A monstrous father appalled the nation when it was reported he committed one of the most despicable crimes imaginable, killing his own child. Heartless, Ewan Nash, murdered his daughter, Martha Ann when he flung her off a pier and into the sea in 1885.
The evil widower from Wales had remarried just weeks before the disturbing murder and had not shared the existence of his children with his new spouse. Instead, he decided to kill his daughter in a shocking historical crime that chilled the community, the Mirror reports.
Consequently, Nash was sentenced to death and around 4,000 people came to see him hanged outside Swansea Prison. Many onlookers who gathered to watch his death threw snowballs at the cold blooded father.
Little is known about Nash, although documents and newspaper reports from the time revealed he was born and grew up in Pembrokeshire before moving to Swansea as a young man, reports Wales Online. He would then go on to work various jobs, including as a furnaceman, and marry a woman named Martha with whom he had two daughters, Sarah and Martha Ann.
Documents also show that, tragically, Martha died in the year after giving birth to her second daughter. While people who knew Nash reported there was nothing to hint at what would happen at first, he later left his daughters to the care of a landlady.
Nash, 39, apparently promised to return to collect his children, and to settle the outstanding bill for their lodging, but never did. Unbeknownst to the girls - who were aged in their teens and a toddler at this time - their father had in fact re-married. And forgotten to tell his new wife all about them.
Nash promised he would settle the bill after being confronted by an angry landlady carrying his nearly six-year-old daughter, Martha Ann. At around 5.15pm that evening a number of pilots and boatmen standing outside the watch-house on Swansea pier saw a man walking hand-in-hand with a little girl onto the pier.
Shortly afterwards the men saw Nash leaving the pier and jumping onto the sand - but Martha Ann was nowhere to be seen. He was later arrested, where he told police he had put his daughter on the railings in order for her to climb onto his back but she had slipped, and the wind had blown her over the side into the sea.
Officers failed to believe his lies and charged him with murder - as colleagues conducted a search of the pier and foreshore by lantern-light, and within a short time they found Martha Ann's body laying on a pile of rubbish left by the receding tide. That trial took place in Cardiff Crown Court the following February, with a jury deliberating for just 15 minutes before returning a verdict of guilty.
Newspapers reported how outside the courtroom "the disconsolate daughter of the convict was conducted away in a paroxysm of agonised weeping". While lawyers argued there had not been enough evidence to convict Nash - even asking Queen Victoria to intervene - attempts at overturning the father's conviction failed.
A later confession which emerged however, showed Nash openly admitted to killing his daughter. Reports described how people scrambled outside the town jail to get a good view of the gallows, and by 8am the crowd was estimated as numbering up to 4,000 souls.
The South Wales Echo reported that: "For the most part the crowd was orderly though some roughs indulged in throwing snowballs". Nash hanged for the crime, before crowds then quickly dispersed.
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