Crime Immemorial

On the evening of June 20th, 1931, a chilling and perplexing tragedy unfolded at Blackdown Camp in Camberley, Surrey, England. Lieutenant Hubert George “Hugh” Chevis, a twenty-eight-year-old officer in the Royal Artillery of the British Army, sat down to dinner with his wife, Frances, in their bungalow. The meal, featuring Manchurian partridge—a dish Hubert favored—would prove fatal, marking the beginning of one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the 20th century, often referred to as “The Case of the Poisoned Partridge.”

Hubert Chevis was born on September 21st, 1902, in Rawalpindi, India, the youngest son of Sir William Chevis, a former Indian judge, and Amy Florence, Lady Chevis. Raised partly in India, he later attended the prestigious Charterhouse School in Surrey and graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1923. By 1931, he was an instructor at the Aldershot Training Camp in Hampshire, respected in his military role and well-liked socially. He had been married for six months to Frances Rollason, a wealthy twenty-nine-year-old heiress and mother of three from a previous marriage to Major George Jackson, a veterinarian. To all appearances, Hubert’s life was one of promise and contentment.

The evening began pleasantly, with the couple hosting friends for cocktails at their bungalow. After their guests departed, Hubert and Frances sat down to dine. The cook, Ellen Yeomans, had prepared two partridges, sourced from a local poulterer in Aldershot and stored in a meat-safe outside the bungalow. Frances carved the birds, serving a portion to Hubert and a smaller one to herself, as she was less fond of partridge. Hubert took a bite and immediately recoiled, declaring the meat tasted “terrible” and “the most dreadful thing” he had ever eaten. Frances tasted a small piece from his plate and agreed it had a “filthy” or “fusty” flavor. Hubert instructed his batman, Nicholas Bulger, to remove the partridges and burn them to prevent their dog from eating them. The remains were promptly incinerated in the kitchen fire, unknowingly destroying critical evidence.

Within minutes, Hubert began suffering severe stomach cramps and convulsions. Frances, too, fell ill with abdominal pain, though her symptoms were milder. Doctors were summoned, and the couple was rushed to Frimley Cottage Hospital. Despite hours of medical intervention, including artificial respiration, Hubert died in agony at nine fifty a.m. on June 21st, 1931. Frances, having consumed only a small amount, recovered. An autopsy revealed two grains of strychnine in Hubert’s stomach, and traces were found in the cooking juices, confirming the partridges had been heavily laced with the poison.

The case took a sinister turn on June 24th, the day of Hubert’s funeral, when his father, Sir William Chevis, received a telegram from Dublin signed “J. Hartigan.” It chillingly read, “Hooray, hooray, hooray!” with “Hibernian”—the name of a well-known Dublin hotel—written on the back. The sender’s identity was a dead end; no one named J. Hartigan was found at the hotel. Irish police later discovered that a man matching the description of the telegram sender—small, about fifty years old, dressed in grey—had purchased strychnine from a south Dublin chemist four weeks earlier, signing the poison register with a false name. The timing of the telegram, sent before Hubert’s death was widely publicized, suggested the sender had intimate knowledge of the crime.

The mystery deepened when the Daily Sketch published a copy of the telegram (omitting the sender’s name), prompting another message from “J. Hartigan” to the newspaper: “Dear Sir, Why did you publish a picture of the Hooray telegram?” On August 4th, Sir William received a postcard, also signed “J. Hartigan,” taunting, “It’s a mystery they will never solve.” These communications, laced with mockery, suggested a deliberate and personal act, yet the sender’s true identity remained elusive. Irish police later identified a suspect described as “mentally unbalanced” but concluded he had no direct involvement in the poisoning. Unfortunately, records identifying this individual have not survived.

The investigation explored several leads, but no clear motive or culprit emerged. Suspicion initially fell on Frances Chevis. Her actions following Hubert’s death raised eyebrows: she discharged herself from the hospital on the day he died, returned to her London apartment, and had the bungalow cleaned by her chauffeur and children’s nurse, Ivy Thorne, before police could thoroughly search it. In May 1931, she had amended her will, though no copies of the original or revised documents survive, and it was noted she frequently changed her will. By November 1931, Frances left for India, reportedly to pursue a former lover, an army officer—a move considered unusual for a grieving widow. However, she was open with Surrey Police about her travel plans and received permission to leave. While these actions were suspicious, there was no concrete evidence linking her to the poisoning.

Another suspect was Frances’s ex-husband, Major George Jackson, who was in Northampton at the time of the poisoning, providing a solid alibi. He dismissed the “J. Hartigan” telegrams as the work of “a cad and a blackguard” and denied any involvement. Theories also pointed to Hubert’s and his father’s connections to the British Raj, given Hubert’s birth in India and Sir William’s judicial role there. Some speculated the poisoning was an act of vengeance, possibly linked to the anagram of “J. Hartigan” forming “Raj hating.” However, this theory lacked substantiation, and the idea that the partridges consumed strychnine naturally (e.g., via contaminated berries) was dismissed due to the deliberate nature of the telegrams.

The poulterer who supplied the partridges was cleared, as other birds from the same batch were uncontaminated. The meat-safe’s accessibility raised questions, but it was surrounded by neighboring bungalows and guarded by Hubert’s dog, which barked at strangers, making it risky for an outsider to tamper with the food unnoticed. The lack of a clear motive—Hubert was described as well-liked with no known enemies—further confounded investigators.

After weeks of investigation, the coroner returned an open verdict, unable to determine whether Hubert’s death was accidental, suicide, manslaughter, or murder. Legally, it remains a “suspicious death” rather than a confirmed murder, though the deliberate poisoning and taunting telegrams strongly suggest foul play. The case drew significant attention, later explored in a 2011 BBC Radio 4 documentary, Punt PI, hosted by Steve Punt, and in Diane Janes’ book, The Case of the Poisoned Partridge: The Strange Death of Lieutenant Chevis (2013). Both concluded that the mystery persists due to insufficient evidence, with no suspect having both clear motive and opportunity.

The poisoning of Hubert Chevis remains a haunting puzzle, unsolved nearly a century later.