The Otley Murder: William Taylor, 1887
Buckle in for a story too gory for the Otley Ghost Tour:
To preface this true-crime tale, I’d like to reference a brilliant book by Mark Bridgeman: 'Dark Side of the Dales', it includes True stories of murder, mystery and robbery from Yorkshire's dark past. The book I used to read up on this very story. There’s loads more grim history in that book, I’d certainly recommend it to you ‘orrible lot. Click the image below to check it out!
The infamous Otley Murder took place on 23rd November, 1887, in a terraced home that still stands: 17 Cambridge Street. The streets were buzzing with festivity in celebration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, and the Jubilee Clock in the market square had only recently been erected.
But every party has its pooper. William Taylor was known in Otley as a brute. He was a married man to an enduring, quiet lady named Hannah, and a father of three to a ten year old named William, a four year old named Elizabeth, and a new born baby named Annie, who was ten weeks old at this time. William Taylor was a drunk, and an abusive one at that. It was on this day that he became a murderer as well.
They were a poor family, and times were tough for the working classes. Although William claimed to be a joiner, it’s unclear how much he actually worked, with most of his days spent drinking the family money away at the pub. As well as being a mother to three, Hannah was forced to take up work as a charlady to provide for the three children. They also took on a lodger to help make ends meet: 55 year-old Ellis Brumfitt Hartley. It was an unhappy marriage for Hannah, William was often drunk, would project violent mood swings, and had previously been arrested on at least three occasions for drunk and riotous behaviour.
While a no-doubt shattered Hannah stayed at home nursing little Annie, William drank his day away in one of Otley’s back then 42 pubs! No doubt using the jubilee joviality as more than enough cause for celebration. He stayed out from the first pub’s open to the last pub’s close, kicked off when landlady at The Rose and Crown finally asked him to leave, and spent his short walk home shouting, caterwauling, and lashing out at thin air.
Hannah, meanwhile, was desperately trying to get the distressed 10 week old baby to sleep. Ellis had traipsed downstairs, complaining that he couldn’t sleep either because of the sound of her crying, and helped Hannah build a fire to warm up the house. Hannah opened the back door in an attempt to draft the fire, which had just lit nicely when an enraged William burst through the front door. William immediately started shouting about the door to the back yard being open, and Hannah tried to explain that it was just to draw the fire.
This was where William escalated things out of control. He screamed and shouted at the crying baby, who wailed all the louder, before grabbing the shotgun from the wall. Hannah was used to William’s outbursts, and knew what was coming. She grabbed baby Annie from her cradle by the fire and fled through the back door and into the yard. Hartley on the other hand, ran to the front door, and narrowly escaped as Taylor shot at him. From the corner of her eye, Hannah could see William aiming his shotgun at her. Acting on instinct, she turned around to shelter Annie from the shot. The bullet grazed Hannah’s arm, and she hurried over to next door.
On inspection of the child, they found she had lost a lot of blood, and the more they unwrapped her from the blankets she was wrapped up in, the more the blood seemed to come.
A group of officers arrived at 17 Cambridge Street and surrounded the building. William’s brother Stephen, who lived nearby, was summoned to try to coax him out of the house, but to no avail. William threatened “I’ll make it warm in here for anyone who enters!” The officers waited outside the house, unable to enter for William’s threats to shoot anyone who dared enter.
As dawn began to break, the constables decided to call for their senior officer, Superintendent Thomas Birkhill. Birkhill was a well known, well-liked police officer in Otley. He was recognised by locals, even the mildly corrupt, as “one of the good ones” on account of his just, fair moral standing. And when he arrived, he immediately took charge of the situation.
Birkhill placed two officers along the narrow ginnel at the side of the house to guard the back door, while two others guarded the front door. Meanwhile, another officer was able to break into the house and occupy the bottom three steps leading upstairs to the bedrooms, which gave him a line of sight for both the front and back doors. Of course, at this point, no one knew where 4 year old Elizabeth was, or even whether she was alive.
The police agreed to simultaneously enter the house via the front and back doors. William Taylor noticed Superintendent Birkhill through the front window. He immediately realised what was happening, and shot at the officer within close range in the back of the head, near to the left ear. Birkhill fell back and was caught by a couple of his colleagues. They carried him into a neighbouring house where he was treated by a couple of surgeons, but the injury was too severe: he died at 10:45am.
An eerie silence flooded the street as neighbours and surrounding officers were persuaded to give distance to the house. Only the sound of the Taylor’s dog could be heard barking from its kennel at the bottom of the garden.
Deciding the coast was clear on account of the silence, Taylor decided to trek out to the coal shed, carrying a shovel as he did so. A number of officers leapt out at him, and William attempted to fight back, wacking one on the head with his shovel and yelling “I’ll kill you too!” but he was finally caught, overpowered and arrested.
The fully loaded shotgun was retrieved, as well as 12 cartridges from his pocket and yet more from one of the drawers inside the house. To everyone’s relief, four year old Elizabeth Taylor was found upstairs, unharmed, and 10 year old William Jr was thankfully staying at his grandfather's for the night. Baby Annie however, suffered from fatal wounds after having been shot by William. She had died within a couple of hours of the shooting, and it was later revealed that she had been shot in the back, leading to massive internal injuries.
William was taken to the police station and charged with the murder of his own daughter and Superintendent Thomas Birkhill. When questioned, Taylor casually responded with a northern phrase: “it’s all my eye and Peggy Martin” - meaning, it’s just a load of town gossip. Before adding “but I may have gone a bit too far this time.”
The Otley Courthouse was Otley’s prison and police station from 1890. This is one of its preserved cells.
Annie Taylor and Superintendent Birkhill were both later buried in the Otley cemetery. It is said that William Taylor appeared "excited" and "smiley" at his hearings, and was admitted to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. A psychiatric ward for criminals based in Crowthorne, Berkshire. This hospital still runs to this day, and is the oldest of England’s three high-security psychiatric hospitals. It housed Peter Sutcliffe, Ronnie Kray and many other famous killers throughout its time. It’s probably home to many a ghost you’d rather not meet.
Hannah Taylor, despite attempting to flee the house with Annie, was unable to save her daughter. She remained at 17 Cambridge Street for three years following the killings, suffering constant public shame despite clearly being a victim herself.
Unsurprisingly, she cut contact with William, but one day received a chilling letter from him as a resident at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. It read:
"Hannah, I should be very pleased for you to come and see me. It would not take you long to come. Old Satan told me to pull my eyes out, and I cannot see anything now. I have nothing else fresh to tell you.
From your affectionate husband - W Taylor”
This letter was followed by another enclosed page, reading:
"Madam: in forwarding the enclosed letter, written at your husband's request, I write to say that the statement he makes about having injured his eyes is, unfortunately, too true. In an attack of manical insanity and under the influence of delusion he destroyed the sight of his eyes with his fingers, when in his room one evening. He has, up to the present, so far recovered from the immediate effects of the injury, but something will have to be done to make his condition less uncomfortable. His sight, alas, is gone. His mind. I am glad to say. Is now comparatively tranquil.
Yours - Mr David Nicholson, MD, Medical Superintendant, Broadmoor Clinical Lunatic Asylum”
William Taylor saw out the rest of his days at Broadmoor, he died there in 1925. He was then taken back to Otley, where he was buried in the cemetery, and his ghost is believed to linger nearby to this day: it’s believed he has been spotted by a number of people just down the road, on the pathway heading towards Gallows Hill.
It’s generally agreed by the people of Otley that Gallows Hill is a place to be avoided at night, its eerie atmosphere and unspeakable past is simply too much for most to handle, even though the last hanging occurred there in 1612. Dogs refuse to walk down the path at night time, howling at shadows. Amongst others, it is believed that William Taylor himself haunts the park. He’s thought to drag himself, blind and broken, down the path to Gallow’s hill as the moon starts to become full. Walkers have reported hearing crazed shouting coming from the side of the path - mindless, inhuman ramblings - just fragments of phrases: “Old Satan told me..” “Pull my eyes out”...
One medium in particular hosted a ghost hunting evening down there in July, 2025 on an almost full waxing gibbous moon. The group are said to have encountered an incredibly strong, dark spirit containing “great evil” lurking there. She warns others to avoid the park at night for this reason and believes the ghost to be that of William Taylor.
After all, Taylor’s former home at 17 Cambridge Street has been thoroughly cleansed, and he is very much prohibited from returning, even if his vision allowed it. He’s confined to an afterlife of aimless wandering: a sightless phantom, barred from his own home, doomed to an afterlife made up of a blind, endless hunt for a family he doesn’t ever deserve to find.
