THE county’s biggest ever court case came to a dramatic conclusion exactly 100 years ago this week – with the judge donning the black cap and sentencing Major Herbert Rowse Armstrong to death for poisoning his wife.

The solicitor had denied killing her at their Cusop home near Hay-on-Wye 14 months earlier, but was convicted by a jury at Hereford Shire Hall a century ago yesterday (April 13).

And the 53-year-old became the only lawyer in British legal history to be executed, when he was hanged on May 31, 1922, at Gloucester Jail.

Since that dramatic day, when hundreds gathered to await the verdict outside the Shire Hall - still one of the country’s oldest surviving crown courts, dating back to 1817 – more than 80 books have been written about the case alongside TV and radio dramatisations.

Such was his infamy, the father-of-two’s waxwork model even made the rogue’s gallery at Madame Tussauds, sadly encountered by his young daughter on a school trip.

The case made headlines around the world, with the solicitor first arrested at his Hay-on-Wye office - which still stands today - on New Year’s Eve 1921 on suspicion of trying to poison rival town lawyer Oswald Martin.

When police then exhumed his wife’s body at Cusop churchyard, tests by eminent Home Office pathologist Dr Bernard Spilsbury showed that it was riddled with arsenic.

Katherine had died in February 1921 after a long period of illness, with the cause of death initially given as gastritis, aggravated by heart disease and nephritis.

But suspicions were aroused when Armstrong’s rival solicitor fell violently sick after eating a buttered scone at a meeting with the major, offered by the latter with the words ‘excuse fingers’,

The two lawyers were representing rival parties in a contentious property matter at the time, and Martin claimed Armstrong had failed to pay a deposit on the sale despite repeated requests.

Following the ‘tea party’, Martin’s father-in-law, town chemist John Davies, recalled selling arsenic several times to Armstrong, supposedly to kill dandelions, and alerted local doctor Thomas Hincks, who had treated Katherine.

Tests on Martin showed the presence of arsenic, while the poison was also found in chocolates sent anonymously to his family, after his wife’s sister-in-law had eaten one and also fallen seriously ill.

Charged with the murder of his wife on January 19, Armstrong said "I am absolutely innocent” and claimed she must have taken her own life.

The trial at the Shire Hall was a sensation, with the prosecution case led by Attorney General Sir Ernest Pollock and the defence by legendary barrister Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett, with 73-year-old Mr Justice Darling presiding over his last ever murder case.

Armstrong, who it was claimed had been seeing another woman and had forged his wife’s will to benefit himself, went into the box and denied having anything to do with her death.

But 100 years ago this week, after a 10-day trial, the jury decided he was lying.

The judge donned the black cap telling Armstrong he had been convicted of an “awful crime”, adding: “I feel bound to say that in that verdict of theirs I concur.”

The convicted wife killer showed no emotion, as Justice Darling continued: “The suggestion that your wife committed suicide was, to my mind, absurd and was supported by no evidence which could render it not only probable, but possible.”

And he finished with the dreadful penalty: “It is my duty now to merely pronounce the sentence of the court. It is that you be taken hence to the place from whence you came; that you be taken thence to a lawful place of execution; and that you be there hanged by the neck until you be dead.”

Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett wasn’t in court, expecting the jury to take longer and having gone for a walk.

He was ’shattered’ when told of the death sentence at a local post office, and later said: “I shall never do a case like that again. I know that I have never done a better case and never will do. It was unjust - a poor show.”

The crowd outside was stunned into silence by the guilty verdict, but surged to the Shire Hall gate 30 minutes later to witness Armstrong being walked to a police car to be driven to await his fate at Gloucester Jail.