Seventy-three-year-old Sarah Squire was a twice-widowed woman who had taken over her late husband’s wholesale picture and print business in the quiet neighborhood of Hoxton, in London’s East End. Described as eccentric and penurious by neighbors, she lived frugally despite reportedly having independent means and owning the leasehold property where the murders occurred. Thirty-six-year-old Christiana, her daughter, assisted her in running the shop, which was a modest establishment dealing in prints and stationery. The two women lived alone, leading a quiet, unassuming life. Their shop was seen as a tranquil place, rarely drawing attention, though neighbors noted their reserved and thrifty nature.
On July 10th, 1872, Christiana was seen standing outside the shop between nine and eleven a.m. Sarah, too, was reportedly seen at her door as late as twelve-thirty p.m., suggesting the crime occurred in a narrow window of time around midday.
The murders were discovered shortly after one p.m. when two young boys, Archibald Trower and William Eyre, entered the shop to purchase writing paper and envelopes. Finding no one to serve them, they waited at the counter, where William noticed blood and hair on the surface and sprinkled across the papers. Alarmed, the boys alerted Harriet Dodd, a grocer’s wife from 73 Hyde Road, who entered the shop and discovered the horrific scene. Sarah and Christiana Squire had been brutally bludgeoned to death, likely with a plasterer’s hammer or crowbar. The shop and house had been ransacked, suggesting a possible burglary gone wrong.
The audacity of the crime stunned the community. Committed in an open shop on a public street at midday, the attack was a bold defiance of the era’s social order. A neighbor, Miss Richards, reported hearing cries of “murder” around one-fifteen p.m., which she initially dismissed as coming from a nearby house known for disturbances. A waggoner later claimed to have seen a man fleeing the scene, but he did not report this until three days later, by which time the trail had gone cold.
The police initially believed the case would be straightforward to solve. The shop had reportedly been “watched” for days prior, and there were suggestions of a previous attempted burglary. The killer, likely covered in blood, would have been conspicuous, and the murder weapon was missing from the scene. Yet, despite these leads, the investigation quickly faltered. The women’s savings, hidden under the sacking of a bed, were found intact, casting doubt on robbery as the sole motive.
Suspicion briefly fell on individuals known to the Squires. George Squire, Christiana’s seventeen-year-old son, who lived separately as an apprentice hairdresser, mentioned two men: a seafaring man known as “York,” who occasionally visited the shop, and a stonemason named Niblett, who was reportedly courting Christiana and visited frequently. However, no evidence linked either man to the crime.
A significant development came when Thomas Wright, a thirty-six-year-old chair-maker, confessed to the murders, claiming he used a crowbar. However, investigations revealed Wright was at work at the time of the crime, and his confession was dismissed as a drunken fabrication. The magistrate, Mr. Saunders, reprimanded Wright for wasting police resources, and no further suspects emerged.
The crime, later dubbed The Hoxton Horror, left the community reeling. The East London Observer described the murders as “shocking and mysterious,” while Victorian London’s press drew comparisons to the infamous Ratcliff Highway murders of 1811, where another killer had evaded capture.
The tragedy extended beyond the murders. Just three weeks later, Sarah’s older daughter, Jemima, died in the Poplar workhouse at age forty-two, adding to the family’s sorrow. The shop at 46 Hyde Road, once a quiet hub of commerce, became a grim landmark, its sign fading into the growing darkness of Hoxton’s streets.
The Hoxton Horror remains one of the 159 unsolved murders in the United Kingdom listed between 1536 and 1969.
Crime Immemorial 