On this day in Oxfordshire...

ON 24 FEBRUARY 1876 there was a fracas at the Prince of Wales pub at Challow railway station. Station policeman Joseph Eggleton, 21, acquired some timber in an auction in the pub, and went off to pay for it at the nearby Leather Bottle. In the Leather Bottle customers were passing round a clasp knife for inspection, but when it went missing Eggleton was accused of pocketing it. 

A sober, more mature police officer would have realised that this was likely a prank on the part of the pub’s patrons, but tipsy young Eggleton erupted with violent indignation and was consequently ejected from the pub by the landlord, Jacob Hunt. A GWR porter who witnessed the scene immediately split on Eggleton to Station Master Morley, and Eggleton was promptly suspended. The landlord of the Leather Bottle went to Morley to tell him that Eggleton was unfit for duty, and Eggleton went with him to prove to Morley that he was not. Morley insisted that Eggleton must consider himself suspended, so Eggleton began to “abuse” him. The station ostler John Tame now piled in and shoved Eggleton into a ditch. For good measure, Hunt jammed Eggleton’s face into the mud. At this point Eggleton sensibly attempted his escape but another scuffle ensued, this time with Station Master Morley cheering on Eggleton’s attackers from the sidelines. 

It was acknowledged in court that Eggleton was drunk on duty, but the Bench considered that an assault had indeed been committed upon him. Hunt, Tame and Morley were all fined. Eggleton lost his job and with it his chance of self-improvement. He returned to his previous occupation as a groom and coachman until 1908 when he was knocked off his bicycle in Reading and died aged 53. Somehow Jacob Hunt remained a licensed victualler until his death in 1881. 

The Prince of Wales continued trading even after the closure of the station in 1964 but it was destroyed by fire on Christmas night in 1996, depriving the landlord Austin Barrett and his wife of their home and business. It was then left abandoned for many years and eventually demolished in the 2010s in order to build new houses.