The Moat Farm Murder (Paperback)
Imprint: Pen & Sword True Crime
Pages: 176
Illustrations: 30 mono illustrations
ISBN: 9781036106805
Published: 29th August 2024
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Samuel Herbert Dougal had a successful military career lasting over 20 years in the Royal Engineers, where he rose to the rank of Quartermaster-Sergeant. But he was also a forger, embezzler, thief, arsonist, serial womaniser and murderer. After leaving the army he preyed on well-off older women and one of them – Camille Cecile Holland – would become the central figure and victim of the Moat Farm Murder. In 1899, Dougal persuaded her to purchase Coldhams Farm, an isolated property at Clavering, Essex, which they renamed “The Moat Farm” and which she supposed was to be their love-nest. Instead, she disappeared shortly after they moved in, with Dougal reporting that she had gone travelling on a sudden whim. He also installed his real wife Sarah at the Moat Farm; she was his third wife and it is likely that he poisoned both the others whilst serving in Canada. He then began to systematically ransack Miss Holland’s bank account using forged cheques, as well as selling off her substantial investments with forged letters to brokers and putting the farm into his own name. The womanising continued unabated and became the stuff of local legend.
Four years later, when Miss Holland’s funds were used up, Dougal tried to flee the country but was arrested at the Bank of England trying to change high value banknotes. After an unsuccessful attempt at escape on the way to the police station, he remained in custody for several months while an unsatisfactory trial for fraud dragged on before the Magistrates Bench. At last the police decided to look for a body, spending weeks to no avail dragging the moats which surrounded the farmhouse. At the very moment when the trial for fraud hung on a thread, Miss Holland was discovered in a filled-in drainage ditch with a bullet in her skull. Public hysteria was at fever-pitch and sightseers came in thousands from all over England. An inquest and trial for murder followed swiftly; Dougal was convicted and executed in July 1903. His last word was “Guilty”.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
NetGalley, Victoria Thompson
I enjoyed this! This is well researched and well written. If you enjoy true crime I would recommend this!
A decorated soldier with a dark secret life, Samuel Dougal murdered his wealthy lover, Camille Cecile Holland, after defrauding her. This true crime account details his years of escalating crimes, including forgery, theft, and bigamy, culminating in Holland’s death and Dougal’s execution.
NetGalley, Andrea Romance
This is a fascinating story.
In the early 1900s, the Moat Farm Murder trial was the sensation of its day. It had a bit of everything; a wife-beathing, philandering, gold digger of an ex-military man, bigamy, a propositioned maid, the mystery of a missing heiress and then the belated discovery of a body in the moat.
NetGalley, Pippa Elliott
This book is an account not only of the case itself, but also of the life of Samuel Hubert Dougal, his spouses, and the detectives involved in the case. This added to the depth of the book as it fleshed out the characters and gave some idea of their motivation and what was at stake. Indeed, the author is a distant relative of one of the police detectives, who was so affected by the case that his health never quite recovered.
Dougal was undoubtedly a dastardly man. He was what we now recognise as a sociopath – charming but manipulative and utterly intent on getting what he wanted – which is this case was the farm and fortune belonging to heiress Camille Cecile Holland. A man who knew how to sweep a woman off her feet, he married Camille – despite already being married to another woman. And then when, in 1899, Camille set off on a mysterious buggy ride never to be seen again, Dougal was left comfortably set up and moved one of his lady friends in.
The book is not only factual but an enjoyable (if that is the right word for a murder) read. There were insights into motivation, such as when Camille employed a new maid just a few days before her disappearance. That same maid left abruptly saying she had been propositioned by Dougal. The author points out that this was his cunning way of clearing the path for murder; either by scaring the maid off or seducing her into his power. There were other interesting titbits, such as farm currently known as Moat Farm is not the actual Moat Farm – so may murder tourists visit the wrong location.
Highly recommended for those enthralled by true Victorian crime.
About Anthony Payne
Anthony Payne was Professor of Anatomy at Glasgow University until his retirement in 2012. He was an active researcher in several scientific fields, writing over a hundred publications and travelling widely as a speaker and examiner. He is the great grandson of Superintendent Alexander Gray Daniels, the senior uniformed officer in the area at the time of the Moat Farm case and has drawn on a number of family documents and photographs in compiling this account.
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