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This article recounts the case of Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen – a transgender individual who committed Rawtenstall’s first recorded murder on August 29, 1948 – along with the post-war British social context, the lifelong struggle with gender identity, and the execution at Strangeways Prison in 1949. The content is for educational and historical-criminological documentation purposes only, based on newspaper archives and court records. It does not aim to glorify violence or advocate for crime.
Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen: The Transgender Person Who Committed Rawtenstall’s First Recorded Murder
Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen, the transexual who committed Rawtenstall’s first recorded murder.
In the early hours of August 29, 1948, an elderly woman was found battered to death on the streets of Rawtenstall, Lancashire, England. She was Nancy Ellen Chadwick, 68, an eccentric, wealthy but miserly landlady often seen counting her money in public parks. Her body lay face down outside 137 Bacup Road, her head so badly crushed that she was barely recognisable.
The murder shocked the neighbourhood – and it became even more shocking when the perpetrator was identified. It was a woman named Margaret Allen, but for the past thirteen years, she had lived as a man, demanding to be called “Bill”. This case was not only Rawtenstall’s first recorded murder; it was also the story of a person who had spent their entire life searching for their true identity – in a society where homosexuality was a criminal offence and gender reassignment was almost impossible.
1. Childhood and Gender Confusion
Margaret Allen was unsure of her gender when she was younger and later lived as a man. (Image: Mirrorpix)
Margaret Allen was born in 1906 on Plantation Street, Rawtenstall, the 20th child in a large Catholic family of 22 siblings. England at the time was a different world: an industrial smog of coal and cotton mills, a society sharply divided between rich and poor, and organisations like the NHS and social welfare systems did not yet exist.
From an early age, Margaret was never a typical girl. She rejected anything feminine, preferred playing with boys, and as she grew older, she sought out masculine jobs: loading coal, labouring on house repairs, driving buses for Rawtenstall Corporation, and even working as a postman. She was prone to swearing – considered a masculine trait in the early 20th century – and was prone to violent rages. In an era when homosexuality was a criminal offence (men could be hanged between 1533 and 1885, later facing chemical castration or imprisonment), a person confused about their gender could never fit in. Ironically, homophobia at the time was almost exclusively targeted at men; lesbianism was barely addressed by the law – which only added to Margaret’s confusion.
2. The Birth of ‘Bill’: A Fictitious Operation
Bacup Road in Rawtenstall.(Image: Google Maps)
In 1935, Margaret announced to everyone that she had undergone a “delicate operation” at a hospital. From that day on, Margaret was no more. She became “Bill” – a man with short-cropped hair, wearing men’s clothes, drinking in working men’s clubs and bars that were largely inaccessible to women.
Bill’s claim of having undergone gender reassignment surgery was quite possibly a lie. The first gender reassignment surgery had been attempted unsuccessfully in Germany just five years earlier, on Lili Elbe, who died following the procedure. In the UK, such surgery was not performed until 1951, when Roberta Cowell (a WWII fighter pilot) underwent the operation in secret. In 1930s rural Lancashire, where most of the population remained devoutly Catholic, such surgery was virtually impossible.
But that did not stop Bill. He lived as a man, worked as a bus conductor for Rawtenstall Corporation Buses during the war (1942), but was fired in 1946 for abusing passengers. Bill’s life began to fall apart. He had no girlfriend (he had once courted a woman named Annie Cook but was rejected), no job, and when his mother died in 1943, he fell into a deep depression. Bill smoked excessively, refused to eat, and became unkempt and erratic.
3. Nancy Chadwick and the Motive of Robbery
Margaret Allen became known simply as Bill after 1935. (Image: rossendale free press)
In 1947, Bill bought a dilapidated building at 137 Bacup Road – the former Rawtenstall Police Headquarters. He was behind on his rent, behind on his coal and electricity bills, and threatened with eviction. His total debt was £46 (approximately £1,435 today), and he had no feasible way to repay it.
Nancy Ellen Chadwick, 68, was by all accounts an unpopular woman. Her own family considered her “eccentric” and “odd”. She was wealthy but disagreeably tight with her money, often carrying large sums of cash in her handbag but preferring not to spend it. She was known as a scrounger around Rawtenstall. Some years earlier, she had been robbed of £25 (almost £900 today) after being attacked in the town centre.
Nancy first met Bill at the house of a mutual acquaintance. A week later, they bumped into each other, and Nancy mentioned that she was out of sugar. Bill offered to lend her a cup – a generous proposition in post-war Britain still languishing under rationing. On the morning of Saturday, August 28, Nancy saw Bill on the street and asked to be invited into his home, since Bill had been invited into hers several times. According to sources, Bill did not want Nancy to see the inside of his dilapidated house and shut the door in her face.
That was the last time Nancy Chadwick was seen alive.
4. The Murder with a Coal Hammer
Police investigating the scene on Bacup Road following the discovery of Nancy’s body.(Image: rossendale free press)
At around 3:55 a.m. on August 29, 1948, bus driver Herbert Beaumont discovered Nancy Chadwick’s body sprawled outside 137 Bacup Road. She was lying face down, her coat collar covering her battered head. Police later determined that the murder weapon was a coal hammer, its pointed end covered in ash.
Detectives from Scotland Yard were called in. Their task was made relatively easy by a trail of blood that led from the street directly to Bill’s house.
Bill reportedly followed the investigators as they worked, staring at them for long periods. He later rushed to a detective to alert him to something floating in the nearby River Irwell. That object was Nancy’s handbag – but it was empty except for cotton and thread, with none of the cash she usually carried.
The money was never found.
5. Arrest and Confession
Nancy Chadwick was murdered by Bill in 1948.(Image: Mirrorpix)
On September 1, 1948, when police called at 137 Bacup Road, they noticed bloodstains on an inside wall close to the doorway. More blood marks were found in the cellar. Investigators matched hairs from the victim’s head to Bill’s clothing and discovered several of Nancy’s personal belongings in the house. When formally charged, Bill admitted to killing Nancy.
He could not explain a motive. He told police: “I was in a funny mood… she seemed to insist on coming in. I just happened to look around and saw a hammer in the kitchen… on the spur of the moment I hit her. She gave me a shout and that seemed to start me off more and I hit her a few times. I don’t know how many.”
Hundreds of Rawtenstall residents gathered outside the town’s magistrates’ court to see Bill. After all, this was the first recorded murder in the town’s history, and the first in living memory. Throughout the legal proceedings, Bill was referred to as Margaret Allen and charged with murder.
6. Trial and Death Sentence
Police later found Nancy’s bag, minus her large quantities of cash, floating in the River Irwell. (Image: rossendale free press)
At the full trial, defence lawyers attempted, on several grounds, to prove Bill insane. But the jury – after two and a half hours of deliberation – found Bill guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. It took just five hours.
Bill remained aggressive to the end. He kicked over his last meal, complained loudly, and abused the prison guards.
On the morning of January 12, 1949, Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen, without expressing any remorse, went to the gallows at Manchester’s Strangeways Prison, hanged by the famous executioner Albert Pierrepoint. He gave no final statement.
A Life, A Murder, A Legacy
Bill’s execution notice is posted at Strangeways Prison in January 1949. (Image: Mirrorpix)
The case of Margaret ‘Bill’ Allen is one of the most complex and tragic in British criminal history. It is the story of a person born into an unaccepting era, rejected by society, sinking into poverty and depression, who finally killed an innocent woman in a moment of impulse. It is also the story of Nancy Chadwick – a lonely, eccentric, wealthy but miserly old woman who was also just living her life in her own way.
Bill spent his entire life searching for his true identity. In another world, another era, perhaps Bill could have lived as a man without committing a crime. But in 1948, in the smoky, prejudiced landscape of post-war Britain, that struggle ended with a coal hammer, a corpse on a pavement, and a knot on a hangman’s rope at Strangeways.
This case was not only Rawtenstall’s first murder. It is a reminder of a dark period in history when those who were different had no place – and of the price they, and those around them, paid.
Primary sources:
Bacup Times and Rossendale Free Press (1948-1949), contemporary coverage of the Margaret Allen case and the Strangeways execution.
Lancashire Police records and Scotland Yard detective reports.
Mirrorpix archive – photographic evidence of Bill Allen and the crime scene.
Historical sources on the British execution system and hangman Albert Pierrepoint.