Thomas Webb Murder Stone

Thomas Webb, an elderly pedlar, was robbed and killed near Kings Corner in Curdridge by Private John Diggins of the Talbot Fencibles (a militia regiment then barracked in Botley), along with two fellow soldiers who were acquitted for lack of evidence. Diggins was hanged at Winchester and his body gibbeted on nearby Curdridge Common. The stone itself is a plain, uninscribed boulder - the cast-iron plaque bearing this text was a later addition, likely Victorian, mounted beside the fountain at the entrance to Botley railway station (technically in Curdridge). SIGNIFICANT ADDITIONAL DETAIL, INCL. A 'WRONG MAN?' TWIST: All Things Georgian (a specialist Georgian-era history blog run by published historians Sarah Murden and Joanne Major) gives a fuller and more troubling version than captured above, citing named contemporary newspapers throughout. The two other soldiers are named - Richard Pendergrass and Sergeant James Colloppy - and most contemporary papers (Bell's Weekly Messenger, The Evening Mail, Hampshire Telegraph) call the unit the 'Tarbert Fencibles', not 'Talbot' as the stone itself has it - both were apparently in Botley at the same time and the discrepancy is unresolved. Webb crawled nearly a mile to a Daniel Barfoot's cottage after the attack and was buried at Bishops Waltham parish church, not mentioned above. The trial was at the Winchester Lent Assizes, 12 March 1800 (11am to midnight); Diggins was hanged 17 March 1800 aged 22, and Pendergrass, though acquitted of murder, was given 600 of 1,000 lashes by court martial for being absent without leave that night. Most strikingly, the Hampshire Telegraph of 24 March 1800 (quoted in full by the blog) reports that Diggins, awaiting execution, said Pendergrass had actually grabbed Diggins's own bayonet and inflicted the fatal wounds himself, and that Diggins's part was limited to helping move the body afterwards - raising a real question over whether the right man was hanged. This isn't reflected in the inscription or in the account above. The stone's early existence is independently confirmed by a period source: it's mentioned in John Bullar's guidebook 'A Companion in a Tour round Southampton...' (1801), which places it very shortly after the murder.