While West Hampstead had far fewer public houses than Kilburn and they were generally well run, there was always the potential for alcohol to cause trouble.
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Around 10.30pm on 8 September 1897, James William Woledge and Henry Hiscocks were in the pub. It appeared the two men knew each other and began to argue, which prompted the barman to leap over the bar and eject them. Outside a fight erupted and Woledge fell to the ground, hitting his head hard on the pavement.
Descriptions of what led up to the fight outside the Railway Hotel differ between witnesses. 33-year-old plumber James Woledge had lived with his wife Mary near Camden Town, before moving to 73 Broomsleigh Street off Mill Lane. At the inquest, his friend John Cook said he’d gone to the pub with James and no sooner had they entered, Hiscocks came up and challenged them. He told Woledge ‘You can have a row if you like’, to which James replied, ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with you. I don’t want to fight. Why don’t you go home like a good fellow’. The barman recognising trouble ordered both men out, and Cook followed. He told the court he saw Hiscocks punch Woledge who hit his head when he fell. However according to two other witnesses, Woledge had agreed to fight and he hit Hiscocks first.
At the time the police station was just a few doors away at 90 West End Lane, and PC Thompson attended the scene. By then Woledge had been helped up and was drinking a glass of brandy but seemed dazed. Hiscocks appeared genuinely concerned about what had happened and gave his name and address to a witness. He then accompanied Cook part of the way to Broomsleigh Street, as they supported and walked Woledge home along the path that runs by the Overground tracks. Hiscocks said he didn’t want to part bad friends and saying he would call round to see how he was, shook James by the hand and kissed him. It was close to 11pm when Cook and Mary Woledge finally got James into bed. He kept complaining, ‘My head! My head!’ which were the last words he spoke.
Around 5.30am Mary tried but failed to wake James up, so she sent for Cook. He went up to Mill Lane to fetch Doctor Smith but by the time they returned, James was dead. The doctor noted a mark on his temple he thought had been caused by a fist and a swelling at the back of the head. He later confirmed the cause of death as a skull fracture caused when Woledge fell.
22-year-old Henry Hiscocks lived in Kelson Street off the Kilburn High Road. The newspaper reports call him a milkman, but in every census from 1881 onwards, he said he worked as a plasterer. He was arrested around 8am in West End Lane. When told he would be charged with causing Woledge’s death, Hiscock replied, ‘All right sir, I know’. At the police station he asked, ‘Is he really dead?’ and then burst out crying.
At the inquest, his employer described Woledge as a ‘very steady man’. Hiscocks admitted to having at least a couple of drinks before Woledge and Cook entered the pub and came up to the bar counter. Cook said Woledge had a few, maybe four drinks, earlier in the evening. Hiscocks claimed Woledge had told him to move further away: ‘I want none of your fleas!’ He also said it was he who wanted nothing to do with Woledge, not the other way round. He agreed there had been some discussion about fighting for nothing or for a prize of 5 shillings and then the barman ordered them out. Asked what happened next, Hiscocks said as he was leaving the pub, Woledge turned round and hit him in the face, so he struck out in self-defence. Woledge ‘fell on the back of his head with a terrific thud’.
The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter and said in their opinion, the blow had been struck ‘under great provocation’. Hiscocks appeared at Marylebone Magistrates Court and was remanded but allowed bail until his trial.
In the presence of a large crowd of sympathisers, James William Woledge was buried on 15 September at Hampstead Cemetery on Fortune Green Road.
The inquest jury passed a vote of sympathy for Mary Woledge and made a collection of 17 shillings on her behalf. Donations were collected and a successful benefit concert was held at Broomsleigh Street Board School (now West Hampstead Primary School) on the 4 October and raised just over £37 for the family, (worth about £4,500 today).
On 26 October Henry Hiscocks stood trial at the Old Bailey charged with the manslaughter of James Woledge. The evidence given was basically the same as at the inquest. The court was told that police enquiries showed Hiscocks to be a very respectable man and he received an ‘excellent character’. He was found not guilty and discharged.
The aftermath
Mary Woledge left Broomsleigh Street with her three children, James, Amelia and Lily Violet. In late 1898 she married carman Charles Godwin in Chiswick. The 1901 census shows they had a 6-week-old son and her two daughters were also with the couple, but not son James. He was in Holme Court, a residential school for truants in Isleworth. If children became persistent truants, they could be sent to residential industrial schools for longer term care. Matters may not have improved. In July 1905 James was admitted to Redhill Royal Philanthropic School. Redhill was a Farm School, where around 60 boys, some placed there by the courts for up to four years, lived in ‘houses’ supervised by a married couple. They were trained in agricultural work as well as a variety of other trades. This regime seems to have been a success: by 1911 James had left the school to work in South Wales. In the census he was boarding in Cyfyng Road in Ystalyfera, north of Swansea, and working as a stationery engine driver at a colliery. He called himself James William Albert Vic Woledge, Albert Victor being the name of a younger brother who died in 1896. In 1915 James was working as a tinworker when he married Sarah Myfanwy Jonathan at the local chapel, his father-in-law being employed in the same industry.
Henry Hiscocks and family had moved to 26 Kelson Street from South Kilburn by 1882 and the house was occupied by family members for the next 60 years. No.26, part of a terrace, had nine rooms with a small back yard. Successive census returns show just how poor and crowded this neighbourhood was. Along with eight children, Henry and wife Annie were sharing No.26 with 10 other people on census night in 1891. After Henry’s trial they stayed put, and in 1901 the house had become their family home, shared by three generations. Ten years later it had reverted to multiple occupation, with 21 residents including Henry, Annie and son Henry. Annie and Henry died within a year of each other in 1931 and 1932. They were buried in public graves, at Hampstead Cemetery Fortune Green Road.
In the early 1970s Kelson along with Palmerston, Linstead and Netherwood Streets, were largely demolished and replaced by social housing - the Florence Cayford Estate, which was later renamed Webheath.
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