William Hallam

William Hallam was battered to death with a heavy chain in the porchway to a club that he managed.

He was the steward of the Kirklington Institute in Southwell.

He was attacked as he left the club after shutting it up at about 10.15pm on 19 December 1922 and had a box containing about £20 taken from him and was left lying on the ground with a severe scalp wound. It was two hours before he was found and then removed to the Nottingham General Hospital.

He died the following day, 20 December 1922, following an attempt by an operation to relieve cerebral pressure on his brain, but his case was hopeless.

Two men who had left a club a short while before William Hallam locked up said that they had got about a quarter of a mile away from the club when they heard banging sounds but just thought that it was William Hallam chopping wood.

When William Hallam was found he was still alive and in a dying deposition he said that he had received a heavy blow on the head by a man younger and taller than himself. He had said that he had been locking the doors when he was attacked by someone who seemed to have been hiding and his assailant rained down heavy blows on him leaving his face, nose and eyes terribly injured. It was thought that he was then seized by the throat and thrown to the ground and that a further blow had been delivered to his head, causing the injury from which he later died.

Police later found a chain in the field that the club hut was in which had marks that medical men said they considered to be human blood. However, the chain was not identified. They also found the broken portions of a welded blacksmith's hook with a piece of string commonly used by farmers for hay-binding attached.

The box had contained £15. 9s. in Treasury notes and cash and a cheque for £5. The missing cashbox was later found in the River Greet. It had been forced open.

The doctor said that William Hallam had been hit repeatedly with a weapon, possibly the chain.

Kirklington was described as an isolated village near Southwell.