On 30 March 1896 bargeman Charles Humphreys navigated up the River Thames near Reading, towing a boat of ballast.

He had passed the mouth of the River Kennet, where it flows into the Thames at Sonning Lock and was moving slowly towards the open fields of King’s Meadow recreation ground.

The River Thames at Caversham was busy with its usual waterway traffic of barges, steamboats and smaller vessels.

Barge building was still a thriving industry, despite the advent of the railways, and the boats transported goods from ships docked in the Pool of London up the Thames to Reading and then on to cities and towns in the south of England, such as Oxford and Bristol.

Made of seasoned oak, the barges carried coal, timber and other commodities upstream, as well as shipping grain, wheat and farm products downriver to the capital.

Charles Humphreys and his mate pulled the barge in towards the shore. On the other side of the towpath lay King’s Meadow, with the Huntley and Palmer factory cricket ground nearby and the Great Western Railway line in the distance.

Just ahead was Caversham Weir, with the old wooden footbridge, known as the Clappers, linking the lock to the riverside.

They alighted from the barge and Humphreys’s companion unravelled the damp parcel

Suddenly, when they were about seven feet from the shore, Humphreys spotted a brown paper parcel floating in the water and they slowed the boat to investigate. Leaning over the side with a hook, the two men strained to grab the package, dragging it through the water towards them.

They alighted from the barge and Humphreys’s companion unravelled the damp parcel, which had been tied with macramé twine. He cut through two layers of flannel and pulled back the sodden fabric to expose a child’s foot and part of a leg.

Recoiling, Charles Humphreys quickly closed the parcel. Leaving it behind on the towpath, guarded by his mate, he ran straight to the police station to tell the shocked officer on charge of his sinister discovery.

Fifteen minutes later Humphreys returned with Constable Barnett, who carefully placed the small body into a sack. Having removed it to the mortuary, the officer unwrapped the parcel, revealing the body of a baby girl, aged between six months and one year, swaddled in layers of linen, newspaper and brown paper.

Around her neck was a piece of tape, knotted under her left ear, and this, along with her protruding eyes, left PC Barnett and his colleagues in no doubt that she had been strangled.

Her corpse had been weighted down with a brick. On part of the wrapping that had remained dry, was faint writing which the constable could not quite decipher.

Local surgeon Dr William Maurice examined the infant and confirmed PC Barnett’s suspicions of strangulation.

When the first inquest took place two days later, at St Giles’ coffee house on Southampton Street, the proceedings were brief. Charles Humphreys and Constable Barnett recounted their discovery, and the coroner adjourned the inquest for a fortnight to give the police time to make further inquiries.

Detective Constable Anderson provided the first clue in the case. While carefully examining the dried brown paper in which the child had been wrapped, he found that it bore a Midland Railway stamp, with the date ‘24-10-95’ and Bristol Temple Meads.

The smudged writing also gave him a name and an address: ‘Mrs Thomas, of 26 Piggott’s Road, Caversham.’

The search for a murderer had begun….