Escape from Strangeways: The Hammer Murder of Warder Webb (1888)

Escape from Strangeways: The Hammer Murder of Warder Webb (1888)
News of the Times | Episode 535 | 1876

🔨 A daring prison break, a brutal murder… and the most notorious escape in Strangeways history.

In January 1919, the walls of Manchester’s Strangeways Prison could not hold William Horwood, a career criminal with nothing left to lose. Armed with a hammer stolen from the prison workshop, Horwood made a desperate bid for freedom — and in the process, bludgeoned Warder James Owen to death.

What followed shocked Britain: a citywide manhunt, a terrified public, and sensational headlines chronicling every twist. But was this simply the act of a desperate man, or part of a calculated plan to outwit the law?

From the grim corridors of Strangeways to the narrow streets of industrial Manchester, this is the true story of violence, escape, and justice in post-war Britain.

📜 Featuring: rare contemporary newspaper reports, eyewitness accounts, the escape route in detail, and the dramatic conclusion that brought the case to an end.

Further Particulars:
Those inventive Victorians never did anything by halves—ballooning included. What began as a scientific flight across France ended with one man crash-landing in Belgium… completely nude.

Was it for aerodynamic reasons?
A sudden philosophical awakening?
Or simply a very French solution to a very Victorian problem?

👤 Narrated by Robin Coles

📅 New episodes: Monday, Wednesday & Friday

📚 Related cases from the archive:
1888: Bradford’s Jack the Ripper: The Mutilation of John Gill | EP507
https://youtu.be/4GK27M1s-U4
1888: The Man Who Vanished: Whitechapel’s Other Killer | EP510
https://youtu.be/l8XGVZO9t_4
1888: The Regent’s Park Murder of 1888 | EP511
https://youtu.be/wZ_F-ZIEmu0

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