A plot demanding a �5,000 ransom to kidnap the nine-year-old son of the Marchioness Townshend was reported in the EDP in April 1926.The Marchioness had been sent a typewritten letter saying that unless �5,000 was paid, her son, the Marquess Townshend, would be held for ransom.
A plot demanding a �5,000 ransom to kidnap the nine-year-old son of the Marchioness Townshend was reported in the EDP in April 1926.
The Marchioness had been sent a typewritten letter saying that unless �5,000 was paid, her son, the Marquess Townshend, would be held for ransom.
Four letters, all in similar terms, had been sent to her London solicitors. They all demanded money and the Lady Townshend, added: "Clearly the writer is not out for money for himself, and I did not know that I had any enemies." Two members of Norfolk Constabulary were on duty, night and day, at Raynham Hall.
The Marchioness was unwilling to give any information to the press which might handicap the police in their efforts to locate the writer of the letters.
Nor would she disclose the nature of the postmarks. "The young marquess is a great friend of all the children on the estate and entertains two or three hundred of them to a party every summer, helping to wait upon them himself," she said.
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