WILLIAM Tibbott was hanged in Montgomery in 1830 – damned a murderer – and would become the last sole to face the gallows in the town.

In his trial in the Autumn of 1830 he had been accused of killing his father by poisoning on July 27.

He had been found guilty of using arsenic to poison his father, John, who had died the following day, at their home between Manafon and Newtown at a house known as the Lodge.

He had pleaded his innocence but a jury of 17 men had found him guilty.

During the trial it was alleged that William and his father had quarrelled after the son had failed to pay his rent and told to leave the family home.

Witnesses had claimed to have heard Tibbott say he would kill his father with several alleging he had used the term 'fix him.'

Shopkeeper Elizabeth Morris testified he had tried to purchase white arsenic at her shop and been told to apply to the local surgeon Richard Baxter who had revealed he had sold William two packets.

Another witness, Richard Owen, spoke of a conversation with William in the hours after his father's death.

After offering his condolences, William had replied: 'I don't know, he was one of the biggest rogues I had any concern with, we gave him two cups of tea last night and some bread from his daughter and it not agree with him because he had a rupture. I am going to see for my son to the burying, I mean it to be Friday.'

William had protested his innocence throughout his trial but the Salopian Journal reported: 'The wretched man, prior to his execution, confessed his crime and also that he murdered his first wife in a similar manner.'

In the end, William had been double murderer and while he had avoided justice for the murder of his wife he had confessed it upon the conviction of the murder of his father.

On the day of hanging on August 16, 1830, in Montgomery the crowd witnessed the last public execution in the town when one bystander had been heard to shout 'That'll lam thee, Tibbott.'

It is also claimed not long after a man hurried into town from the direction of Llanllwchaiarn and asked if he was too late for the hanging.

When told he was the man had pointed to to a sack on his back and said: 'I'm his brother and these are his clothes.'