In 1805, Tom Otter (from Nottinghamshire) was working on a canal in Lincoln. He was described as 'malicious and revengeful and cruel to horses and other animals'. Although already married with a baby daughter, he is reported to have become 'criminally intimate with a young woman, and she proving pregnant, he was compelled by the parish officers to marry her'.
South Hykeham Parish Register records the marriage of Tom to Mary Kirkham on Sunday 3rd November 1805. They were married by the curate, Thomas Brown. Mary was about eight months pregnant.
After the wedding, Tom and Mary found their way to Drinsey Nook, an area on the Nottinghamshire/Saxilby border along the A57. They were seen by several people crossing Saxilby Bridge. The Staffordshire Advertiser reported the following week that 'the body of a woman was found the following morning; her head being beaten to a pulp, and a large hedge stake, with two bundles of cloaths (sic) lying near her'.
Tom Otter was arrested later in the day at the Packhorse Inn, in Lincoln High Street. He was escorted the following day to Saxilby for the inquest on Mary. It is likely to have been held at the Sun Inn (which is still there today), the usual location for all parish inquests. Held in front of the Coroner, Mr Drury, and a jury of twenty locals, and with the body present, a verdict was returned of Wilful Murder against Thomas Otter. He was committed to Lincoln Castle, sentenced to be executed on Friday 14th March, and his body dissected. For some reason following the verdict, the sentence was changed from dissection to gibbeting.
The ‘Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury’ reported on 21 March 1806 ‘...Thomas Otter was executed at Lincoln on Friday last, for the murder of Mary Kirkham. He acknowledged his guilt to the clergyman who attended, and to the keeper of the prison. His sentence was that his body should be dissected, but this day, at ten in the forenoon, it was taken from the Castle, and hung in chains on Saxilby Moor, near to the place where he committed the horrid murder. . . . Great numbers of people went this day to see the body hung to the gibbet post.'
During a period of high winds in early 1850, the gibbet post finally blew down. The last remaining piece of the irons, the head-collar, can now be seen at Doddington Hall. The road on which the gibbet post stood is now known as Tom Otters Lane, just a few hundred yards away from Drinsey Nook Lane.
This information has been taken mostly as extracts (with some editing) from the Saxilby History Society website, with their very kind permission. There are further details available on the website (http://www.saxilbyhistory.org/tom%20otter.html) concerning the facts of the case and also some interesting folklore surrounding the movement of Mary's body , possible hauntings and reports of the murder weapon being removed every year on 3rd November to be found 'wet with gore' at the murder scene the next day.
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