Bio

John Edward Gartside was reportedly born in 1923. By May 1947, Gartside was 24 years old, unmarried, and living with his parents at Lazeby House in Standedge, Diggle, near Oldham. Contemporary newspaper reports described him as a former Royal Air Force serviceman. Later accounts also identify him as the operator of a second-hand furniture shop or rented commercial premises in the Dobcross area.

The exact nature and duration of Gartside’s RAF service have not been established. During the later disposal of the Bakers’ belongings, a man believed to have been Gartside reportedly told a furniture dealer that he was separating from his wife and returning to the Air Force. That claim formed part of the explanation used to sell a houseful of furniture and should not be treated as proof that Gartside had actually arranged to rejoin the RAF.

Gartside appears to have known Percy Baker before the murders. At trial, he described Percy as a friend and claimed that he had visited Manor House Farm on previous occasions. His defence depended partly on portraying his presence at the farmhouse as an ordinary social visit rather than an entry made for the purpose of robbery.

The Bakers lived in relative isolation at Manor House Farm. The property stood in the Pennine countryside around Standedge, within the wider Saddleworth district. Its remote position later allowed the bodies to be moved from the house and buried on nearby moorland without immediate discovery.

Murder Story

In May 1947, the Bakers' friend, Mrs. Doughty, went to visit them at their remote Pennines home and was surprised to find the couple's furniture being loaded into a removal van. The driver told her the Bakers had separated after a quarrel and decided to sell their belongings. Suspicious, Mrs. Doughty contacted the removal firm directly, who told her that a young man had approached them saying he was separating from his wife and rejoining the Air Force, and needed to dispose of a houseful of furniture. He had been paid roughly £450 total for the furniture and, separately, Percy Baker's car, and had signed a receipt in the name "P. Baker." Mrs. Doughty examined the receipt and believed it was forged, and reported her suspicions to the police.

The removal firm further told police they had also been asked to deliver several suitcases to a shop in Saddleworth. Investigators traced the shop to 24-year-old John Gartside, who was arrested while driving Percy Baker's car. Gartside initially claimed he had legitimately purchased both the furniture and the car from the Bakers. However, the suitcases were found to contain clothing, household linen, and personal items belonging to the couple, and a search of the Baker home turned up bloodstains in the dining room and a bullet mark on the floor.

Under continued police questioning, Gartside eventually broke down and led officers to a spot on the moors roughly three-quarters of a mile from the house, where the naked bodies of Percy and Alice Baker were recovered. Percy Baker had been shot twice in the head; Alice Baker had been shot once.

Gartside was tried at Leeds Assizes in July 1947. He testified that he had arrived at the Bakers' home while the couple were in the middle of an argument, having brought two loaded guns with him that he said they intended to test later, or that Percy Baker might have been interested in buying. 

He claimed Alice Baker attacked her husband with a poker, that Percy Baker grabbed one of the guns to defend himself and shot his wife with it, and that Gartside then grappled with Baker to take the gun away, causing it to discharge accidentally and strike Baker. He further claimed that, finding Baker writhing in agony on the floor afterward, he picked up the gun and shot him twice more "to put him out of his misery," before panicking and deciding to dispose of both bodies.

This account was contradicted by the forensic evidence presented at trial, and the prosecution's case dismantled his story. The jury found him guilty of murder. John Edward Gartside was hanged at Armley Gaol in Leeds on August 21, 1947.