The story behind the murder of Oxford resident Annie Kempson

She had been found by her brother at Boundary House, St Clement’s, on August 2.

Mrs Kempson, 58, had been bludgeoned with a hammer before a chisel was pushed through her throat.

It remains one of Oxford’s most infamous murders and has had questions remain over the case for decades.

It was reportedly common knowledge in the district that Mrs Kempson was wealthy and therefore believed to leave money lying around.

This is the reason why people thought the motive was initially robbery.

There was a prison at Oxford Castle until the prison closed in 1996 (Image: Newsquest)

Although £30 was hidden in the house, the killer had managed to find only £3 10 shillings.

Mrs Kempson had planned to visit a friend in West Hampstead, London, but when she failed to show, the friend telephoned her brother, George Reynolds.

Mr Reynolds stopped by her house and believed she had caught a later bus when she did not answer the door.

When Mrs Kempson still didn’t show up to meet her friend, he returned to climb through a window and found her dead.

The murder gripped the nation, with reports appearing in all the national newspapers. Mrs Kempson was described as “a dear little inoffensive woman”.

Oxford’s chief constable, Charles Fox, called in Scotland Yard to help in the hunt for the killer.

The breakthrough for detectives came when Mrs Andrews, from Headington, informed police that a vacuum cleaner salesman – who went by the name Seymour – had visited her the day before the murder.

Seymour had explained to Mrs Andrews that his money had been stolen while he was swimming.

So, she lent him some money and he left but returned later after he apparently missed the bus.

Mrs Andrews and her husband put him up for the night.

Crowds outside County Hall in New Road, Oxford, hoping to find a seat in the public gallery at County Hall for the trial of Henry Seymour at Oxfordshire Assizes in 1931 (Image: Newsquest)

The next morning, she examined a brown parcel that Seymour had left in the hallway of the house.

It contained a hammer and chisel. Mrs Andrews then called the police.

Police checked local ironmongers and one proprietor remembered selling a hammer and a chisel and gave police a description of the buyer. A card – with Henry Seymour’s name – was found on Mrs Kempson’s mantelpiece.

Seymour, 39, was arrested in Brighton, brought to Oxford and charged with murder.

The jury found guilty of killing the 58-year-old widow in just 38 minutes.

There was considerable doubt whether he could have been at the house at the time the prosecution said Mrs Kempson was murdered.

However, despite this, Henry Seymour went to the gallows protesting his innocence before being hanged.

More recently, a court judge weighed in with his view that there was “reason to doubt that a safe verdict was reached”.

“Circumstantial evidence of the very flimsiest character”

An episode of Murder, Mystery and My Family, shown in 2022 on BBC2, questioned whether the evidence in the murder case stood up.

The murder weapon was never found, the precise time of the murder was never established and no one could confirm they saw Seymour at the scene.

Numerous defence witnesses said on oath that they had seen Mrs Kempson alive after Seymour had allegedly killed her.

Oxford-born author Michael Tanner suggested a grave miscarriage of justice in his booked Oxford Murder.

He pointed out that at the initial hearing, Oxford magistrates had taken just “a minute or two” to commit Seymour for trial, despite a plea by his solicitor, Mr R B ‘Bunny’ Cole, that the prosecution had offered only “a chain of circumstantial evidence of the very flimsiest character”.