Nancy Price Murder
Local History > Local History 1 > Sutton Cum Duckmanton
The Nancy Price or Toll Gate Cottage Murder.
June 25th. 1902.
This is how I was told the story of the brutal murder of Nancy Price.
Nancy Price lived in one of the two Toll Gate or Ox Gate Cottages part way down Works Lane towards the Adelphi Ironworks at Sutton-cum-Duckmanton, she was born in Oldbury, Worcestershire and was married to an older man, a tenant coal miner and was having an affair with John Bedford.
It was alleged that she would not leave her husband for Bedford and so in a fit of rage he bludgeoned her to death with a poker. After the incident he walked up to the White Hart Inn at Calow and gave himself up by saying that he had just killed the most wonderful women he had ever known.
After his trial he was found guilty and was ordered to be hung at Derby gaol.
On Wednesday the 30th of July 1902 hangman William Billington hanged 41 year old John Bedford for the murder of his girlfriend, 48 year old Nancy Price at Sutton-cum-Duckmanton on the 25th of June of that year. Nancy was married to an older man and was having an affair with Bedford . He had beaten her to death in her home with a fire poker. (Derby Gaol web site).
