LONG before it adopted its current name of the Severn View Hotel – and that was in 1932 – the hostelry beside the river on North Quay, Worcester was known as the Hope and Anchor Inn.

 It was, by all accounts, a lively tenancy. Within a few weeks of Queen Victoria’s coronation in 1838, the licensee Charles Goodman was convicted of manslaughter after two blows from his huge left hand sent old friend Edward Hill to the Promised Land. For some reason Hill had picked a fight with the publican, but cracked his head on the pavement after being knocked down. Goodman was treated leniently by the court, but immediately gave up the pub.

 Then in 1855, the Hope and Anchor’s stable man, a mild mannered chap by the name of Joseph Barnard, who was trying to eat his supper, stabbed to death with a cheese knife, George Turner, a drunken soldier in the 5th Lancers, after being provoked into retaliation. He too was treated lightly, being sentenced to a month’s imprisonment.

 But what happened after a chance meeting in the pub in 1905 led to the first hanging in Worcester for 100 years. The chimes for eight o’clock on a winter’s morning had barely finished before the prison bell in Castle Street jail began to toll, announcing William Yarnold had gone to meet his maker. And that despite a 6,000 signature petition to the Home Secretary for mercy. His supporters claimed that Yarnold too had been provoked by the circumstances in which he found himself.

 Yarnold’s victim was his wife Annie, known locally as Tippy-toe Nance because of her slight limp, and there was little doubt her husband had killed her. He stabbed her in the back with such force, the licensee of the nearby York House Inn had to kneel on her and then use two hands to pull out the knife.

 The Yarnold home was in The Moors, near where the Swan Theatre stands today, but the couple had been estranged for two years. Forty-eight-year-old William had been a soldier with an unblemished military record. He served in India and the

Boer War in South Africa, but while he was away his wife found another man named George Miles and moved in with him.

 On William’s return to England, Annie briefly returned to her husband but, after a week, went back to Miles. She was later to claim the marriage had been unhappy and William had often beaten her and refused to work, forcing her into prostitution.

 The defence at his trial was to paint rather a different picture of William Yarnold. That of a quiet man and moderate drinker whom no-one had ever heard making threats to his wife. While he was away his wife had lived with George Miles, all the time continuing to benefit from receiving Yarnold’s pay, part of which would undoubtedly have been spent on Miles. On her husband’s return from South Africa, it was claimed Annie had only stayed with him until his pay arrears were spent, after which she went back to Miles.

 On the day of the murder, the Yarnolds had, by chance, seen each other in the Hope and Anchor pub. Annie was drinking a peppermint cordial when William walked in. They didn’t speak and as soon as William went to the pub toilet, she took the opportunity to leave. She described her husband as “looking very queer.” When he later unexpectedly walked through her front gate as she was brushing her windowsills, Annie was heard to say: “What brings you here? How white you are.”

 Yarnold made no reply, but then as his wife turned to open her front door, he struck her a single blow and then ran away. A neighbour, Sarah Staite, heard a scream and rushed to help. As she lowered Annie to the ground she noticed a knife buried deep in her back, only its wooden handle protruding.

 Annie was rushed to  nearby Worcester Royal Infirmary, where it was found the weapon had penetrated to a depth of four inches, virtually severing the spinal cord and causing paralysis. Her lungs became congested and she died a few days later.

 William Yarnold’s trial was at Worcester Assizes on November 18, 1905 before Mr Justice Kennedy. Berrow’s Worcester Journal described the defendant as “a man of quite soldierly aspect” who stood rigidly to attention in the dock. He pleaded not guilty to a charge of wilful murder and his defence team argued it was “a classic case of manslaughter”.

 Unfortunately the jury did not agree. They took only 10 minutes to find him guilty of murder. Yarnold had nothing to say to the court and showed little emotion. Certainly less than Mr Justice Kennedy, who according to Berrow’s reports,

appeared very much affected as he passed the death sentence. The petition for clemency was to no avail.