Eric Jackson was our speaker on 2nd August 2025. He told us how he had worked as a magistrate in Wakefield and Pontefract but that his murder, committed in 1918 was still remembered in the 1940s, partly because it was noteworthy but also because it was violent and it had become part of Pontefract folklore. His grandmother could remember it actually happening and Eric gave us a rendition of the song that was sung about it.
Eric went on to tell us that just before the end of the First World War, two soldiers, Cardwell and Barrett, were arrested for murdering middle aged shopkeeper Mrs Walker. Rhoda Walker, born in Beverley, was the widow of Ackworth Quaker Robert Gibson Walker and they had been married for 34 years and consequently at the time of the murder, she was running the jewellery shop by herself. Her body was found by her shop assistant, badly injured and covered in blood on the floor of the shop. Mrs Walker was taken to hospital but died the next day. The following inquest found the cause of death to be shock followed by massive blood loss.
We were then given details of the murder; how Barrett and Cardwell were seen walking from Ackworth to Pontefract, how a soldier was seen selling trinkets with blood stained labels attached to them and how one of the soldiers was identified by the wound stripes on their uniform; Cardwell had been gassed and wounded several times. Both were deserters who had obtained work at a local colliery.
Barrett admitted going into Walker’s shop and it seems Cardwell was looking out but over time they changed their stories and tried to incriminate each other. They did not have legal representation until later. They were remanded in custody and found guilty of wilful murder; their appeals failed and they were executed together by hanging on 8 January 1919. It was only a little over five months between the walk from Ackworth and the walk to the gallows.
Eric pointed out the differences in committal proceedings in 1918 compared to now and felt, rightly or wrongly, that it wouldn’t have been the cut and dried event today that it was then but warned us about judging crime then through a modern lens.
Mrs Walker was buried alongside her husband in the Friends’ Burial Ground in Southgate, Pontefact.
Lorraine Simpson
