Cambridgeshire Murders (26 page)

In 1854 he married a Soham girl named Ann Dennis Cooper, the daughter of Joseph Wood Cooper. Before their marriage she had lived in the house where Soham vicarage now is. After their nuptials they were given permission to live together in the police house at Burwell.

Their first child was a son named Sidney and by August 1855 they were expecting their second child. On Friday 17 August of that year Peak was ordered to police a crop auction taking place at Wicken's Lion public house. The auction was due to finish at 9 p.m. but Peak's shift was to start at 5 a.m. He reported for duty and left Burwell for the walk to Wicken wearing his police constable's uniform.

Later William Cranwell, the landlord, reported that Constable Peak had made several visits to the bar during the evening and was not wearing his uniform at the time. Drinking on duty was strictly against the rules and the landlord claimed that Peak had consumed ‘a pint of beer and a shilling's worth of brandy' which may have explained why he was dressed in civilian clothes. But another explanation was that constables were often allowed to change into private clothes at night for events such as this to save their day uniforms. Whatever the reason, Peak would have needed to be back in his uniform when he was next due to see his sergeant. This meeting was scheduled for 4 a.m. back at Burwell.

During the evening plenty of people witnessed Peak in the bar and in the garden, and also breaking up a minor disturbance in the pub. People began to disperse in the early hours and at 3.15 a.m. Cranwell saw the constable for the last time. Peak was leaving and said: ‘Good morning. I've got an hour and a half's walk, and then I will go to bed.'

Constable Peak failed to report to his sergeant at 4 a.m. In the following days many people were interviewed and police were drafted in from elsewhere to search routes from Wicken to Burwell. Various stories emerged; three men had been seen fighting in Wicken; a brick kiln at Burwell Fen had been giving off ‘a very peculiar and disagreeable smell'; and rumours circulated about a local gang known as The Fen Tigers, but none led to Peak.

After his disappearance his wife gave birth to their second child, named Alfred. The following year a man on his deathbed stated that Peak had been murdered by a blow to the head. He claimed he had not com-mitted the crime himself, nor would he name the man who had, but said that the body had been disposed of in the kiln. But there was nothing to substantiate the story and eventually the story died down again.

In the 1880s a skeleton was pulled from a pond in Wicken. It was seen to have suffered severe damage to the skull. Strangely the remains were returned to the pond and lost. During renovation work at the Anchor pub in Burwell a skeleton was discovered. For years the skull was displayed over the bar and it was rumoured to be PC Peak's. Eventually it was dropped and smashed and the whereabouts of the other bones are not known. Interestingly the Anchor is located on the Wicken side of Burwell, and seems to be the most probable of the three rumoured resting places of PC Peak.

The widow returned to live with her parents in Soham. She lived to the age of 80 and was buried in Soham's Fordham Road cemetery near the grave of her eldest son, Sidney. Sidney's descendants continued to live in Soham and in recent years donated the above photograph of Constable Peak to the police museum in Peterborough.

Notes

1 George Cruikshank (1792–1878) was a humorist of the Hogarth school. He produced more than 15,000 drawings in his lifetime and many consider him to be one of Britain's finest book illustrators.

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Cambridge Advertiser

Cambridge Chronicle

Cambridge Chronicle and University Journal

Cambridge Daily News

Cambridge Evening News

Cambridge Express: and Eastern Counties Weekly News

Cambridge Independent Press

Ely Standard

Evening Standard

Gentleman's Magazine

Huntingdonshire Gazette

Hunts Post

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Jacen, Natalie, Lana and Dean for making home a lovely place to work.

Bob Burn-Murdoch at the Norris Museum, St Ives, David Bushby, Stewart and Rosie Evans, Chris Jakes at the Cambridgeshire Collection, Laura Johnston at the
Cambridge Evening News
, Donal O'Danachair at
www.exclassics.com
, Mike Petty, David Rudd at the St Neots Museum and Jonathon Smith at Trinity College Library for their help with research and illustrations.

Maureen Algar, Christine Bartram, Mark Billingham, Sarah Bryce, Barry Crowther, Broo Doherty, Alison Hilborne, Kimberley Jackson-Liew, Sheila Malham, Jennifer Marrs, Richard Reynolds, Floramay Waterhouse and Kate Wyatt for their advice and encouragement.