Petersfield, and in their possession was found the clothing of the
unfortunate sailor. They were tried at Kingston, and found guilty of
murder, and condemned to be hanged and gibbeted near where they had
committed the foul deed. On April 7th, 1787, the sentence was carried
into effect. The gibbet remained for three years, and was then blown
down in a gale. The hill is still known as Gibbet Hill.
The murdered man was buried in Thursley churchyard, and over his remains
was erected a gravestone, bearing a carving representing three men
killing the sailor, and an inscription as follows:--
In Memory of
A generous, but unfortunate Sailor,
Who was barbarously murder'd on Hindhead,
On September 24th, 1786,
By three Villains,
After he had liberally treated them,
And promised them his further Assistance,
On the Road to Portsmouth.
When pitying Eyes to see my Grave shall come,
And with a generous Tear bedew my tomb;
Here shall they read my melancholy fate--
With Murder and Barbarity complete.
In perfect Health, and in the Flower of Age,
I fell a Victim to three Ruffians' Rage;
On bended Knees, I mercy strove t'obtain
Their Thirst of Blood made all Entreaties Vain,
No dear Relations, or still dearer Friend,
Weeps my hard lot or miserable End.
Yet o'er my sad remains (my name unknown)
A generous public have inscribed this Stone.
On February 2nd, 1787, two dissolute young men named Abraham Tull and
William Hawkins, aged respectively nineteen and seventeen, waylaid and
murdered William Billimore, an aged labourer. They stole his silver
watch, but were too frightened to continue their search for money which
they expected to find, and made a hasty retreat; but they were soon
overtaken, and were subsequently, at Reading Assizes, tried and
condemned to be gibbeted on Ufton Common within sight of their homes.
For many years their ghastly remains were suspended to gibbet posts,
much to the terror and annoyance of the people in the district. No
attempt was made to remove the bodies, on account of it being regarded
as unlawful, until Mrs. Brocas, of Beaurepaire, then residing at
Wokefield Park, gave private orders for them to be taken down in the
night and buried, which was accordingly done. During her daily drives
she passed the gibbeted men and the sight greatly distressed her, and
caused her to have them taken down.[13] The ironwork of the gibbets are
in the Reading Museum.
William Lewin, in 1788, robbed the post-boy carrying the letters from
Warrington to Northwich, between Stretton and Whitley. He managed to
elude the agents of the law for three years, but was eventually
captured, tried at Chester, and found guilty of committing the then
capital offence of robbing the mail. He was hanged at Chester. Says a
contemporary account:--"His body is hung in chains on the most elevated
part of Helsby Tor, about eight miles from Chester; from whence it may
be conspicuously seen, and, by means of glasses, is visible to the whole
county, most parts of Lancashire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Shropshire,
Derbyshire, etc., etc."[14] About this period there were three gibbets
along the road between Warrington and Chester.[15]
Only five months after William Lewin had been gibbeted for robbing the
mails, almost in the same locality Edward Miles robbed and murdered the
post-boy carrying the Liverpool mail-bag to Manchester on September
15th, 1791. For this crime he was hanged, and suspended in chains on
the Manchester Road, near "The Twysters," where the murder had been
committed. In 1845 the irons in which the body had been encased were dug
up near the site of the gibbet, and may now be seen in the Warrington
Museum. Our illustration is reproduced from a drawing in Mr. Madeley's
work, "Some Obsolete Modes of Punishment." It will be observed the irons
which enclosed the head are wanting.
[Illustration: MILES'S GIBBET IRONS, WARRINGTON MUSEUM.]
Spence Broughton was tried at York, in 1792, for robbing the mail
running between Sheffield and Rotherham. He was found guilty, and
condemned to be executed at York, and his body to be hung in chains near
the place where the robbery had been committed. The gibbet-post (which
was the last put up in Yorkshire), with the irons, the skull, and a few
other bones and rags, was standing in 1827-28, when it was taken
down.[16]
We learn from "The Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer" (1822), that on May
2nd, 1804, the gibbet on which Payne, the pirate, was hung about 23
years previously, upon Yarmouth North Denes, was taken down by order of
the Corporation.
Lincolnshire history supplies some curious details respecting the
gibbeting of a man named Tom Otter, in the year 1806. We are told that
he was compelled by the old poor law regulations to wed a girl he had
injured. He lured her into a secluded spot the day after their marriage,
and deliberately murdered her. According to the prevalent custom, Tom
Otter's corpse was hung in chains. The day selected for that purpose
inaugurated a week of merry-making of the most unseemly character.
Booths were pitched near the gibbet, and great numbers of the people
came to see the wretch suspended. It is reported that some years later,
when the jaw bones had become sufficiently bare to leave a cavity
between them, a bird built its nest in this unique position. The
discovery of nine young ones therein gave rise to the following triplet
still quoted in the neighbourhood:--
"There were nine tongues within the head,
The tenth went out to seek some bread,
To feed the living in the dead."
The gibbet was standing until the year 1850, when it was blown down.
At the Derby March Assizes, 1815, a young man named Anthony Lingard was
tried and convicted for murdering Hannah Oliver, a widow, who kept the
turnpike-gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell. The
following account of the crime is from the _Derby Mercury_, for March
13th, 1815:--
"On Saturday morning, Anthony Lingard, the younger, aged 21, was put
to the bar, charged with the murder (by strangulation) of Hannah
Oliver, a widow woman, aged 48 years, who kept the turnpike gate at
Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell, in this county.
"It appeared in evidence that the prisoner committed the robbery and
murder in the night of Sunday the 15th of January last; that he took
from the house several pounds in cash and notes, and a pair of new
woman's shoes; that immediately after the deed was perpetrated, he
went to a young woman in the neighbourhood, who was pregnant by him,
and offered to give her some money with a view to induce her to
father the child upon some other person; that he gave her the shoes,
and also some money; but it being rumoured that Hannah Oliver had
been murdered, and that a pair of shoes had been taken from her, the
young woman returned the shoes to the prisoner, who said she had no
occasion to be afraid, for that he had had them of a person in
exchange for a pair of stockings. The shoes, however, were returned
to him; and the evidence adduced in respect to them, as well as in
respect to a great variety of circumstances connected with the
horrid transaction, was given in such a very minute detail of
corroborative and satisfactory proofs, as to leave no doubt in the
minds of everyone that the prisoner was the person who had committed
the murder, independent of his own confession, which was taken
before the magistrates, previous to his committal.
"The trial on the part of the prosecution being closed, and the
prisoner not having any witness to call, the learned judge carefully
summed up the evidence to the jury, who after a few minutes returned
a verdict of guilty.
"His Lordship then passed the awful sentence of the law upon the
prisoner, which was done by the learned judge in the most solemn and
impressive manner, entreating him to make the best use of his time,
and to prepare himself during the short period he had to live, for
the great change he was about to undergo.
"Since his condemnation he conducted himself with greater sobriety
than he had manifested before his trial; but his temper was
obstinate, and his mind lamentably ignorant: and being totally
unacquainted with religious considerations, he exhibited very
imperfect signs of real penitence, and but little anxiety respecting
his future state. He acknowledged the crime for which he was about
to suffer the sentence of the law, but was reluctantly induced to
pronounce his forgiveness of the young woman who was the principal
evidence against him.
"At 12 o'clock yesterday he was brought upon the drop in front of
the County gaol, and after a short time occupied in prayer with the
chaplain (who had previously attended him with the most unremitting
and tender assiduity), he was launched into eternity. He met his
fate with a firmness which would deserve the praise of fortitude if
it was not the result of insensibility. He appeared but little
agitated or dejected by his dreadful situation.
"Let the hope be encouraged that his example may operate as a
warning to those among the multitude of spectators, who might not
before feel all the horror with which vice ought to be regarded.
When wickedness is thus seen not in its allurements, but in its
consequences, its true nature is evidenced. It is always the
offspring of ignorance and folly, and the parent of long enduring
misery.
"Before the Judge left the town, he directed that the body of
Lingard should be hung in chains in the most convenient place near
the spot where the murder was committed, instead of being dissected
and anatomized."
The treasurer's accounts for Derbyshire, for 1815-16, show, says Dr.
Cox, that the punishment of gibbeting involved a serious inroad on the
county finances. The expenses for apprehending Anthony Lingard amounted
to L31 5s. 5d., but the expenses incurred in the gibbeting reached a
total of L85 4s. 1d., and this in addition to ten guineas charged by the
gaoler for conveying the body from Derby to Wardlow.[17]
A paragraph in Rhodes's "Peak Scenery," first published in 1818, is
worth reproducing:--"As we passed along the road to Tideswell," writes
the author, "the villages of Wardlow and Litton lay on our left....
Here, at a little distance on the left of the road, we observed a man
suspended on a gibbet, which was but newly erected. The vanity of the
absurd idea of our forefathers, in thinking that a repulsive object of
this kind would act as a deterrent of crime, was strikingly shown in the
case of this Wardlow gibbet." It is related of Hannah Pecking, of
Litton, who was hung on March 22nd, 1819, at the early age of sixteen,
for poisoning Jane Grant, a young woman of the same village, that she
"gave the poison in a sweet cake to her companion, as they were going to
fetch some cattle out of a field, near to which stood the gibbet-post of
Anthony Lingard."
The gibbet was taken down on April 10th, 1826, by order of the
magistrates, and the remains of Lingard buried on the spot. We give a
drawing of Lingard's gibbet-cap, which is now in the museum at Belle
Vue, Manchester.
The Rev. Dr. Cox contributed to the columns of _The Antiquary_, for
November, 1890, some important notes on this theme. "It was usual," says
Dr. Cox, "to saturate the body with tar before it was hung in chains, in
order that it might last the longer. This was done with the bodies of
three highwaymen about the middle of last century, gibbeted on the top
of the Chevin, near Belper, in Derbyshire. They had robbed the North
Coach when it was changing horses at the inn at Hazelwood, just below
the summit of the Chevin. After the bodies had been hanging there for a
few weeks, one of the friends of the criminals set fire at night time to
the big gibbet that bore all three. The father of our aged informant,
and two or three others of the cottagers near by, seeing a glare of
light, went up the hill, and there they saw the sickening spectacle of
the three bodies blazing away in the darkness. So thoroughly did the tar
aid this cremation that the next morning only the links of the iron
remained on the site of the gibbet."
[Illustration: LINGARD'S GIBBET-CAP.]
On the high road near Brigg, in 1827, a murder was committed by a
chimney-sweep. At the Lincoln Assizes he was condemned to be hanged, and
hung in chains on the spot where the tragedy occurred. The inhabitants
of Brigg petitioned against the gibbeting, as it was so near the town,
and consequently that part of the sentence was remitted.
A strike occurred at Jarrow Colliery, in 1832, and Mr. Nicholas Fairles,
one of the owners, was a magistrate for the county of Durham, the only
one in the district, and he took an active part in preserving peace
during the troublesome time. He was seventy-one years of age, and
greatly esteemed for his kindly disposition and high moral character. On
June 11th he had been transacting some business at the Colliery, and was
riding home to South Shields on his pony. When he had reached a lonely
place, two men attacked him, dragging him from his horse, because he
refused to give them money. They then felled him to the ground with a
bludgeon, and as he lay helpless on the ground, heavy stones were used
to end his life.
He was left for dead, but on being found and carried to a neighbouring
house, it was discovered that he was alive, and after a few hours he
recovered consciousness, and was able to give the names of the two men
who had attempted to murder him, whom he knew, and who were Jarrow
colliers, William Jobling and Ralph Armstrong. After lingering a few
days, Mr. Fairles died. Jobling was soon caught, but Armstrong escaped,
and was never brought to justice. Jobling was tried at Durham Assizes,
and condemned to be hanged and gibbeted. On August 3rd he was executed
at Durham, and his body was subsequently escorted by fifty soldiers and
others to Jarrow Slake, and set up on a gibbet 21 feet high. The post
was fixed into a stone, weighing about thirty hundredweight, and sunk
into the water a hundred yards from the high-water mark, and opposite
the scene of the tragedy. The gruesome spectacle was not permitted to
remain, for on the night of the 31st of the same month it was erected it
was taken down, it is supposed, by some of his fellow workmen, and the
body was quietly buried in the south-west corner of Jarrow churchyard.
It only remains to be added that during the construction of the Tyne
Dock, the iron framework in which Jobling's body was suspended was
found, and was in 1888 presented by the directors of the North Eastern
Railway Company to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. On 14th April,
1891, passed away at the advanced age of 96, Jobling's widow, and it has
been stated, with her death the last personal link with the gibbet was
severed.
The last man gibbeted in this country was James Cook, a bookbinder, at
Leicester. He was executed for the murder of John Paas, a London
tradesman, with whom he did business. Cook's body was suspended on a
gibbet thirty-three feet high, on Saturday, August 11th, 1832, in
Saffron Lane, Aylestone, near Leicester. The body was soon taken down,
and buried on the spot where the gibbet stood, by order of the
Secretary of State, to put a stop to the disturbances caused by the
crowds of people visiting the place on a Sunday.[18]
Some little time before the execution of a criminal who was also
condemned to be hung in chains, it was customary for the blacksmith to
visit the prison and measure the victim for the ironwork in which he was
to be suspended.
Hanging Alive in Chains.
Nearly every district in England has its thrilling tale of a man hanging
alive in chains. Some writers affirm the truth of the story, while
others regard it as merely fiction. We are not in a position to settle
the disputed question. Blackstone, in his "Commentaries," published in
1769, clearly states that a criminal was suspended in chains after
execution. Holinshed, who died about the year 1580, in his famous
"Chronicle of England," a work which supplied Shakespeare with materials
for historical dramas, states:--"In wilful murder done upon pretended
(premeditated) malice, or in anie notable robbery, the criminal is
either hanged alive in chains near the place where the act was
committed, or else, upon compassion taken, first strangled with a rope,
and so continueth till his bones come to nothing. Where wilful
manslaughter is perpetrated, besides hanging, the offender hath his
right hand commonly stricken off."
We glean an important item from "England's Mourning Garment," written by
Henry Chettle, a poet and dramatist, born about the year 1540, and who
died in 1604. He lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. "But for
herselfe," wrote Chettle, "she was alwayes so inclined to equitie that
if she left Justice in any part, it was in shewing pittie; as in one
generall punishment of murder it appeared; where-as before time there
was extraordinary torture, as hanging wilfull murderers alive in chains;
she having compassion like a true Shepheardesse of their soules, though
they were often erring and utterly infected flock, said their death
satisfied for death; and life for life was all that could be demanded;
and affirming more, that much torture distracted a dying man." This
subject is fully discussed in _Notes and Queries_, 4th series, volumes
X. and XI. A work entitled "Hanging in Chains," by Albert Hartshorne,
F.S.A., (London, 1891), contains much out-of-the-way information on this
theme.
Bewick, the famous artist and naturalist, in his pictures of English
scenery introduced the gibbet "as one of the characteristics of the
picturesque."
The old custom of hanging the bodies of criminals in chains was
abolished by statute on July 25th, 1834, and thus ends a strange chapter
in the history of Old England.
[Illustration: THE GIBBET (_from Bewick's "British Birds_.")]
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Cox's "Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals," 1888.
[9] M'Lauria (Lord Dreghorn) "Arguments and Decisions," etc., Edinburgh,
1774.
[10] Andrews's "Bygone Hertfordshire," 1898.
[11] Sheahan's "History of Buckinghamshire," 1862.
[12] Stevenson's "Bygone Nottinghamshire," 1893.
[13] Sharp's "History of Ufton Court," 1892.
[14] Trial of William Lewin, 1791, Chester, n.d.
[15] Madeley's "Some Obsolete Modes of Punishment," Warrington, 1887.
[16] "Criminal Chronology of York Castle," 1867.
[17] Cox's "Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals," 1888.
[18] See "Bygone Leicestershire," edited by William Andrews, 1892.
Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering.
Hanging, drawing, and quartering, with their attendant horrors, have
been termed "godly butchery," on account of the divine authority which
was adduced to support their continuance. Lord Coke finds in the Bible a
countenance for each of the horrid details of the punishment. We see
that the texts supposed to bear upon the subject are raked from all
parts of the Scriptures with great ingenuity, but with, in our modern
eyes, not much of either humanity or probability of there being anything
more than a forced reference. The sentence on traitors was pronounced as
follows: "That the traitor is to be taken from the prison and laid upon
a sledge or hurdle [in earlier days he was to be dragged along the
surface of the ground, tied to the tail of a horse], and drawn to the
gallows or place of execution, and then hanged by the neck until he be
half dead, and then cut down; and his entrails to be cut out of his body
and burnt by the executioner; then his head is to be cut off, his body
to be divided into quarters, and afterwards his head and quarters to be
set up in some open places directed." The headsman, or hangman, commonly
sliced open the chest and cut thence the heart, plucking it forth and
holding it up to the populace, saying, "Behold the heart of a traitor."
The members were disposed on the gates of the cities, and in London on
London Bridge, or upon Westminster Hall.
It is asserted that this mode of capital punishment was first inflicted
in 1241, on William Marise, pirate, and the son of a nobleman.