A is for Ashworth

Introduction to “Uncle Len – Wife-Killer”

Today is April 1st. And I found a murderer in my family, I kid you not. His name was Ashworth and he killed his wife by hitting her over the head with a bottle and strangling her. So: A is for Ashworth, Samuel Leonard Thomas Ashworth. Not related to me by anything but marriage.

If you followed my posts in March and the Ancestral Women 31-Day Challenge, this is not news to you. While researching my Aunt Dinah I stumbled on this story and since then I have been researching it.

There were many characters to discover, like Irene Elsie Munton, the first wife, who was his war sweetheart but left him for another man. And then the long-suffering Pat Pettitt, who gave him six children and then died at 35 of cancer. Her deathbed wish was that Samuel – or Len, as he was known – was to keep the family together. That was to end up being the trigger for the murder.

Headline of article in Daily Record on 14 Jan 1961.

The third wife was the German-Austrian Lisbeth Frank, who promised Len to bring up his children and later found she could not cope (added to his six kids, she had two of her own). She was the wife he did away with.

Why? Well that is the story I am writing. And it all started with another question: why did Dinah marry Len in 1966 and then again in 1981? That questioned led me to this. A story of a soldier who had nine children and four wives ( or five if you count Dinah twice) and lost all but two.

Next: B is for Berkshire, Basingstoke, Burnley

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Sources:

Marriage to 1st wife, Irene Elsie Munton, 1944: England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005, General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 7a; Page: 576, Irene E Munton marriage to Samuel L T Ashworth registered Apr-May-Jun 1944 in Leicester.

Marriage to 2nd wife, Irene Patricia Pettitt, 1949: England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005, General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 5b; Page: 1050, Irene P Ashworth marriage to Samuel L T Ashworth registered Jan-Feb-Mar 1949 in Folkestone.

Marriage to 3rd wife, Lisbeth Stilwell nee Frank, 1960: England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1916-2005, General Register Office; United Kingdom; Volume: 6a; Page: 83, Lisbeth Stillwell marriage to Samuel L T Ashworth registered Jul-Aug-Sep 1960 in Maidenhead.

1st marriage to 4th wife, Dinah Julia Hall, 1966: General Register Office, entry of marriage solemnized at The Parish Church of St. Stephen with St. John in the City of Westminster on 23rd July 1966 between the widower Samuel Leonard Thomas ASHWORTH (aged 43) and Dina Julia HALL (aged 34). Copy issued on 31 Mar 2025.

2nd marriage to Dinah Julia Hall, 1981: General Register Office, entry of marriage solemnized the Register Office in the district of Basingstoke in the County of Hampshire on the 23rd December 1981, between Samuel Leonard Thomas ASHWORTH (aged 59) and Dinah Julia ASHWORTH