Few crimes have the power to shock in the way a parent causing harm to their child does - it's as true today as it must have been in 1885 when Swansea was gripped by the case of a father accused of murdering his young daughter by throwing her off the town's pier into the stormy sea.
It later emerged that widower Thomas Nash had remarried just weeks before the death of his youngest daughter but had not told his new wife about his children. Nash would go on to be convicted of the killing, and a crowd estimated at up to 4,000 people gathered outside Swansea prison on the cold and snowy day he was hanged, with papers reporting what while those there - many of whom were noted to be women and children - were largely well behaved, "some roughs indulged in throwing snowballs" around.
Nash was born and grew up in Pembrokeshire before moving to Swansea as a young man. Little is known of his life in what was then a booming industrial town but it is known that he married, and worked in a variety of jobs including as a furnaceman. He and his wife Martha had two daughters, Sarah and Martha Ann, but it seems his wife died in the year after the birth of their second child, WalesOnline reports.
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When Sarah was a teenager and Martha Ann was still a toddler the family moved into a lodging house in Graham Street in Hafod. By this time Nash was working as a labourer on the roads for Swansea Corporation, the forerunner of the local council. It was reported that Nash conducted himself in "a most respectable and steady manner" and was a good father, and there seemed little hint of what was to come.
In early November, 1885, Nash suddenly moved out of the lodging house, taking his possessions but leaving his children - aged 17 and almost six years - behind. Over the following weeks the landlady of the house, Eliza Goodwin, saw Nash around town a number of times and told him she could not continue to look after his girls. Nash apparently promised to return to collect his children, and to settle the outstanding bill for their lodging, but never did.
What was not know at the time was that, on November 16, Nash had remarried, keeping the ceremony secret from colleagues, friends, and his daughters. And that was not the only secret the 39-year-old had kept - Nash had not told his new wife about the girls. You can read about the unsolved murder of a Victorian greengrocer who was found almost decapitated and floating in a Swansea pond here.
Late on the afternoon of Friday, December 4, the desperate landlady took little Martha Ann to Swansea townhall where she knew Nash was due to be paid. She confronted the wayward father and handed over the girl - who was a month shy of her sixth birthday - along with a bill for rent and the keep of the children of £1 16s 2d. Nash promised he would settle the bill the following day. Martha Ann apparently wanted to go back to her Graham Street home with Eliza but the landlady said: "No, child, your father will attend to you now." Nash was subsequently seen by colleagues leaving the townhall with his daughter.
At around 5.15pm that evening a number of pilots and boatmen standing outside the watch-house on Swansea pier saw a man walking hand-in-hand with a little girl onto the pier. It was a blustery evening with waves breaking over the pier, and it was already quite dark. The men in the watch-house thought it odd someone should be taking a child onto the pier in the inclement conditions. The figures seen disappearing into the darkness were Nash and Martha Ann.
Shortly afterwards the men saw Nash leaving the pier - but Martha Ann was nowhere to be seen. Nash was seen to jump from the pier onto the sand and run off towards the bathing machines on the beach. Their suspicions aroused, the boatmen chased after the fleeing man and caught him. They quizzed Nash on the whereabouts of the little girl, and he told them she was on the pier before changing his story and claiming she was under the pier.
He apparently then tried to walk into the sea, and had to be restrained. The pilots detained Nash and then took him to dock policeman PC Davies. Newspapers of the time reported that news of what was happening was already spreading across the town, and crowds were beginning to gather around the docks and pier. The Cardiff Times reported that, "thinking there must have been some intention on the part of Nash to outrage the child, many expressed the greatest indignation and it was with some difficulty they were restrained from roughly using him".
Nash was later taken back to the the pier by police officers where he told them he had put his daughter on the railings in order for her to climb onto his back but she had slipped, and the wind had blown her over the side into the sea. The suspect was taken to the police station and subsequently charged with murder. Meanwhile, officers conducted a search of the pier and foreshore by lantern-light, and within a short time they found Martha Ann's body laying on a pile of rubbish which had been left on the sands by the receding tide.
The following Monday an inquest was held into the child's death at the Vivian's Arms hotel before county coroner Edward Strick, and the body of Martha Ann was identified by her sister Sarah. The court heard there were no signs of physical injury to the deceased, and the cause of death was drowning. After hearing evidence from a number of witnesses, including PC Davies, the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder, and Nash was committed for trial.
That trial took place in Cardiff Crown Court the following February before Lord Chief Justice Coleridge. Barrister Arthur Lewis set out the prosecution case, and the court heard from witnesses including the men who had been on the pier on the night in question - boatman Thomas Fender and assistant pilots William Owens and George Pritchard - as well as from Swansea Harbour Trust employee James Turpie, who told the jury about the construction of the pier.
The court also heard from Eliza Goodwin and the landlady of another lodging house, Hannah Daffy, who told the court Nash and his new wife had lived with her from November 17 to December 4. The jury also heard evidence from police officers who had been involved in the investigation, as well as medical evidence from surgeon David Howell Thomas.
In his closing speech, Mr Glascodine, for the defence, reminded the jury that Nash had been referred to as a kind and indulgent father. He said no-one had actually seen what happened on the pier that night, and it was not reasonable to suppose Nash's "parental fondness" could have disappeared in a moment.
Referring to the defendant's behaviour after the incident on the pier and his fleeing across the sand, the barrister said Nash's "reason could have been unhinged" by the awful accident which had just befallen his child. The barrister asked the jury to give the benefit of any doubt they may have to the defendant in the dock.
After deliberating for 15 minutes the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The judge placed a black silk square on top of his wig, and the clerk of the court asked the defendant if there was any reason why the death penalty should not be imposed. Nash replied "quietly but firmly: 'I am not guilty, sir'." The Weekly Mail reported that outside the courtroom "the disconsolate daughter of the convict was conducted away in a paroxysm of agonised weeping". Following his conviction, Nash was taken by train to Swansea to await his execution.
Following the conviction the Home Secretary was petitioned to intervene in the case, with campaigners arguing there was "not the slightest evidence that he at any time or in any way contemplated the destruction of his little child" or that "any sufficient motive has been suggested for the crime of murder". They argued Nash's version of events was at least possible and the evidence against him was circumstantial, and they begged the Home Secretary to advise the Queen to use her prerogative of mercy and commute the death sentence. The Home Secretary said he would not intervene, and would allow the law to take its course.
The papers reported that in the weeks before his death Nash's appetite had been "exceedingly good" while being held in jail, eating his daily breakfast of a large muton chop, potatoes, bread and butter, and a pint of tea. He also wrote a number of letters including to the prison chaplain and doctor, though he received just one visitor - his teenage daughter Sarah - to whom he maintained his innocence. However, in a letter to the governor of the prison Nash confessed the truth, that he had killed Martha Ann.
Then came the morning of his hanging, Monday, March 1, 1886. The day was cold, and Swansea was covered in a fresh fall of snow. People began to assemble outside the town jail more than an hour before the allotted execution time, and by 8am the crowd was estimated as numbering up to 4,000 souls. The South Wales Echo reported that: "For the most part the crowd was orderly though some roughs indulged in throwing snowballs".
At a few minutes after eight o'clock a black flag was raised above the prison to signify the execution had been carried out, and it was reported the crowd dispersed quickly and people went about their usual business.
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