| On January 18th 1925, 24 years old, P.C. Albert Willits
was murdered. Many people lined the streets to see his
funeral which was handled by Jennings, who suitably rose to
the occasion. Police Constable Albert
Willits died in the Wolverhampton and Staffordshire General
Hospital, soon after being shot in the head and fatally
wounded.
He left Bilston Road Police
Station, on the corner of Cleveland Road to begin a foot
patrol at 6.00am. on Sunday the
18th January, 1925. He walked past the hospital
before turning left into Vicarage Road. He walked as far
as the junction with Powlett Street and noticed three
youths in Vicarage Road. He wondered why they were there
so early and approached them to enquire about their
business. One of the men knocked Albert’s helmet from
his head and ran off, so he gave chase. As he did so,
one of the others shot him three times with a revolver.
One bullet missed and hit the vicarage garden wall,
another grazed Albert’s temple and the third fatal shot
hit the back of his head.
The shots were heard by the
occupants of All Saints Vicarage on the corner of
Powlett Street at around 6.40am. as Albert lay dying on
the pavement beside the vicarage. The youths ran away
and Albert’s colleagues were called from the police
station to assist. They carried him to the hospital,
where he died within minutes.
|
One cross marks where
Albert fell, the other is where a bullet hit the
vicarage garden wall.
From a newspaper cutting from an unknown
newspaper. |
After an extensive police search,
the youths were arrested on their way to Stafford at
around a quarter past five that afternoon. The revolver
had been hidden and was never recovered. Two of them,
Jock Heggerty, aged 17, a waiter from Glasgow and Bill
Crossley, aged 19 from Carnforth blamed each other and
were charged with murder and sentenced to death by hanging
on February 27th. The third youth, Jimmy Dixon, aged 14 was an
orphan, who was sent to the workhouse and charged with
theft.
They were inmates at the St Vincent
de St Paul's Hostel for Boys at Leyton Green, Harpenden,
a Roman Catholic probation home and had absconded while
on their way to confession, on Saturday the 17th
January, 1925. They began making their way north armed
with a revolver, which they thought would be useful when
they broke into houses. Whilst on their way to
Wolverhampton they had been challenged several times by
police, but said they were heading for Stafford and were
allowed on their way.
|
From a newspaper
cutting from an unknown newspaper. |
On March the 11th, 1925 the
Wolverhampton Labour Party issued a statement protesting
against the execution and on the 4th April, a few days
before the sentence was due to be carried out, Home
Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks, granted a reprieve
and the pair were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Albert Willits' funeral was an
emotional affair. Albert and his wife Dorothy and young son
Derek lived in a council house on the Old Heath housing
estate, off Willenhall Road. Over 4,000 mourners stood
outside the house on the day of the funeral to watch the
cortege as it left the Willits' home and made its way to St
Peter's Church. Over 500 policemen attended the event and
the church could not accommodate all the mourners. Thousands
of people lined the streets to see one of the largest
funerals to be held in Wolverhampton. Dorothy was overcome
with grief and so could not attend. Her brother Bill
attended on her behalf. The proceedings ended at Merridale
Cemetery, where Albert was buried.
Mourners outside the Willits' home.
Dorothy, whose maiden name was Hughes,
had married Albert Willits in 1923. They were both from
Walsall where Albert's father was a policeman and Dorothy
was a seamstress. At the time of Albert's death, Derek was
just 10 months old and so in later life had no memory of his
father. There was a tremendous outpouring of public sympathy
and a trust fund was set up.
Albert and Dorothy.
Dorothy married Vic Mountford in 1927
and they had two children, Barbara and Alan. She was still
in love with Albert and missed him greatly. She began to
suffer from depression and had developed mental health
problems by 1937. Her husband Vic was having an affair with
another woman, who he quickly married after Dorothy's death.
Also in 1937 and 1938 Albert's killers were released from
prison. All of this may have contributed to her committing
suicide in a gas-filled room at her house in Botany Road,
Walsall in 1943. The inquest verdict was that Dorothy had
taken her own life while her mind was temporarily
unbalanced. She is buried at Merridale cemetery in
Wolverhampton beside Albert.
The headstone on the grave carries the
following inscription:
In loving memory of PC Albert Willits,
beloved husband of Dorothy Willits, who was shot in the
execution of his duty, Jan 18th, 1925, aged 24 years.
'Faithful Unto Death.' Also of his wife Dorothy, died 3rd
Feb 1943. Aged 42 years. R.I.P.
The original headstone was vandalised
and replaced by one purchased by Derek and the Police
Federation. Albert had been born on the 9th July, 1900.
|
The headstone on their
grave. |
Derek volunteered to join the Royal Navy in
1942 and took part in the Sicily landings. He
became a Sub-Lieutenant. When Vic remarried
after Dorothy's death he left home and had
nothing more to do with Vic.
He married Connie and they bought their
first house in Bloxwich with money from the
trust fund.
He had a good education at Queen Mary's
Grammar School in Walsall and became a music
teacher, teaching at Chuckery School and later
at Willingsworth High School in Tipton.
He was also choirmaster and organist at
Pelsall and organist at St Andrew's Church,
Birchills. |
The two murderers Jock Heggerty and
Bill Crossley lived far away from the Black Country. In 1937
Crossley was released and moved to Liverpool, where he was
given a job and a new name by a Catholic society. Heggerty
was released in March 1938 and given the surname McNamara.
In 1946 he was jailed for three months for stealing four
table cloths from the Palm Court Hotel in Torquay, where he
was a waiter. He also admitted to stealing cutlery from
Lyons' Corner House. The other member of the group, Jimmy
Dixon, died young in the workhouse.
There is a commemorative brass plaque
to PC Willits in Bilston Street, Wolverhampton police
station. |
