Skegness Magazine

Former Skegness Man’s Fate
Body Found Floating in French Dock
Year-old Mystery Solved

Almost a year after death, the body of an Englishman found floating in a dock at Boulogne was identifed in 1924 as that of Skegness hotel proprietor, Mr Francis William Naylor, aged 62.

Mr Nayor, who was well known in Skegness as the proprietor of Hildred’s Hotel (pictured above), taking over from Charles Hildred, left the resort around 1909 to manage the King’s Head Hotel in Coventry. He retired from that position in 1922 and went to live with his son at Kew.

His son’s wife told the Daily Sketch that when Mr Naylor left the house in March of the previous year (1923), the family had no reason for anxiety, although he did not say before he left where he was going. Mr Naylor was identified by his clothing in the posession of the French Police.

Not the man they thought

The tragedy caused a great stir in March 1923 owing to the body being initially identified as that of a man who turned out to be alive.

Later, there were dramatic developments that suggested a political crime.

A hotel manager and six other persons declared emphatically that the dead man was Mr Herbert Gilbody, a timber merchant of Upper Hornsey Drive, but that gentleman, who had been in France, immediately came forward to say that a mistake had been made and that far from being drowned he was alive and well in England.

IRA Letter
The body was found in a part of the harbour not likely to be frequented by a stranger, and he had been robbed of everything of value, even to his set of false teeth.
The assumption was that the man had been the victim of a gang of thieves, but, not a month later, there was a startling development in the mystery.
The police in Boulogne received a note suggesting that he had been the victim of Irish Republican vengeance.
The note was not hand-written, but the words were made up of single letters cut from an English newspaper. It was signed with two sets of initials, first I.O. then I.R.A., which were abbrevuations for Intelligence Officer and Irish Republican Army.
Whether this was a hoax or whether Mr Naylor really did meet his death at the hands of the IRA was never proved.
But what WAS fact was that on the evening of March 23rd, 1923, a man who booked a room at a Boulogne Hotel saying he had missed the night boat, went out for the evening and did not return, and that he must have borne a remarkable resemblance to Mr Gilbody!

Skegness Hildred’s Hotel manager, Francis Naylor on 1901 census