Local historian David Rose said: “It must have caused a great deal of shock that a clergyman had been shot in his parsonage by a gang of four men who had come to rob him and his family.”
While Surrey has a relatively low crime rate now, Rose said that “from records that survive and newspaper reports it seems that lawlessness was rife at the time, particularly in rural areas.”
Four men were tried for Hollest’s murder. Two were found guilty and put to death, and the others were cleared due to lack of evidence.
They were thought to be part of a larger criminal group known as Issacs’ Gang, which Rose says “terrorised Surrey and Sussex” until many of them were captured between 1850 and 1851.