ON THIS DAY: NOTORIOUS PRISONER’S XMAS HOLIDAY ENDED IN COWES 100 YEARS AGO

An escaped convict’s Christmas holiday came to a dramatic end at the Royal Marine Hotel in Cowes on 28th December 1924.

William Whitworth Miller – a notorious international criminal and escapee – had escaped from a Parkhurst Prison working party during a heavy rainstorm the previous day.

At 00:30 that morning, Miller had gone to the hotel, asked for a coffee and booked a room. On waking, he had ordered a substantial breakfast in bed of bacon, eggs and toast. However, the hotel manager had noticed his clothes were ill-fitting and called the Police.

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The Police arrived while he was having a bath. Officers waited outside the bathroom. He was instantly recognised and offered no resistance.

When asked whether he was Miller, he was reported to have replied:

“That is what they called me.”

His disappearance had led to a massive manhunt on the Island by large parties of Police warders and the general public.

Miller – who had been incarcerated for a 3-year stretch – was no ordinary prisoner. The American national had previously escaped from the tough Sing Sing Prison in New York, where he was serving a sentence of 8 years.

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That morning, a Mr and Mrs Wheeler of Newport Road, Cowes had returned home to find their house ransacked and a suit of convict’s clothes lying on the floor in their bedroom. A large quantity of clothing and toilet articles, some money and a Gladstone bag were missing.

When Miller was caught, he was found wearing Mr Wheeler’s attire. Other items taken from the Wheelers’ house were also retrieved from the hotel room.

Miller had plenty of ‘form’. On escaping Sing Sing, he had tried his luck in Canada before crossing the Atlantic to England. He then met and married a pretty 19-year-old girl in London.

The newlyweds initially led a life of luxury, residing in an apartment in fashionable Bloomsbury. When arrested in connection with thefts in the Greater London area, the flat was found to contain hundreds of pounds worth of jewellery – the proceeds of 20 burglaries.

Miller was not the only escapee that year. A further convict – described as ‘a Halifax man’ who had been imprisoned for shop-breaking – was still at large.

The ‘Halifax man’ had also broken into a property, stealing a quantity of clothing and leaving part of his prison uniform behind, together with a note in block letters, which read:

“A Happy New Year.”