William Green and William Webb Gravestones

Found via a search of Historic England's own listings for the word 'murdered' - the listing covers only William Green's stone, but a second, linked gravestone for William Webb stands in the same churchyard and belongs to the same incident, so both are covered together here (following the pattern already used elsewhere in this archive for linked monument pairs). On the night of 26-27 September 1784, a gang of smugglers led by Thomas Kimbell (or Kemball) of Thornham, master of the lugger Vipel, clashed with revenue officers and light dragoons (from General Eliott's Light Horse) near Old Hunstanton, who were guarding contraband seized from a vessel out of Dunkirk and lying in wait for the smugglers to try to reclaim it. In the fray, customs officer William Green and dragoon William Webb were both shot dead. Kimbell and two of his crew, Andrew Gunton and Thomas Williams, were arrested, taken to Norwich Castle, and tried for murder at the Thetford Assizes in March 1785 - and acquitted. A retrial was ordered, and they were acquitted again; the prosecution reportedly concluded 'no Norfolk jury was ever going to convict smugglers.' Surviving archival material in King's Lynn Borough Archives (an uncatalogued file titled 'Customs Murder Suit') includes the original post-mortem report, witness examinations, a list of trial questions, and a request for the baptism certificates of Green's children so his family could receive financial relief.