Their grandfather, Sir John Edward Dineley, a gentleman of some fortune, had, following the death of his eldest grandson in a duel, appointed elder brother John as his heir. Brought up among merchant seamen, John Goodere was, by all accounts, a rough and uncouth man of very little education, but, at his grandfather's insistence, he quit his life at sea to prepare for his inheritance.
Younger brother Samuel had also plumped for a life at sea and, in 1705, had joined His Majesty's navy. When Sir John Edward Dineley died the brothers quarrelled over the portion each should receive from the estate. Meanwhile, John Goodere, now Sir John, had succeeded to a maternal estate in Worcestershire and become a very wealthy man by marrying a Bristol heiress who presented him with a mansion at Stapleton and another in the country, at Tockington, near Thornbury. Samuel felt that, given his brother's considerable wealth, he had not received enough from their grandfather's estate - even though he was a younger, second son.
His elder brother, now the baronet, then upset Samuel even more by saying that he would leave his wealth to two distant cousins, John and Samuel Foote, rather than him. The resulting bad feeling, if not downright hatred, between the brothers dragged on for some time until the night - January 13, 1741 - when Samuel planned to abduct and then murder Sir John. By this time, Samuel had gone up in the world somewhat, being appointed Captain of HMS Ruby, moored down at the mouth of the river Avon, off Portishead, at the Kingroad. Having hatched a secret plot to do away with his older brother, he then persuaded Jarritt Smith, a Bristol solicitor, to include him in a dinner being given for Sir John at a house in College Green. It was, according to the lawyer, supposed to be a kind of reconciliation.
But Sir John, arriving with a well-mounted and armed servant, refused to see his brother for another week and, after conducting some business with Jarritt, went home. So Captain Samuel - who had collected together a number of his sailors from the Ruby plus some other ruffians from a privateer with the intention of abducting Sir John - was forced to bide his time. But the following Sunday, the time of the new appointment, he was ready and, placing his little gang of 16 sailors in an upstairs room at the White Hart, a nearby inn, he at last went to meet his brother. After a kiss, much amicable conversation and a toast to 'love and friendship', the two men left the solicitor's house, Samuel meeting up with his men from the alehouse and Sir John walking down to the quayside. It was then that Mahoney, the leader of the Captain's gang, struck, partly carrying and partly dragging the unfortunate baronet to the Ruby's barge, which was moored at the Mardyke.
Timid onlookers, used to the brutal ways of the press gangs, were told that he was a murderer about to be tried on board the ship. Once on board HMS Ruby Samuel told his fellow officers, who seemed somewhat suspicious at this turn of events, that his prisoner was insane and had to be kept locked up and guarded, below decks. Between 2am and 3am a very drunken Charles White, another crewman, entered Sir John's cabin with the intentions of strangling him with a rope at the same time as stuffing his mouth with a handkerchief to stop him shouting out and awakening others.
The foul deed finally done - not without some commotion - Samuel locked the cabin door and took the two murderers back to his cabin where Mahoney gave him Sir John's gold watch, receiving the Captain's silver one in return. What exactly Samuel's plans were now, and what he intended to do with his brother's body, we'll probably never know because the ship's cooper, who claimed to have witnessed the murder through chinks in a partition, alerted the carpenter who broke down the cabin door. The evidence of murder was plain for all to see and, when the ship's officers proved too timid to do anything about it, the brave cooper, backed up by 10 of the crew, arrested Captain Goodere himself.
Mahoney and White, soon apprehended by four honest sailors in a Bristol alehouse, made voluntary confessions, each blaming the other for the actual murder - but Captain Goodere boldly denied his guilt, alleging that his brother was insane and that, anyway, being heir to the family estates, it would have been folly for him to risk losing some £40,000. Now becoming legally - since the death of his brother - Sir Samuel Goodere, he insisted on walking to Bristol's Newgate gaol dressed in the sort of long red cloak only worn by the aristocracy. He also appealed to the Crown, as did his wife and daughter. Fearing that a hired gang of colliers, or other thugs, might try to 'spring' him from Newgate the authorities had a new, strong door, plated with iron, set up and watched over by a guard.
The odds stacked against him, Goodere at last made a 'confession' of guilt, while fellow conspirators Mahoney and White stated that they had both been almost 'insensible with liquor' before they had consented to commit the murder. It did them no good - on April 15, 1741 all three were executed. Mahoney's body was gibbeted and then left to rot on Dumball, an island just off Avonmouth, close to the scene of the murder on the Ruby.
The Gibbet Pole on Dumball Island - situated where the river Avon meets the Severn - was where criminals' bodies were left to hang, and then rot. Its presence was intended to strike fear into any lawless seamen sailing up into Bristol docks. It survived from about this time for another 120 years and was still marked on a map of 1879.
