Famous murderer in the family?

[NatashaBatsford]

I can promise that I will let you know everything I find out!!!

Once again, many thanks for helping me with this!!

Tash

[NatashaBatsford]

Hi

Well I haven't made any more direct connections, BUT, I have found something very interesting on a hotel website:

"For the past few hundred years, up until the beginning of this century, the Devils Punchbowl was occupied by squatters known locally as Broom Squires. The name came from the trade they monopolised – the making and selling of brooms.
For broom handles, they cut the Spanish chestnut, which grew abundantly in the coppices of the lower hills. To make the brush, they used birch twigs and heather stalks from the moors. Such was the reputed quality of these brooms that many householders bought them by the cartload to last the year. What the broom squires didn’t sell in the surrounding area, they took up to London on their carts to sell. Hardy, thrifty folk, they cultivated the upper slopes of the punchbowl and raised sheep, goats and cattle. They also gathered whortleberries (bilberries or Whurts) to sell in London for the dying of cloth.
Sadly, the arrival of the 20th century saw an end to their pioneering way of life. By the turn of the 1900's only eight squatter families were left, three named Boxall, three named Snelling and two named Nash."

So I'm now wondering, since 2 of the 3 surnames feature quite strongly in my tree, whether the Snelling connection is around the finding of the victim and/ or killers.

I have tried looking on the census returns for these families but with little luck.

Any ideas how to pin down squatters that lived in and around something like the devils's punchbowl?

[NatashaBatsford]

Anybody at all?

I have heard back from the local history society who seem to come to the same conclusion as I did.

Apparently there is reference to a certain "Staffie Snelling" who was in the Red Lion Pub when the murdered sailor encountered the three villains.

I'm still wondering how I can trace a group of people who lived on the margains of society

[Hugh Thompson]

This might help, from The Beacon Hill Informer.address below.
Hugh.
(the grisly murder in 1786 of the unknown sailor (who was probably Edward Hardman));

https://www.beaconhillinformer.com/beacon%20hill.html

[blue hydrangea]

Hi all of you who were active on this thread in 2008! It is now 10 years on and I wonder if you are still on this site or ever solved the Snelling connection to the Hindhead murder? I have a SNELLING marriage to a MARSHALL on my tree so that might be the missing piece of the jigsaw. Let me know if you are still looking and I'll go look up the details. I am a MARSHALL descendant.
Amanda, NZ

[Ladkyis]

This is the reason we never delete threads. Ten years on from the original post and we have another lead.
Blue hydrangea if the original poster still has the same email address then they should have received a notification. fingers crossed