THE NEW GAOL.
Corporation anxious to check gaol fever--- Appoints committee to
report as to building a new prison--York Castle proposed for
imitation--Plans obtained, and given to city architect, Mr.
Dance--Nothing is done, and in 1757 neighbours petition Corporation
that they are afraid of infection from Newgate--A new committee
appointed, which furnishes designs, but Government will not give
grant in aid, and project again falls through--Revived again and
again to no effect--In 1762 Press-yard destroyed by fire--Two
prisoners burnt to death--It is at last decided to rebuild--7 Geo.
III. empowers Corporation to raise funds--Specification of
expenditure--£50,000 total amount proposed--Found insufficient, and
an additional £40,000 authorized--Lord Mayor Beckford lays first
stone in 1770--The new gaol is gutted in the Lord George Gordon
riots--Origin of these riots--Lord George presents, at head of
procession, petition to House of Commons--Riotous
demonstrations--Mob attracted to Newgate--The gaoler, Mr. Akerman,
summoned to surrender, and release his prisoners--He refuses, and
seeks help from Sheriff’s--Rioters storm Newgate--Sack Governor’s
house--His furniture is burnt against the gates, which finally give
way--Rioters, headed by Dennis the hangman, rush in and set inmates
free--Extraordinary effects of the fire--Other gaols attacked and
burnt--The military called out, and much blood shed before calm is
restored--Many released prisoners return to Newgate of their own
accord--Some try to rekindle the fire--Lord George arrested, lodged
in the Tower, and tried for high treason, but acquitted--Six years
later, he takes up the case of some Newgate prisoners in a
pamphlet, called libellous, for which he is prosecuted--Arrested in
Jewish garb in Birmingham--He undertakes his own defence--He
protests against the criminal law, and declares himself the victim
of persecution--Prosecuted for second libel against Queen of France
and the French Ambassador--Lord George is found guilty on both
counts--Sentenced to fines and imprisonment in Newgate--Dies in
Newgate of gaol fever, 1793--Recovery of Newgate keys, stolen
during riots--Cost of repairing gaol after the fire.
I have described in the preceding chapter how the gaol fever spread from
Newgate to the Old Bailey in 1750, and the havoc it occasioned. An
account has also been given of the steps taken by the Corporation to
minimize the chances of a fresh outbreak. The erection of a ventilator
and windmill might do something towards rendering Newgate less foul, but
much more was needed to make it a suitable receptacle for the numbers it
was often called upon to hold. The total acreage covered by its
ill-contrived, ruinous buildings was under three quarters of an acre,
and upon this space as many as three hundred persons were sometimes
crowded together;[192] while a part of this limited area was otherwise
occupied by the Old Bailey Sessions’ House, gardens, and yards. The
existing prison was obviously inadequate. One of the sheriffs in the
year of the great mortality stigmatizes it as an abominable sink of
beastliness and corruption. The Lord Mayor, judges, and the whole of the
Court of Aldermen were so thoroughly persuaded, we are told, that
notwithstanding all precautions, no effectual remedy could be applied to
check the gaol infection but that of reconstruction, that a committee of
the Common Council was appointed to consider the best method of building
a new prison. It was for this reason, says a letter from one of the
sheriffs who had been in office in 1750, that the old ruinous buildings
between the Old Bailey Sessions’ House and Newgate belonging to the city
were allowed to fall in, and that a plan for a new gaol became the
general topic, as well as the general desire. Many people sought to have
a finger in the pie. The committee to which the subject had been
referred was lectured and advised in numerous letters, some
authenticated, and many anonymous. It was suggested that they should
imitate the example of the county of York, which had not long before
rebuilt the gaol on an excellent plan, with sufficient internal area,
water in great plenty, and all other conveniences, so that the inmates,
averaging from a hundred to a hundred and twenty at most, are almost
certain of being preserved in a healthy state at all times. Application
was actually made to the Yorkshire county authorities, who forwarded
four plans of their prison--“the noble prison in a spacious area,” of
which Howard speaks in 1772. These plans came into the hands of Mr.
Dance, the city surveyor, who seems to have been guided by them in the
design he furnished the Newgate committee in 1755 for a new prison.
This committee was not ambitious, and was satisfied with endeavouring to
improve and extend rather than reconstruct. “The business of enlarging
the gaol engaged its attention,” we are told. It was to be effected
according to their idea by making an “airy” or walking place for
prisoners. For this purpose all the houses between Newgate and the
Sessions’ House Gate were to be taken down, and an enclosure made on the
space, surrounded by a strong wall. This recommendation when brought
forward by the committee scarcely went far enough for the Common
Council, who were at first strongly of opinion that it would be more
proper to rebuild the gaol. But although they were convinced of the
propriety, they speedily let the matter drop, and nothing was done as
regards Newgate for another couple of years.
In 1757, however, the residents in the immediate neighbourhood of
Newgate raised their protest against the gaol, and petitioned the
Corporation, “setting forth their apprehensions from their vicinity to
Newgate, and from the stenches proceeding therefrom, of being subject to
an infectious disease called the gaol distemper.” Upon receipt of this
petition, the Common Council appointed a fresh committee, and the
various allegations were gone into seriatim. They next surveyed the gaol
itself and the surrounding premises, examined the site with a view to
rebuilding, and had plans prepared with estimates and specifications as
to cost of ground and construction. The projected design embraced a
series of quadrangles, one for the debtors and another for the felons,
with an area to each. The probable expense for a work which the
committee were of opinion was greatly needed would amount to about
£40,000, for which sum “they did resolve to petition Parliament for a
grant.” This petition was, however, never presented. Mr. Alderman
Dickens, having spoken privately to the Chancellor of the Exchequer on
the subject, was informed that no public money would be forthcoming, and
the project again fell through.
It did not entirely drop notwithstanding. To the credit of the
Corporation it must be stated, that many attempts were made to grapple
with the difficulties of ways and means. Application was made to
Parliament more than once for powers to raise money for the work by some
proportionable tax on the city and county, but always without avail.
Parties differed as to the manner in which funds should be obtained, yet
all were agreed upon the “immediate necessity for converting this seat
of misery and disease, this dangerous source of contagion, into a secure
and wholesome place of confinement.” The matter became more urgent, the
occasion more opportune, when that part of the prison styled the
press-yard was destroyed by fire in 1762.
Some account of this fire may be inserted here. It broke out in the
middle of the night at the back of the staircase in the press-yard, and
in a few hours consumed all the apartments in that place, and greatly
damaged the chapel. Other adjoining premises, particularly that of a
stocking-trimmer in Phœnix Court, were greatly injured by the fire.
Worst of all, two prisoners perished in the flames. One was Captain
Ogle, who had been tried for murdering the cook of the Vine Tavern, near
Dover St., Piccadilly, but had been found insane on arraignment, and had
accordingly been detained in prison “during His Majesty’s pleasure.”
There was no Broadmoor asylum in those days for criminal lunatics, and
Newgate was a poor substitute for the palatial establishment now
standing among the Berkshire pine woods. The fire was supposed to have
originated in Captain Ogle’s room. Beneath it was one occupied by Thomas
Smith, a horse-dealer, committed to prison on suspicion of stealing corn
from Alderman Masters. Smith’s wife the night before the conflagration
had carried him the whole of his effects, amounting to some five or six
hundred pounds in notes and bank bills. When the fire was raging Smith
was heard to cry out for help. He was seen also to put his arm through
the iron grating, which, however, was so excessively hot that it set his
shirt on fire. About this time it is supposed that he threw out his
pocket-book containing the notes; it was caught and the valuables saved.
A few minutes later the floor fell in, and both Captain Ogle and Smith
were buried in the ruins. The fire had burnt so fiercely and so fast
that no one could go to the assistance of either of these unfortunates.
By six a.m., there being an abundance of water handy, the flames had
greatly abated, but the fire continued to burn till two in the
afternoon, and ended by the fall of a party wall, which happily did no
great damage. About four a.m. the Lord Mayor and sheriffs arrived upon
the scene, and took an active part in the steps taken to check the fire
and provide for the safety of the prisoners.
This was no doubt the fire at which Mr. Akerman behaved with such
intrepidity, and which has already been described.[193]
After the fire it was admitted that the proper time was arrived for
“putting in execution the plan of rebuilding this inconvenient goal,
which was thought of some time ago.” Once more a committee of the Common
Council was appointed, and once more the question of site was
considered, with the result that the locality of the existing prison was
decided upon as the most suitable and convenient. Upon the receipt of
this report, 1763, it was resolved to petition Parliament again for
assistance, and this time the petition was actually presented. But the
zeal of the Corporation for prison reform must have waxed cold, for I
find it recorded in 1765 (5th March) that the project for rebuilding
Newgate was laid aside. But the House of Commons, however, had not
ignored the city’s petition. They had referred the whole subject to a
committee, which took the evidence of all persons closely concerned. It
was clearly proved that a new gaol was indispensable. Mr. Dance, the
city surveyor, was quite against extension or reappropriation by adding
on the Sessions’ House, and there was nothing to be done but to build a
new prison. An Act was accordingly passed in 1766 (the 7 Geo. III.),
authorizing the Corporation to raise for various works a certain sum at
3½ per cent. per annum, to be paid off by a tax at the rate of 6_d._
per ton on coal or culm imported into the city, of which £50,000 were to
be applied to the purpose of erecting the new Newgate.
The following is a short summary of the various items of proposed
expenditure, extracted from a pamphlet published by the Corporation
under date 1767.
Leasehold interests to be purchased in the Old Bailey
from the Mason’s Yard to Newgate, and some houses
opposite thereto £6000
N.B.--The old materials will pay for taking down and
clearing away the rubbish to the surface of the streets.
The new prison, to answer the present Sessions’ House
and to contain distinct wards for the men and women
debtors, the men and women felons, transports, and
convicts, a chapel, a keeper’s house, tap-houses, sutlery,
yards, area, ponds of water, will require 160 square
yards of new building, which, on account of the requisite
strength per square, will cost £250 per square £40,000
Salaries and gratuities to the surveyor, the committee
clerk, the chamberlain’s clerks, &c. 2,750
Incidental Expenses 1,250
-------
£50,000
-------
The sum of £50,000 already referred to, and raised under the powers
granted by the 7 Geo. III., was not found sufficient to complete the
gaol, after the manner of building estimates, which too often mislead
all those who are beguiled into expenditure upon bricks and mortar. The
foundations cost £19,000. It was necessary to sink them a depth of forty
feet, as the site was that of the ditch of the old London Wall, besides
which the neighbouring houses had to be shored. Ten years later, when
the building was still incomplete, another Act of Parliament became
necessary to increase the funds at the disposal of the Corporation. This
Act, the 18 Geo. III. cap. 48, authorized the city to raise £40,000 for
Newgate buildings upon the credit of the surpluses of a fund known as
the Orphans’ Fund. It set forth that the Corporation had “proceeded in
the erection of a new, spacious, and commodious gaol, and for that
purpose have given up to the public the freehold of a very large and
extensive tract of ground;” moreover, that they had already laid out
£50,000 on this new gaol, as well as £15,000 on a new Sessions’ House,
and £6,250 to buy several houses in the Old Bailey, “in order to make
the new gaol more healthy and the avenues thereto more convenient.” The
Act then goes on to say, that as the new prison still lacks an
infirmary, which if built would “greatly contribute to the health of the
prisoners, and thereby be of great public utility,” that the Corporation
are in possession of a piece of ground quite handy and suitable for the
purpose, and that as a sum of £20,000 would build it, while another
£20,000 would complete the gaol, the Corporation are empowered to raise
the money in the manner already mentioned, by the issue of bonds at
4½ per cent. interest.
The first stone of the new gaol was laid on the 31st May, 1770, by the
Lord Mayor, William Beckford, Esquire, the founder of that family.
Within a year or two of its completion, the new Newgate had to pass
through an ordeal which nearly threatened its existence. Its boasted
strength as a place of durance was boldly set at naught, and almost for
the first and last time in this country this gaol, with others in the
metropolis, was sacked and its imprisoned inmates set free. The occasion
grew out of the so-called Lord George Gordon Riots in 1780. These
well-known disturbances had their origin in the relaxation of the penal
laws against the Roman Catholics. Such concessions raised fanatical
passion to fever pitch. Ignorance and intolerance went hand in hand, and
the malcontents, belonging mainly to the lowest strata of society, found
a champion in a weak-minded and misguided cadet of the ducal house of
Gordon. Lord George Gordon,[194] who was a member of the House of
Commons, showed signs of eccentricity soon after he took his seat, but
it was at first more ridiculous than mischievous. Lord George became
more dangerously meddlesome when the anti-Catholic agitation began. It
was to him that the Protestant association looked for countenance and
support, and when Lord North at his instance refused to present a
petition from that society to Parliament, Lord George Gordon promised to
do so in person, provided it was backed by a multitude not less than
20,000 strong.
This led to the great gathering in St. George’s Fields on the 2nd June,
1780, when thousands organized themselves into three columns, and
proceeded to the House of Commons across the three bridges, Westminster,
Blackfriars, and London Bridge. Lord George headed the Westminster
procession, and all three concentrated at St. Stephens between two and
three in the afternoon. There the mob filled every avenue and approach;
crowds overflowed the lobbies, and would have pushed into the body of
the House. Lord George went ahead with the monster petition, which bore
some 120,000 signatures or “marks,” and which the Commons by a negative
vote of 192 to 6 refused to receive. After this the rioters, at the
instigation of their leader, hastened _en masse_ to destroy the chapels
of the foreign ambassadors. This was followed by other outrages. While
some of their number attacked and rifled the dwellings of persons
especially obnoxious to them, others set fire to public buildings, and
ransacked the taverns. The military had been called out early in the
day, and had made many arrests. As the prisoners were taken to Newgate,
the fury of the populace was attracted to this gaol, and a large force,
computed at quite two-thirds of the rioters, proceeded thither,
determined to force open its gates. This mob was composed of the lowest
scum of the town, roughs brutal and utterly reckless, having a natural
loathing for prisons, their keepers, and all the machinery of the law.
Many already knew, and but too well, the inside of Newgate, many dreaded
to return there, either as lodgers or travellers bound on the fatal road
to Tyburn. One wild fierce desire was uppermost with all, one thought
possessed their minds to the exclusion of all others--to destroy the
hateful prison-house and raze it to the ground.
On arriving at the Old Bailey in front of the stone façade, as grim and
solid as that of any fortress, the mob halted and demanded the gaoler,
Mr. Akerman, who appeared at a window, some say on the roof, of his
house, which forms the centre of the line of buildings facing Newgate
street. When he appeared the mob called on him to release their
confederates and surrender the place unconditionally. Mr. Akerman
distinctly and without hesitation refused, and then, dreading what was
coming, he made the best of his way to the sheriffs, “in order to know
their pleasure.” As the front of the prison was beset by the
densely-packed riotous assemblage, Mr. Akerman probably made use of the
side wicket and passage which leads direct from Newgate into the
Sessions’ House. The magistrates seemed to have been in doubt how to
act; and for some time did nothing. “Their timidity and negligence,”
says Boswell, helped the almost incredible exertions of the mob. And he
is of opinion, that had proper aid been given to Mr. Akerman, the
sacking of Newgate would certainly have been prevented. While the
magistrates hesitated the mob were furiously active; excited to frenzy,
they tried to beat down the gate with sledge-hammers, and vainly sought
to make some impression on the massive walls. A portion of the
assailants forced their way into the governor’s house, and laying hands
upon his furniture, with all other combustibles, dragged them out and
made a great pile in front of the obdurate door, which still resisted
force. The heap of wood, having been anointed with rosin and turpentine,
was kindled, and soon fanned into a mighty blaze. The door, heavily
barred and bolted, and strongly bound with iron, did not ignite quite
readily, but presently it took fire and burnt steadily, though slowly.
Meanwhile the rioters fed the flames with fresh fuel, and snatching
burning brands from the fire, cast them on to the roof and over the
external wall into the wards and yards within. The prisoners inside, who
had heard without fully understanding the din, and saw the flames
without knowing whether they promised deliverance or foreboded a
dreadful death, suffered the keenest mental torture, and added their
agonized shouts to the general uproar.
Charles Dickens has drawn an awful picture of the scene, based upon
contemporary and authentic accounts. He has described in glowing
language the yielding of the door.
“A shout! Another! another yet, though few knew why, or what it meant.
But those around the gate had seen it slowly yield and drop from its
topmost hinge. It hung on that side by but one, but it was upright still
because of the bar, and of its having sunk of its own weight into the
heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap at the top of the
doorway, through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and
dark. Pile up the fire!
“It burnt fiercely. The door was red hot and the gap wider. They vainly
tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing as if in
readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark figures, some crawling
on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen
to pass along the roof. It was plain the gaol could hold out no longer.
The keeper and his officers and their wives and children were escaping.
Pile up the fire!
“The door sank down again; it settled deeper in the
cinders--tottered--yielded--was down!”
Dickens gives a prominent place among the rioters to John Dennis the
hangman, who himself was, as the records state, sentenced to be hanged
for his complicity in these dark doings. Dennis was likely to be
familiar with the interior of the gaol. There were no doubt many others
who had threaded its gloomy passages before. With such experienced
guides the way must have been easy to find. The outer barriers down, the
mob surged like a tidal wave into and through the whole gaol. I will
again draw from fiction, which is the more powerful in this case that it
is founded upon fact, and will quote from ‘Barnaby Rudge.’
“Now they came rushing through the gaol, calling to each other in the
vaulted passages; clashing the iron gates dividing yard from yard;
beating at the doors of cells and wards; wrenching off bolts and locks
and bars; tearing down the door-posts to let men out; endeavouring to
drag them by main force through gaps and windows where a child could
scarcely pass; whooping and yelling without a moment’s rest, and running
through the heat and flames as if they were cased in metal. By their
legs, their arms, the hair upon their heads, they dragged the prisoners
out. Some threw themselves upon their captives as they got towards the
door, and tried to file away their irons; some danced about them with a
frenzied joy, and rent their clothes, and were ready as it seemed to
tear them limb from limb. Now a party of a dozen men came dashing
through the yard, ... dragging a prisoner along the ground, whose dress
they had nearly torn from his body in their mad eagerness to set him
free, and who was bleeding and senseless in their hands. Now a score of
prisoners ran to and fro who had lost themselves in the intricacies of
the prison, and were so bewildered with the noise and the
[Illustration]
glare that they knew not where to turn or what to do, and still cried
out for help as loudly as before. Anon some famished wretch, whose theft
had been a loaf of bread or a scrap of butcher’s meat, came skulking
past barefooted, going slowly away because that gaol, his house, was
burning; not because he had another, or had friends to meet, or old
haunts to revisit, or any liberty to gain, but liberty to starve and
die. And then a knot of highwaymen went trooping by, conducted by the
friends they had amongst the crowd, who muffled their fetters as they
went along with handkerchiefs and bands of hay, and wrapped them in
coats and cloaks, and gave them drink from bottles, and held it to their
lips because of their handcuffs, which there was no time to remove. All
this, and Heaven knows how much, was done amidst a noise, a hurry and
distraction like nothing that we know of even in our dreams; which
seemed for ever on the rise, and never to decrease for the space of a
single instant.”
Through all this tumult and destruction the law was paralyzed. After
much delay the sheriff sent a party of constables to the gaolers’
assistance. But they came too late, and easily fell into a trap. The
rioters suffered them to pass on till they were entirely encircled, then
attacked them with great fury, disarmed them, took their staves, and
quickly converted them at the fire into blazing brands, which they threw
about to extend the flames. “It is scarcely to be credited,” says a
narrator, “with what celerity a gaol which to a common observer
appeared to be built with nothing that would burn, was destroyed by the
flames. So efficient were the means employed, that the work of
destruction was very rapid. Stones two or three tons in weight, to which
the doors of the cells were fastened, were raised by that resistless
species of crow known to housebreakers by the name of the pig’s foot.
Such was the violence of the fire, that the great iron bars and windows
were eaten through and the adjacent stones vitrified.[195] Nor is it
less astonishing that from a prison thus in flames a miserable crew of
felons in irons and a company of confined debtors, to the number in the
whole of more than three hundred, could all be liberated as it were by
magic, amidst flames and firebrands, without the loss of a single
life.... But it is not at all to be wondered that by a body of execrable
villains thus let loose upon the public, the house of that worthy and
active magistrate Sir John Fielding should be the first marked for
vengeance.” In the same way, even before the destruction of Newgate, the
house of Justice Hyde, whose activity the rioters resented, had also
been stripped of its furniture, which was burnt in front of the door.
Crabbe’s account written at the time to a friend is graphic, and
contains several new details--“How Akerman, the governor, escaped,” he
says, “or where he is gone, I know not; but just at the time I speak of
they set fire to his house, broke in, and threw every piece of
furniture they could find into the street, firing them also in an
instant. The engines came, but they were only suffered to preserve the
private houses near the prison. As I was standing near the spot, there
approached another body of men--I suppose five hundred--and Lord George
Gordon, in a coach drawn by the mob, towards Alderman Bull’s, bowing as
he passed along. He is a lively-looking young man in appearance and
nothing more, though just now the popular hero. By eight o’clock
Akerman’s house was in flames. I went close to it, and never saw
anything so dreadful. The prison was, as I have said, a remarkably
strong building; but, determined to force it, they broke the gates with
crows and other instruments, and climbed up outside of the cell part,
which joins the two great wings of the building where the felons were
confined; and I stood where I plainly saw their operations; they broke
the roof, tore away the rafters, and having got ladders, they descended.
Not Orpheus himself had more courage or better luck. Flames all around
them, and a body of soldiers expected, yet they laughed at all
opposition. The prisoners escaped. I stood and saw about twelve women
and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and they
were conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of these were
to be hanged on Friday (two days later).
“You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. This now being
done, and Akerman’s house now a mere shell of brick-work, they kept a
store of flame for other purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors and
windows appeared like the entrance to so many volcanoes. With some
difficulty they then fired the debtors’ prison, broke the doors, and
they too all made their escape. Tired of the scene, I went home, and
returned again at eleven o’clock at night. I met large bodies of horse
and foot soldiers coming to guard the Bank and some houses of Roman
Catholics near it. Newgate was at this time open to all; any one might
get in, and what was never the case before, any one might get out. I did
both, for the people were now chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was done,
and the doers of it gone to another part of the town.... But I must not
omit what struck me most: about ten or twelve of the mob getting to the
top of the debtors’ prison whilst it was burning, to halloo, they
appeared rolled in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of fire--like
Milton’s infernals, who were as familiar with flames as with each
other.”
It should be added here that the excesses of the rioters did not end
with the burning of Newgate; they did other mischief. Five other
prisons, the new prison, Clerkenwell, the Fleet, the King’s Bench, the
Borough Clink in Tooley Street, and the new Bridewell, were attacked,
their inmates released, and the buildings set on fire. At one time the
town was convulsed with terror at a report that the rioters intended to
open the gates of Bedlam, and let loose gangs of raving lunatics to
range recklessly about. They made an attempt upon the Bank of England,
but were repulsed with loss by John Wilkes and the soldiers on guard. At
one time during the night as many as thirty-six incendiary fires were
ablaze. The troops had been called upon to support the civil power, and
had acted with vigour. There was fighting in nearly all the streets,
constant firing. At times the soldiers charged with the bayonet. The
streets ran with blood. In all, before tranquillity was restored, nearly
five hundred persons had been killed and wounded, and to this long bill
of mortality must be added the fifty-nine capitally convicted under the
special commission appointed to try the rioters.
It was in many cases cruel kindness to set the prisoners free. Numbers
of the debtors of the King’s Bench were loth to leave their place of
confinement, for they had no friends and nowhere else to go. Of the
three hundred released so unexpectedly from Newgate, some returned on
their own accord a few days later and gave themselves up. It is said
that many others were drawn back by an irresistible attraction, and were
actually found loitering about the open wards of the prison. Fifty were
thus retaken within the walls the day after the fire, and others kept
dropping by twos and threes to examine their old haunts and see for
themselves what was going on. Some, Dickens says, were found trying to
rekindle the fire; some merely prowled about the place, “being often
found asleep in the ruins, or sitting talking there, or even eating and
drinking, as in a choice retreat.”[196]
The ringleader and prime mover, Lord George Gordon, was arrested on the
evening of the 9th, and conveyed to the Tower. His trial did not come on
till the following February at the King’s Bench, where he was indicted
for high treason. He was charged with levying war against the majesty of
the king; “not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved
and seduced by the instigation of the devil; ... that he unlawfully,
maliciously, and traitorously did compass, imagine, and intend to raise
and levy war, insurrection, and rebellion,” and assembled with some five
hundred more, “armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, with colours
flying, and with swords, clubs, bludgeons, staves, and other weapons,”
in the liberty of Westminster. It was proved in evidence that Lord
George directed the Associated Protestants to meet him at Westminster in
their best clothes, and with blue cockades in their hats, and said he
should wear one himself. He was also heard to declare that the king had
broken his coronation oath, and to exhort the mob to continue steadfast
in so good and glorious a cause. For the defence it was urged that Lord
George Gordon had desired nothing but to compass by all legal means the
repeal of the Act of Toleration; that he had no other view than the
Protestant interest, and had always demeaned himself in the most loyal
manner. He had hoped that the great gathering would be all peaceable;
that the mob “should not so much as take sticks in their hands,” should
abstain from all violence, surrender at once any one riotously disposed;
in a word, should exhibit the true Protestant spirit, and if struck
should turn the other cheek. Mr. Erskine, Lord George’s counsel, after
pointing out that his client had suffered already a long and rigorous
imprisonment, his great youth, his illustrious lineage and zeal in
parliament for the constitution of his country, urged that the evidence
and the whole tenor of the prisoner’s conduct repelled the belief of
traitorous purpose.
Lord Mansfield, who had been a chief victim to the riots, and whose
house had been gutted and burnt,[197] summed up the case fairly and
impartially. He laid it down that insurrection, or any forcible attempt
to alter laws or gain any end, amounted to levying war against the
majesty of the realm. The point was not whether the Toleration Act was a
good or a bad one; “whether grievances be real or pretended, whether a
law be good or bad, it is equally high treason, by the strong hand of a
multitude to force the repeal or redress.” It was for the jury to
decide, first, whether the multitude did assemble with intent to terrify
the legislature into the repeal of the obnoxious act, and secondly,
whether the prisoner at the bar incited, encouraged, and promoted the
insurrection. If there was any doubt, however, and the jury were not
fully satisfied of Lord George Gordon’s guilt, they must acquit him. The
jury retired for half an hour, and then brought in a verdict of not
guilty.
Lord George, unhappily, could not keep out of trouble, although
naturally of mild disposition. He was an excitable, rather weak-minded
man, easily carried away by his enthusiasm on particular points. Six
years later he espoused, with customary warmth and want of judgment, the
case of other prisoners in Newgate, and published a pamphlet purporting
to be a petition from them presented to himself, praying him to
“interfere and secure their liberties by preventing their being sent to
Botany Bay.” Prisoners labouring under severe sentences cried out from
their dungeons for redress. “Some were about to suffer execution without
righteousness, others to be sent off to a barbarous country.” “The
records of justice have been falsified,” the pamphlet went on to say,
“and the laws profanely altered by men like ourselves. The bloody laws
against us have been enforced, under a normal administration, by mere
whitened walls, men who possess only the show of justice, and who
condemned us to death contrary to law.”
That this silly production should be made the subject of a criminal
information for libel, rather justifies the belief that an exaggerated
importance was given to Lord George’s vagaries, both by the Government
and his own relations and friends. No doubt he was a thorn in the side
of his family, but the ministry could well have afforded to treat him
and his utterances with contempt. He was, however, indicted at the
King’s Bench for publishing the petition, which he had actually himself
written, with a view to raise a tumult among the prisoners within
Newgate, or cause a disturbance by exciting the compassion of those
without. The pamphlet included the law and judges in indiscriminate
abuse. “The laws,” said the Attorney-General, “might not be absolutely
perfect, but those who condemned them should not reside under their
jurisdiction. The criminal law was nowhere attended to with more, or
enforced with so much lenity.”[198] Lord George when “wanted” on these
charges was not to be found. At first it was thought he had escaped to
Holland, but he was at length arrested in Birmingham, dressed in Jewish
garb, and wearing a long beard. Some time before this he had espoused
Judaism, even submitting, it was alleged, to circumcision, a change of
religious belief for which he was excommunicated at Marylebone church.
When put upon his trial he conducted his own defence, and made a long
and desultory harangue, which included a history of the English criminal
law from the days of Athelstan.
He had been induced, he said, to look into the laws against felony
because of a petty fraud in his family, which he had found constituted a
capital offence, although the sum stolen was only eighteenpence. He went
on to protest against the code as much too sanguinary, an opinion which
proves that there was some method in Lord George Gordon’s madness, and
that he only lived a little before his time as regards the reform of our
criminal law. His pamphlet, every word of which he contended was
actually to be found in the Bible, he urged was but the enlargement of
this idea, which he had already communicated to Lord Mansfield and other
judges, who admitted the propriety of his views, and recommended him to
put them on paper. In the course of his address, Lord George complained
bitterly of the vexatious prosecutions instituted against him, thus
giving colour to the presumption that he was the victim of persecution.
He quoted Blackstone to show that _ex officio_ informations, such as
those filed against him, “are only proper for such enormous
misdemeanours as peculiarly tend to disturb or endanger the king’s
government, and in the punishment or execution of which a moment’s delay
would be fatal.” Yet in his case the informations against him had been
pending six and ten months. He complained also that spies had been set
over him by the Treasury for several months, and concluded by solemnly
declaring that his object had been reformation, not tumult.
The case against him was very clearly made out. It was proved by a
Newgate turnkey that Lord George frequently came to the lodge of the
prison and asked to see various prisoners, particularly those under
sentence of death, “which request was often denied;” presumably,
therefore, he was sometimes admitted. When he had published his pamphlet
he had been at great pains to distribute it, especially among the
prisoners and prison officials. A man and woman were employed in handing
them about at the door of the prison. Copies were also sent to Mr.
Akerman, the governor, Mr. Villette, the chaplain, and the turnkeys. One
of the latter waited on him at his house in Welbeck Street, and said
there was sad work about the distribution of the pamphlet. Lord George
replied, “No matter; let them come on as soon as they please; I am ready
for them.” There were numbers of the pamphlet about, one of which, at
Lord George’s request, the turnkey took to Mr. Akerman. Upon all this,
and notwithstanding his lordship’s defence, the jury without hesitation
returned a verdict of guilty against him for having written and
published the libel as alleged.
Before sentence the court passed on to the consideration of a second
libel, published by Lord George Gordon in the ‘Public Advertizer.’ This
was an account of his visit to the French embassy accompanied by the
notorious Count Cagliostro, whose cause, like that of the Newgate
prisoners, Lord George had warmly espoused. The article enlarged upon
the merits and sufferings of the count, and reflected severely upon
Marie Antoinette, at that time Queen of France, the French ambassador,
and the secretary of the embassy. The defence of the diplomatic body, no
less than of that of a royal personage, was undertaken by the
Government. Lord George attempted to justify all that he had written.
Count Cagliostro, he averred, had been persecuted by a faction in Paris,
of which the queen was the head; and although acquitted by the
Parliament of Paris, Count d’Adhemar, the French ambassador, had
continued to vilify him by inserting infamous paragraphs about him in
the ‘Courrier de l’Europe,’ a French paper published in London. “Count
d’Adhemar,” said Lord George, “was a low man of no family; but being
plausible and clever, had pushed himself forward to the notice of men in
authority; in short, what Jenkinson was in Britain, d’Adhemar was in
France.” This allusion to Lord Hawkesbury[199] caused a great laugh in
the court. Lord George went on to indulge in very scurrilous abuse of
Marie Antoinette. He said he was charged with libelling the Queen of
France, whereas that was impossible, as her character was well known in
every street in Paris. He could only compare her to Catherine of Russia.
“He was proceeding in this strain,” says the report of the trial, “when
the court was compelled to interfere, and the Attorney-General told him
he was a disgrace to the name of Briton.”
Although Lord George contended that what he had published was no libel,
as it contained nothing but truth of Count Cagliostro, who had as much
right as Count d’Adhemar, or any other foreigner, to the protection of
the laws, the jury promptly returned a verdict of guilty on this count.
The court then passed sentence, and addressed his lordship in scathing
terms. The judge told him that his “petition” was calculated to excite
insurrection, discontent, and sedition, and that he might make a better
use of Bible phraseology than employ it for the wicked purpose of
undermining the laws of his country. “One is sorry,” remarked Mr.
Justice Ashurst, “that you, descended of an illustrious line of
ancestors, should have so much dishonoured your family ... that you
should prefer the mean ambition of being popular among thieves and
pickpockets, and to stand as the champion of mischief, anarchy, and
confusion.” As to the second libel, the judge charged the prisoner with
endeavouring to rekindle animosities between the two nations, France and
England, now once more at peace, by personal abuse of the sovereign of
one of them. He (Lord George) had insulted her most Christian Majesty,
and it was highly necessary to repress an offence of so dangerous a
nature. As his crime consisted of two parts, Lord George Gordon must be
subjected to two different sentences. For the first, the publication of
the “prisoners’ petition,” the judge awarded him three years’
imprisonment in Newgate. For the second offence, being “trespasses,
contempts, and misdemeanours against the royal consort of his most
Christian Majesty,” the sentence was a fine of £500, with a farther
imprisonment in Newgate at the termination of the other three; and in
addition he was required to give security for fourteen years for his
good behaviour, himself in £10,000, and two sureties of £2500 each.
Lord George Gordon remained in Newgate till his death, from gaol-fever,
in 1793. He made two or three ineffectual attempts to put in his bail,
but they were objected to as insufficient. It was thought to the last
that the government and his friends sought pretences to keep him in
confinement and out of mischief. His somewhat premature death must have
been a relief to them. But it can hardly be denied that hard measure was
meted out to him, and if he escaped too easily at his first trial, he
was too heavily punished at the second. It is impossible to absolve him
from responsibility for the outrages committed by the rioters in 1780,
although he was doubtless shocked at their excesses. Lord George could
not have foreseen the terrible consequences which would follow his rash
agitation, and little knew how dangerous were the elements of
disturbance he unchained. But it can hardly be denied that he meant
well. Had he lived a century later, he would probably have found a more
legitimate outlet for his peculiar tendencies, and would have figured
as an ardent philanthropist and platform orator, instead of as a
criminal in the dock.
Two more facts must be mentioned concerning these riots and the
successful attacks on Newgate. The first is with regard to the prison
keys. I find it recorded in Southey’s Commonplace Book (Book iv. p.
371), that on draining the basin in St. James’s Square for the purpose
of erecting a statue of King William IV. there, the keys of Newgate were
found at the bottom. These keys had been stolen at the fire in 1780, and
thrown in here. A quantity of iron chains and fetters were recovered at
the same time. The second fact is the probable extent of the damage
done, as shown by the amount required for repairs. This must have been
about £20,000. I see by the report of a Committee of the House of
Commons, dated May 16, 1782, that a sum of £10,000 had been voted to
meet the repairs of Newgate, and again in February 1783, at a Court of
Common Council, a motion was made to petition Parliament for the grant
of a further sum of £10,000 to complete these repairs.
END OF VOL. I.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This chapter originally appeared in the ‘Fortnightly Review,’ June
1882.
[2] See post, chap. iv.
[3] See vol. ii. cap. ii.
[4] See vol. ii. cap. iii.
[5] See vol. ii. cap. v.
[6] Something of the same ambition filled the breasts of the
projectors of Seville Cathedral.
[7] An entry in a letter book at Guildhall speaks of the “heynouse
gaol of Newgate,” and its fetid and corrupt atmosphere. Loftie, ‘Hist.
of London,’ vol. i. 437.
[8] Noorthouck, ‘Hist. of London,’ p. 60.
[9] The term “roarer,” and “roaring boy,” signifying a riotous person,
was in use in Shakespeare’s day, and still survives in slang (Riley).
[10] The word is so given in the text, although this text is in Latin,
fol. cxxxii. 6 (Riley).
[11] The indictment charged John Brid for having sought to falsely
and maliciously obtain his own private advantage “by skilfully and
artfully causing a certain hole to be made upon a table of his, called
a _moldingborde_, pertaining to his bakehouse after the manner of a
mouse-trap in which mice are caught, there being a certain wicket,
warily provided for closing and opening such a hole.” When neighbours
brought dough to make into bread and bake at his oven, John Brid
got them to put it on his _moldingborde_ table, having “one of his
household ready provided for the same sitting in secret beneath
such table; which servant of his, so seated beneath the hole, and
carefully opening it, piecemeal and bit by bit craftily withdrew
some of the dough aforesaid, frequently collecting great quantities
from such dough, falsely, wickedly, and maliciously.” It was proved
that the hole was made of aforethought, that large quantities of
dough were drawn through the table and found beneath, and that the
neighbours suffered grievous loss. Numerous other cases of similar
fraud were brought forward at the same time, and all were equally
proved, after “due inquisition as to the truth of the matter had been
made.” Whereupon at a full court of aldermen, and in the presidency
of Richard de Botoigne, Mayor, it was ordered that all male offenders
against whom the charge was proved should be out upon the pillory
with a certain quantity of the dough round their necks, in the cases
where dough had been found; where it had not, the sentence was one
of simple exposure. Two female bakers sought to escape by laying the
crime upon their husbands, but “it was agreed and ordained that they
should be sent back to the prison of Newgate, there to remain until
as to them it should be otherwise ordained,” and there, according to
the same document, they should linger _sine die_. To wipe out the
disgrace, it was further ordered that all the _moldingborde_ tables
“should be thrown down and utterly destroyed,” and that any baker in
future guilty of such an offence “should stand upon the pillory for a
whole day, and afterwards abjure the city, so as at no time to return
thereto.”
[12] A prison for night-walkers and other suspicious persons, and
called the Tun because the same was built somewhat in fashion of a Tun
standing on the one end. It was built in 1282 by Henry Walers, Mayor.
[13] “Our ancestors, with a strong love for practical jokes and
an equally strong aversion to falsehood and boasting, checked an
indulgence in such vices when they became offensive by very plain
satire. A confirmed liar was presented with a _whetstone_ to jocularly
infer that his invention, if he continued to use it so freely, would
require sharpening.”--Chambers’ ‘Book of Days,’ ii. 45.
[14] Pressing to death. See post, chap. vi.
[15] Skinner or furrier.
[16] Noorthouck calls him John Gate. See ‘Hist. of London,’ p. 49.
[17] Sir Edward Coke derives the title of the court from the fact that
justice was done in them as speedily as dust can fall from the foot.
[18] A toll had been levied thirty years earlier (1373) for the
cleansing of Smithfield, which may be referred to here. It is
interesting as showing the status at this period of the keeper of
Newgate. He, Adam Fernham by name, was one of those selected to levy
the toll, and with two others was sworn faithfully to collect and
receive the pennies, and cleanse the field, for a term of three years.
Fernham must have been a man of credit and good repute to have been
thus chosen.
[19] For full account see Riley’s ‘Liber Albus,’ p. 41.
[20] Sheriff Hoare (1740-1) tells us how the names of the prisoners
in each gaol were read over to him and his colleagues; the keepers
acknowledged them one by one to be in their custody, and then tendered
the keys, which were delivered back to them again, and after executing
the indentures, the sheriffs partook of sack and walnuts, provided
by the keepers of the prison, at a tavern adjoining Guildhall.
Formerly the sheriffs attended the Lord Mayor on Easter Eve through
the streets to collect charity for the prisoners in the city prison.
Sheriffs were permitted to keep prisoners in their own houses, hence
the Sponging Houses. The “Sheriffs’ Fund” was started in 1807 by Sir
Richard Phillips, who, in his letter to the Livery of London, states
that he found, on visiting Newgate, so many claims on his charity that
he could not meet a tenth part of them. A suggestion to establish a
sheriffs’ fund was thereupon made public and found general support. In
1867 the fund amounted to £13,000.
[21] ‘Liber Albus,’ Riley, p. 108.
[22] ‘Harleian Miscell.,’ vol. vi.
[23] The exemption of St. Martin’s from both ecclesiastical and
civil jurisdiction until the time of James I., and by affording easy
sanctuary to malefactors of the city, was a great nuisance. Loftie, i.
118.
[24] Or “Porti-foug,” a breviary which could be carried about.
[25] Riley’s ‘Memorials of London,’ p. 466.
[26] State Papers.
[27] See chap. iv.
[28] This abjuring the king’s land was an act of self-banishment,
akin in its effects to the old Roman penalty of _aquæ et ignis
interdictio_. Any criminal who took sanctuary might escape the law,
provided that within forty days he clothed himself in sackcloth,
confessed his crime before the coroner, and after solemnly abjuring
the land, proceeded, cross in hand, to some appointed port, where he
embarked and left the country. If apprehended within forty days he was
again suffered to depart.--Note in Thom’s ‘Stow,’ p. 157.
[29] It was based on a passage in the commentaries of Jerome Cardan.
Cardan, in a calculation of the horoscope of Edward VI., amidst much
astrological rubbish relates, on hearsay, his authority being the
Bishop of Lisieux, that seventy-two thousand criminals had perished by
the executioner in the reign of Henry VIII.--Froude, iii. 227.
[30] Froude.
[31] Stowe’s ‘Survey,’ p. 72.
[32] Fabian’s ‘Chronicle.’
[33] ‘Maitland,’ i. 226.
[34] Cromwell’s house was in the city in Throgmorton Street, close to
the site of the monastic house of the Austin Friars.
[35] This Benedict Spinola must have been an Italian with some
influence. His personal relations with Burghley are manifest from a
letter of congratulation sent by him to Burghley on the safe arrival
of the Earl of Oxford at Milan. Other more or less confidential
matters are mentioned in connection with Pasqual and Jacob Spinola,
Benedict’s brothers.
[36] Vol. iv. pp. 6, 7.
[37] Of these ten friars of the Charterhouse sent to Newgate, Froude
says “nine died of prison fever and filth, the tenth survivor was
executed.” Secretary Bedyll, writing to Cromwell concerning them,
says, “It shall please your lordship to understand that the monks of
the Charterhouse here in London, which were committed to Newgate for
their traitorous behaviour long time continued against the king’s
Grace, be almost despatched by the hand of God, as may appear, to you
by the bill enclosed.”
[38] ‘Foxe,’ v. 180.
[39] ‘Foxe,’ v. 451.
[40] ‘Foxe,’ vi. 612.
[41] ‘Foxe,’ vii. 684.
[42] ‘Harleian Miscell.’
[43] Friday continued the day of horse-market until the closing of
Smithfield as a market for live cattle.
[44] The bell which was rung at mass on the elevation of the host.
[45] Clink prison.
[46] State Papers.
[47] Stowe, who adds: “note that gaolers buying their offices will
deal hardly with pitiful prisoners.”
[48] Before Dios? See p. 90.
[49] The priests were subject to espionage even beyond the limits
of the realm. A deposition is given in the State Papers made by one
Arthur Saul, a prisoner in Newgate, to the effect that he had been
employed by Secretary Winwood and the Archbishop of Canterbury to
report what English were at Douay College, particulars of priests who
have returned to England, of their meeting-places and conveyance of
letters. “One of them,” it is added, “helped four recusants to escape
from Newgate.”
[50] Chief of the Jesuits in England, afterwards executed (1608).
[51] “On the Queen’s day ten were taken at mass in Newgate.”--State
Papers, 1602.
[52] This is beyond explanation.
[53] Without paying gaoler’s fees.
[54] There was a keeper and a deputy: the latter was resident, and did
most of the work.
[55] Calendar, “The prisoners of Newgate’s condemnation,” declaring
every verdict of the whole Bench at the Sessions House in the Old
Bailey. April 22, 1642.
[56] The Jack Ketch of the period.
[57] See _ante_, p. 113.
[58] A homily against play-acting and masquerades.
[59] Printed by F. Coles and G. Lindsey, 1642.
[60] The rebellion in Ireland.
[61] As Colonel Gerard had been rescued by Mr. Anthuser, and next day
the Portuguese, to the number of fifty, fell upon a Colonel Mayo,
mistaking him for Anthuser, wounded him dangerously, and killed
another person, Mr. Greenaway. The murderers were arrested in spite
of the protection afforded them by the Portuguese ambassador and
committed to Newgate. Whitelocke’s ‘Memorials,’ p. 569.
[62] Their first victim, Colonel Gerard, survived only to be executed
on Tower Hill the same year for conspiring to murder the Lord
Protector. ‘State Trials,’ v. 518.
[63] See _ante_, chap. i. p. 58.
[64] The disgusting brutality with which this operation was carried
out will be realized from the following extract from the life of J.
Ellwood, who found himself in Newgate in the beginning of Charles
II.’s reign:--
“When we first came into Newgate,” says Mr. Ellwood, “there lay (in
a little by-place like a closet, near the room where we were lodged)
the quartered bodies of three men, who had been executed some days
before, for a real or pretended plot; ... and the reason why their
quarters lay there so long, was, the relatives were all that while
petitioning to have leave to bury them; which, at length, with much
ado, was obtained for the quarters, but not for the heads, which were
ordered to be set up in some part of the City. I saw the heads when
they were brought up to be boiled; the hangman fetched them in a
dirty dust basket, out of some by-place; and setting them down among
the felons, he and they made sport with them. They took them by the
hair, flouting, jeering, and laughing at them; and then, giving them
some ill names, boxed them on the ears and cheeks. Which done, the
Hangman put them into his kettle, and parboiled them with Bay-Salt and
Cummin-seed,--that to keep them from putrefaction, and this to keep
off the fowls from seizing on them. The whole sight (as well that of
the bloody quarters first, and this of the heads afterwards) was both
frightful and loathsome, and begat an abhorrence in my nature.”
[65] “Bilboes” were bars of iron with fetters attached. The name comes
from the Spanish town Bilbao, where they were first made.
[66] Cf. chap. 6, vol. ii. Executions.
[67] Who were responsible for the keeper and the prison generally.
[68] Luttrell.
[69] Luttrell.
[70] Luttrell.
[71] Macaulay, i. 380.
[72] Still the seat of the Thynnes; and the property of the head of
the family--the present Marquis of Bath.
[73] Reresby’s Memoirs, p. 256.
[74] Reresby.
[75] Luttrell.
[76] Reresby’s Memoirs.
[77] Reresby.
[78] Luttrell.
[79] Luttrell.
[80] See chap. vi.
[81] ‘Celebrated Trials,’ ii. 322.
[82] ‘Celebrated Trials,’ ii. 326.
[83] Dr. Oates in the next reign was to some extent indemnified for
his sufferings. When quite an old man he married a young city heiress
with a fortune of £2000; and a writer who handled this “Salamanca
wedding,” as it was called, was arrested. Oates was in the receipt of
a pension of £300 from the Government when he died in 1705.
[84] The practice of fining jurors for finding a verdict contrary
to the direction of the judge had already been declared arbitrary,
unconstitutional, and illegal.
[85] ‘History of the Press-yard.’
[86] _Ibid._
[87] See chap. x.
[88] This cobbler of Highgate was a zealous Jacobite, who turned out
in his best suit of clothes on King James’s birthday. For this he was
prosecuted, and sentenced to be whipped up and down Highgate Hill,
with a year’s imprisonment in Newgate. He lived on the fat of the land
during his incarceration, had quarters in the press-yard, and “lay in
lodgings at ten or twelve shilling a week.”
[89] This was Bernardi. See post, p. 226.
[90] Bernardi.
[91] Mr. Marvell was either principal hangman or the assistant.
[92] ‘History of the Press-yard.’
[93] ‘Secret History of the Rebels in Newgate: giving an account of
their daily behaviour from their commitment to their gaol delivery.’
Taken from the diary of a gentleman in the same prison--who was
evidently no particular admirer of theirs.
[94] ‘History of the Press-yard.’
[95] It will be remembered that Mr. Forster’s want of generalship lost
the battle of Prestonpans.
[96] See chap. vii. for this and other escapes.
[97] For this Dalton was convicted and fined fifty marks, with
imprisonment for one year, also to find security for three more years.
[98] Parson Paul was the Rev. William Paul, M.A., vicar of
Orton-on-the-Hill, in Leicestershire. He met the rebels at Preston,
and performed service there, praying for the Pretender as King James
the Third. When the royal troops invested Preston, Mr. Paul escaped
“in coloured clothes, a long wig, a laced hat, and a sword by his
side.” He came to London, and was recognized in St. James’s Park by a
Leicestershire magistrate, who apprehended him, and he was committed
to Newgate.
[99] One of the Halls of Otterburn, Northumberland, and a magistrate
for the county. He joined the Pretender early, and was one of his most
active and staunch supporters.
[100] No doubt a form of the gaol fever.
[101] ‘Secret History.’
[102] See _ante_, p. 203.
[103] According to the deposition of Harris the informer, Bernardi
came with Rookwood to London on purpose to meet Barclay the chief
conspirator.
[104] Pike, ‘Hist, of Crime,’ ii. 83.
[105] Camden’s ‘Annals of the Year 1581.’
[106] Dr. Bastwick’s daughter, Mrs. Poe, after his ears were cut off,
called for them, put them in a clean handkerchief, and carried them
away with her.
[107] No. 45 of the ‘North Briton’ charged the king with falsehood,
and was the basis of the prosecutions; 45 became in consequence
a popular number with the patriots. Tradesmen called their goods
“forty-five”; and snuff so styled was still sold in Fleet Street
only a few years ago. Horne Tooke declares that the Prince of Wales
aggravated his august father, when the latter was flogging him, by
shouting “Wilkes and 45 for ever!”
[108] Lords of Leet were obliged to keep up a pillory or tumbrel, on
pain of forfeiture of the leet; and villages might also be compelled
to provide them.
[109] The last stocks in London were those of St. Clement’s Dane’s in
Portugal Street, which were removed in 1826, to make way for local
improvements.--Wade, ‘British Chronology.’
[110] ‘Punishments in the Olden Time,’ by William Andrews, F.R.H.S.,
to which I am indebted for many of my facts.
[111] This was not an uncommon offence. One Mary Hamilton was married
fourteen times to members of her own sex. A more inveterate, but a
more natural, bigamist was a man named Miller, who was pilloried, in
1790, for having married thirty different women on purpose to plunder
them.
[112] The ‘Reliquary,’ edited by Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A.
[113] On the first introduction of the treadwheel in the early decades
of the present century, its use was not restricted to males, and women
were often made to suffer this punishment.
[114] Whipping females was not abolished till 1817.
[115] ‘Ancient Law.’
[116] Bernardo Visconti, Duke of Milan, in the 14th century, made a
capital punishment, or more exactly the act of killing, last for forty
days.
[117] Pike, ‘Hist. of Crime,’ i. 210.
[118] By “Halifax law” any thief who within the precincts of the
liberty stole thirteen pence could on conviction before four burghers
be sentenced to death. The same law obtained at Hull, hence the
particular prayer in the thieves’ Litany, which ran as follows: “From
Hull, Hell, and Halifax, good Lord, deliver us.”
[119] Loftie, ‘Hist. of London,’ 1883, vol. ii. 215.
[120] Waller, the Tyebourne and Westbourne paper read before the
London and Middlesex Archæological Society.
[121] ‘History of Paddington.’
[122] See account of Courvoisier’s trial in cap. vii., vol. ii.
[123] See _ante_, p. 186.
[124] ‘Memorials of George Selwyn,’ I. 11.
[125] The season was the summer, and on the Sunday following the
execution, London was like a deserted city; hundreds of thousands went
out to see him hanging in chains.
[126] The negligence and perfunctory performance of duty of the
ordinary, Mr. Ford, is strongly animadverted upon in the ‘Report of
Commons’ Committee in 1814.’ See vol. ii. cap. 2.
[127] The Rev. Paul Lorraine.
[128] The Scotch Dalziels bear sable, a hanged man with his arms
extended. A Spanish hidalgo has in his coat armour, a ladder with
gibbet; and various implements of torture have been borne by German
families of distinction.
[129] Many of the immediate successors of Brandon above-mentioned were
called Gregory.
[130] ‘Natural History of Oxfordshire,’ cap. 8.
[131] See _ante_, chap. i.
[132] The most ingenious and painstaking attempt of this kind was that
made by some Thugs awaiting sentence in India, who sawed through the
bars of their prison with packthread smeared with oil and coated with
fine stone-dust.
[133] In the proclamation for his apprehension after his second
escape, he is described as about twenty-two years of age, five feet
four inches in height, very slender, of a pale complexion, having
an impediment or hesitation in his speech, and wearing a butcher’s
blue frock with a great-coat over it; a carpenter or house-joiner by
trade. Twenty guineas reward was offered to any who might discover or
apprehend him.
[134] I have followed the text of Ainsworth’s novel, which gives a
clear and picturesque account. It is also accurate, and based on the
best accounts extant.
[135] I am quoting now from the ‘Tyburn Calendar,’ the wording of
which is preserved in all other accounts.
[136] The following stanzas were written at the time, and appeared in
the ‘British Journal’ of Nov. 28, 1724:--
“Thornhill, ’tis thine to gild with fame
The obscure and raise the humble name;
To make the form elude the grave,
And Sheppard from oblivion save.
Tho’ life in vain the wretch implores,
An exile on the farthest shores,
Thy pencil brings a kind reprieve,
And bids the dying robber live.
* * * * *
Apelles Alexander drew,
Cæsar is to Aurelius due,
Cromwell in Lilly’s works doth shine,
And Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine.”
[137] See _ante_, p. 268.
[138] See _ante_, p. 254.
[139] Ordinary’s account of executions, Nov. 1736.
[140] See _ante_, p. 273.
[141] Luttrell, iii. 1695.
[142] _Ibid._
[143] I have described this in detail in the next chapter.
[144] ‘Life of Lord Hardwicke,’ i. 215.
[145] ‘An inquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers,’
&c. London: 1751.
[146] Fielding, ‘Robbers,’ p. 35.
[147] Soldiers in the Guards, after long and faithful service, were
granted leave of absence from military duty in order to take civil
situations which did not monopolize all their time. By this means they
eked out their scanty pay.
[148] ‘A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis,’ by P. Colquhoun,
LL.D. London, 1800.
[149] Fielding, p. xxviii.
[150] _Ibid._, p. xxix.
[151] Savage was tried before Sir Francis Page, commonly known as “the
hanging judge,” and whose severity was most notorious. He afterwards
admitted that he had been most anxious to hang Savage. In his old age
when his health was inquired after, he is reported to have replied, “I
keep hanging on, hanging on.”
[152] ‘Celebrated Trials,’ iii. 457. ‘Newgate Calendar,’ i. 39.
Thornbury, in his ‘Old Stories Retold,’ calls it the King’s Arms, on
what authority he does not say.
[153] “What do you bring this fellow here for?” Oneby had cried to
the keeper of Newgate when he appeared with Hooper. “Whenever I
look at him I shall think of being hanged.” Hooper had a forbidding
countenance, but he was an inimitable mimic, and he soon made himself
an agreeable companion to the condemned man.
[154] ‘Calendar,’ i. 146.
[155] The husband of the Lady Macclesfield, who was mother to Richard
Savage. See _ante_, p. 340.
[156] ‘Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke,’ by George Harris, i. 176.
[157] Where Lambeth Suspension Bridge now stands.
[158] The crime of petty treason was established when any person out
of malice took away the life of another to whom he or she owed special
obedience--as when a servant killed his master, a wife her husband, or
an ecclesiastic his superior. The wife’s accomplices in the murder of
a husband were not deemed guilty of petty treason.
[159] The infamous Judge Jeffries in 1685 sentenced Elizabeth Gaunt
to be burnt alive at Tyburn, for sheltering persons concerned in
Monmouth’s rebellion.
[160] As barristers often preferred to do business at their own homes,
chambers in the Temple were rather at a discount just then, and their
landlords, “preferring tenants of no legal skill to no tenants at
all, let them out to any that offered, ...” consequently many private
people creep about the Inns of Court.--‘Newgate Calendar,’ i. 470.
[161] ‘Newgate Calendar,’ i. 189.
[162] “Beau” Fielding, who was tried at the Old Bailey in 1706 for
committing bigamy with the Duchess of Cleveland, is one of the most
remarkable instances of this. See ‘Celebrated Trials,’ iii. 534. Also
see the trial of the Duchess of Kingston, ‘Remarkable Trials,’ 203.
She was tried by the House of Lords, found guilty, but pleaded her
peerage and was discharged.
[163] Hackham was present at Dr. Dodd’s execution a short time
previously. His remarks on the subject will be found in vol. ii. chap.
i.
[164] Quin could not resist the chance of making a sharp speech.
When desired by the manager of Covent Garden to go to the front to
apologize for Madame Rollau, a celebrated dancer, who could not
appear, he said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Madame Rollau cannot dance
to-night, having dislocated her ancle--I wish it had been her neck.”
[165] At this date abroad, Mr. Baretti pointed out, it was not the
custom to put knives on the dinner-table, so that even ladies carried
them in their pockets for general use.
[166] The boot was the usual punning allusion to Lord Bute in the
caricatures of the day; and the petticoat no doubt referred to his
undue influence over the Princess of Wales, mother of the reigning
sovereign, George III. See _ante_, p. 238.
[167] Cant names of the period for drinks.
[168] Walpole’s Letters to Sir Horace Mann.
[169] Wild at last had the audacity to occupy a house in the Old
Bailey, opposite the present Sessions House.
[170] There were sometimes as many as sixty or seventy pirates
awaiting trial at a time in Newgate, about this period.
[171] By Lord Orford and the Board of Admiralty.
[172] Luttrell.
[173] See _ante_, chap. vi. p. 279.
[174] Hume, xi. 418.
[175] The following are some of the great people who owned prisons in
those days: “The Dukes of Portland, Devonshire, Norfolk, and Leeds,
the Marquis of Carnarvon, Lords Salisbury, Exeter, Arundel, and Derby,
the Bishops of Salisbury, Ely, and Durham, the Dean and Chapter of
Westminster.”
[176] Book iv. c. 22.
[177] ‘Buxton on Prison Discipline,’ p. 11.
[178] As late as 1818 the most capricious rules prevailed as to
ironing in various prisons in the country. Thus at Newgate all felons
were ironed; it was the same at Chelmsford; but at Bury and Norwich
all felons were without irons. Again at Coldbath Fields, only the
untried and those sent for re-examination were ironed; at other places
the untried were not ironed, and so on. Dr. Dodd, in his ‘Thoughts
in Prison,’ refers to the horror he experienced in Newgate from the
constant rattling of chains. It seems the most hardened prisoners
often clanked their irons for an amusement.
[179] See _ante_, chap. v. p. 211.
[180] ‘Dr. Guy on Public Health,’ 183.
[181] Lind, ‘Health of our Seamen.’
[182] According to Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice Lee was attacked
with the gaol fever in this year, but recovered. It was through Lee’s
remonstrances that certain precautions were adopted, such as plunging
a hot iron into a bucket full of vinegar and sweet smelling herbs.
‘Lives of the Lord Chief Justices.’
[183] Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Pringle had already published (1750)
a pamphlet on hospital and ‘jayl’ fevers, in which he traced the
distemper to jails being too small for their numbers, and too insecure
to forego the use of dungeons. The only resource, he said, until these
two evils were removed, was in ventilators.
[184] In this year 1752 another Lord Mayor, Winterbottom, died of the
gaol fever. Lord Campbell’s ‘Lives of Lord Chief Justices.’
[185] A full account of the ventilator from the pen of Dr. Hales is
published in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. xxii. p. 180 (1752),
where also is the plan of the windmill which worked it, which plan I
have introduced into this chapter. The various letters on the plan
refer to the detailed description in the original.
[186] For full account of this see next chapter.
[187] Lord George Gordon died of it in the new Newgate in 1793.
[188] See next chapter.
[189] See page 379.
[190] Dr. Dodd in his ‘Prison Thoughts’ animadverts strongly upon the
evils of Newgate, but completely exonerates Mr. Akerman. “No man could
do more,” says Dr. Dodd. “His attention is great, and his kindness and
humanity to those in sickness or affliction peculiarly pleasing.”
[191] There is a brief account of Newgate about this period in the
‘Memoirs of Casanova,’ who saw the interior of the prison while
awaiting bail for an assault. Casanova was committed in ball dress,
and received with hisses, which increased to furious abuse when they
found he did not answer their questions, being ignorant of English. He
felt as if he was in one of the most horrible circles of Dante’s hell.
He saw, “Des figures fauves, des regards de vipères, des sinistres
sourires tous les caractères de l’envie de la rage, du désespoir;
c’était un spectacle épouvantable.”--‘Mémoires,’ vi. 48.
[192] Some notion of the density of the prison population in Newgate
in those times will be obtained by comparing it with modern ideas
on this subject. The following figures give the acreage and average
population of three comparatively new prisons.
Prison Acreage Average prison population.
Warwick 9A. 3R. 2P. 300
St. Albans 4 2 1 100
Lincoln 16 0 15 180
[193] See last chapter.
[194] Lord George Gordon was the son of Cosmo, Duke of Gordon, and
was born in 1750. He entered the navy as a midshipman, but left the
service in consequence of a dispute with Lord Sandwich. He sat in
Parliament for Ludgershall, and was a bitter opponent of the ministry.
[195] Pennant’s ‘London.’
[196] ‘Barnaby Rudge.’
[197] Lord Mansfield’s impartiality at the trial was the subject of
general admiration. “He never shewed the slightest tinge of resentment
or bias.” Yet with his house were destroyed not only much valuable
property, but a mass of private journals and letters, which he had
been collecting to form the basis of memoirs of his own times, and the
loss of which was quite irreparable.
[198] This position may well be questioned. _Vide_ vol. ii. cap. i.
[199] The Right Honourable Charles Jenkinson was created Lord
Hawkesbury in 1787, and made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, as
well as President of the Board of Trade. He was an authority in all
mercantile and commercial affairs.
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
letter of congratulaton=> letter of congratulation {pg 70}
Various fancy sketches exists=> Various fancy sketches exist {pg 295}
evidently a stout whig=> evidently a stout Whig {pg 312}
be embarked from France for Scotland=> he embarked from France for
Scotland {pg 315}
with the sessions papers already mentioned=> with the sessions’ papers
already mentioned {pg 320}
his capture and fame in Newgate=> His capture and fame in Newgate {pg
375}
but by the black interpreters=> but by the black interpreter {pg 386}
one of the prisoners were rescued by the mob=> one of the prisoners was
rescued by the mob {pg 394}
odium of Lord Somers and Orford=> odium of Lords Somers and Orford {pg
419}
who ruled the roast=> who ruled the roost {pg 427}
with such accommodaton=> with such accommodation {pg 451}
du desespoir; c’était un spectacle epouvantable.”--‘Memoires,’=> du
désespoir; c’était un spectacle épouvantable.”--‘Mémoires,’ {pg 452}