This is the first part of the sad story of Jane Lewis which appears on Page 90 of Volume 1.

Jane Lewis

Let us start at the very end of the story with this poignant epitaph on a neglected, fallen gravestone in Tonyrefail.

In memory of Jane, daughter of ISAAC and SELINA LEWIS late of Tyn Coed in the parish of Llanillid who, on the Lord’s Day December 2nd 1862 probably fell by cruel hand on Ty’n Tyle farm in the parish of Ystradfodwg: aged 23 years and though her blood is hither-to unavenged attention is directed to the day when light will have shone on the mysterious occurrence and guilt will be accorded its just reward.

A daughter murdered. How Isaac and Selina must have prayed for justice.

This is a story that begins, as it often does, with an unmarried woman out alone. A cold dark afternoon near Tyntila in the Rhondda. An afternoon that ended in a death that is still shrouded in mystery. Never really solved. Always questioned. The death of Jane Lewis.

About half a mile above the village of Gellidawel in the Rhondda valley there was Tyntila farm. It was on the steep slope of Penrhys mountain. The farm was occupied by Thomas and Maria Williams with their six children and, more importantly, by three servants.

David Morgan was 15 years old, Thomas Edmunds was 26 and Jane Lewis, the niece of Maria, was 22.

On this Sunday afternoon Thomas Williams went off with his brother to visit a neighbouring farm before going to the Nebo Chapel in Heol Fach for the evening service. Maria stayed behind to look after the children. Edmunds left later on, also for the same chapel. Then Jane left half an hour later. She too was going to the Nebo Chapel. There she had arranged to meet her “sweetheart” (or lover) also called Thomas Williams, although he was known locally as Thomas Screens.

There you have it. All the important characters in this unhappy tale. The chronology of everyone’s comings and goings confirmed by Maria who didn’t go anywhere. Despite this the sequence of events has never been fully untangled. Yes murders are sometimes committed by strangers. But in most cases the victim knows their killer, often intimately. Was this murder any different? No one ever felt that there was any need to look for anyone else in connection with Jane’s death.

When Uncle Thomas returned home he told Maria that he hadn’t seen Jane at the service. Then Tom Screens turned up, worried that she wasn’t there. His concern was that she had found another boyfriend. Perhaps significantly, he had come to the farm the long way round. There were two possible routes. And he took the longer one. He also went away on that route too.

Initially there was little concern for her, since they believed that she might have gone to a tea party in Gellidawel. But when she still didn’t return Uncle Thomas and Edmunds took a lantern and went out to look for her.

They didn’t have to go very far.

They first examined the outhouses and then dropped down towards Gellidawel along the shortest route. They soon found Jane, less than 200 yards from the house, close to a stile. They immediately ran off to get the constable, Richard Wise, and a doctor, though there was no help that the latter could have offered. Her throat had been slashed open with a razor. There were three separate wounds.

At the Inquest PC Wise reported,

I found a razor with blood on it 2 feet 7 inches from the body. A brooch untouched by her blood was 4 feet 1 inch from the body. A bonnet, ribbon and collar were 5 feet 6 inches from the body. There was blood on the bonnet and the ribbon. I noticed that he collar was cut in two and quite saturated with blood. The string of the bonnet was cut through. There was no sign of any struggle.

The most logical explanation would be that she was attacked from behind. There is a contemporary report claiming that parts of her fingers were found attached to the razor, suggesting obviously that she had tried to fight off an attacker.

However, the information in what I write here comes from police reports and there is no suggestion of this significant detail in anything that they write. Apart from huge trauma to the neck every other part of her appeared intact. The razor had been identified. It belonged to Edmunds and was missing from its usual place on top of a cupboard back at the farm. It had been there on Sunday morning.

This was a vital piece of evidence. It reduced the possible suspects to a very small group indeed, unless there was some sort of highly elaborate conspiracy involving two razors.

And then, of course there was the post-mortem evidence that suddenly produced more crucial evidence and a possible motive.

Jane Lewis was 10 weeks pregnant.

Now you can see how things had started to stack up.

You can see where the finger was pointing.

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