16-year-old daughter Irene.
The Harts’ home was a two-up,
two-down terraced cottage in
Hartington Road, and it became even
more crowded when Bagley moved in
one night in August 1936. He was still
on the run from his creditors, and he
never left the house in daylight.When

anyone called he hid upstairs in a

cupboard.

On August 29th Irene went to

a cinema with Harold Hart, her

22-year-old uncle, and another young

man. On their return Bagley made a

great scene, saying it was outrageous for

one girl to go out with two boys. Irene

was his girl, he said, and no one else’s.

It was not the first time he had referred

to his granddaughter as his girl, but

nobody thought anything of it.

A

t 9.30 on the morning of Saturday,

September 12th, Mrs. Hart went

out, leaving Bagley and Irene in the

kitchen. Ambrose was in bed asleep.

When Mrs. Hart returned at 11.15

laden with shopping, Bagley was alone,

and she saw he was dressed as if to go

out.

“Where’s our Irene?” she questioned

him.

“You might well ask,” Bagley replied.

“I gave her a pound note and sent

her to the Cosy Corner Shop, and she

hasn’t come back. I told you that the

first chance she got she would go off.

Andrew Bagley won a heroism

award for saving his fellow workers