25 Facts About Hilda Murrell

Hilda Murrell was a British rose grower, naturalist, diarist and campaigner against nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

Hilda Murrell was abducted and found murdered five miles from her home in Shropshire.

Hilda Murrell was born on 3 February 1906 in Shrewsbury, in the county of Shropshire, England, and lived there all her life.

Hilda Murrell graduated with an MA in English and French literature, and Modern and Mediaeval Languages.

Hilda Murrell quickly developed outstanding horticultural and business skills and took over as Director in 1937.

Under her management, Edwin Hilda Murrell Ltd enjoyed its final golden years from 1949 to 1970.

Hilda Murrell had become an internationally respected rose-grower and authority on rose species, old-fashioned varieties and miniature roses.

Hilda Murrell sold roses to the Queen Mother and the Churchills and helped Vita Sackville-West design her White Garden at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent.

Hilda Murrell's annual rose catalogue was widely known and respected both for its information and elegant writing; and she designed many gardens.

Hilda Murrell was a founder-member of the national Soil Association promoting organic horticulture, and of what is the Shropshire Wildlife Trust; and in the 1970s she worked unpaid with her customary energy for the Shropshire branch of the Council for the Protection of Rural England.

Hilda Murrell became an expert botanist, and extracts from her nature diaries were published in 1987 illustrated with her coloured photographs and botanical drawings.

Hilda Murrell was deeply knowledgeable about megalithic monuments and the history of the British landscape.

Hilda Murrell brought together carefully researched knowledge, a deep love of the natural world, and an ability to anticipate threats to it.

Hilda Murrell was an indefatigable and fearless campaigner to bring these issues to the attention of those who had the power and responsibility to effect solutions.

Hilda Murrell was scheduled to present her paper "An Ordinary Citizen's View of Radioactive Waste Management" at the Sizewell B Inquiry, the first public planning inquiry into a new British nuclear power plant.

Hilda Murrell was abducted in her own car, a white Renault 5, which many witnesses reported seeing being driven erratically through the town and past the police station during the lunch hour.

Hilda Murrell had been beaten and stabbed multiple times, but did not die from her injuries, instead succumbing to hypothermia.

Hilda Murrell's post-mortem was performed by Peter Acland who, together with the detective leading the case, Detective Chief Superintendent David Cole, wrote about this and other cases in The Detective and the Doctor: A Murder Casebook.

One theory put forward was that Hilda Murrell was murdered by the British intelligence service MI5 during an operation against nuclear protesters.

Hilda Murrell died in tragic circumstances, alone in the empty countryside.

Hilda Murrell is commemorated on her family headstone in Longden Road Cemetery, Shrewsbury.

Local labourer Andrew George, who was 16 when Hilda Murrell was murdered, was arrested in June 2003 after a cold case review of the murder uncovered DNA and fingerprint evidence linking him with the crime.

Hilda Murrell was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 15 years, that was likely to keep him in prison until at least 2018 and the age of 51.

Hilda Murrell's murder was the subject of a song, "The Rose Grower" by the English group Attacco Decente.

Hilda Murrell is mentioned in Ian Rankin's novel The Impossible Dead.