Charles Drew

A murderer buried in consecrated ground!

On the night of Thursday 31st January 1740, Charles went to Upper House, Long Melford, occupied by Charles John Drew, a wealthy attorney and his own father, and shot him six times!

His father had kept him on a small allowance because of the company he kept. Charles was mixing with smugglers and poachers. They taunted him into taking a dreadful revenge. He hid the gun in a hollow tree by the roadside at Liston.

Charles ran to London to prove his father's Will but on his return he found a search was being made for him. He returned to London but was later caught in Leicester Fields and was committed to Newgate. From there he was brought to Bury St Edmunds, convicted at the Assizes on 27th March, and subsequently hanged on 12th April 1740.

That same evening, his body was surreptitiously interred under the Chancel of Acton Church by the Vicar, the Revd. Charles Umfreville, having married Mary Drew, the murderer's eldest sister.