thirty years of age) is the natural son of a barrister, who formerly
had chambers in the New Inn. His mother was a laundress in the
chambers; she was particularly fond of her son, and when he was about
twelve years of age she used to lead him about, fearful that any harm
should come to him. He was educated at a boarding-school, and received
a tolerable education; he wrote an excellent hand, and at the age of
fourteen he was employed in a professional gentleman's office, at No.
10, in the New Inn; but he was always of a wild, roving disposition,
and whenever he could get away from his duties he was associating
with the worst of characters about Clare-market. This appeared to be
his sole delight until he neglected the office altogether, and was
consequently discharged. He had at the same time some good friends,
who felt an interest in his welfare, but nothing could induce him
to break off with his associates; and instead of remaining a clerk,
which he was well adapted for, he took a liking to be a butcher.
The first place he got was at Mr. Roberts's, in Clare-market, with
whom he lived some time: he afterwards lived with Mr. Price, in the
same market; but he never remained long in one place. At last he
took up the trade of a 'body-snatcher;' and in order to carry on the
business with the greatest facility, took a lodging in one of the
houses in Clement's-lane, Strand, the back of which looks into the
burying-ground, situated in Portugal-street, at the rear of St. Clement
Danes' workhouse. Here he commenced business, and was very successful;
but like many others, flushed by success, he could not keep his own
secret, and would brag of the number of bodies he had got out of the
burying-ground at the back of his lodgings of a night, and what sums
he had sold them for. He at first made no secret of his profession,
and considered it meritorious, till at last he found that he was
detested and despised by every person. He then left that part of the
town, and got acquainted with Bishop and his associates. May was always
considered a lively, interesting fellow, fond of jokes, and ready for
any mischief; but his disposition was not naturally cruel, and no
person who knew him a few years ago could believe that he would be
the accessary to take away the life of the humblest individual. May's
mother is dead, but we believe his father is still living.
Williams was in custody not long since, charged with breaking into a
house in a court situate near the Hackney-road, and stealing the corpse
of a widow's son, a youth of sixteen or seventeen, who had died a day
or two before. The poor woman had left her home for a short time only,
and on her return found the corpse had, in the mean time, been stolen.
Some of the female neighbours then recollected that while they were
standing in the court shortly before, a man passed them with a basket
containing something which smelt very offensively, and occasioned
them to look particularly at the man, although they had no suspicion,
until the alarm was given, that he was carrying off the corpse of the
widow's son. A pursuit was immediately commenced, but without success.
From the description given, however, a policeman apprehended Williams
on the following morning, and he was identified by the females as the
man whom they had seen near the house with a basket as stated. No
trace of the body, nor of the manner in which it had been disposed of,
could be discovered, nor any further evidence obtained, and, after an
examination before a magistrate, the prisoner was discharged upon a
recognizance. Williams was born at Highgate, and was apprenticed to
a bricklayer; dissipation, however, led him to abandon his business
and to become the associate of thieves; his conduct nearly ruined his
mother; and after he had been repeatedly in custody on various charges
of felony, about six year's since he was apprehended in Shoe-lane,
selling a copper which he had stolen, and was convicted at the Old
Bailey, and sentenced to seven years' transportation. Subsequently he
was sent to the Penitentiary, which he left a few months since; and he
then became a resurrectionist, and continued that horrid profession
until apprehended. We understand he had only been married seven weeks
previous to his apprehension.
The father of Bishop was a worthy and industrious man, who for some
years kept an errand-cart between Highgate and London. On the 8th of
November, 1816, he was unfortunately run over by one of Pickford's
vans, the wheels of which passed over both his legs, and crushed them
so dreadfully that amputation was necessary. He did not long survive
the operation. The estimation in which he was held was evidenced by the
fact, that immediately upon his decease the inhabitants of Highgate
subscribed upwards of three hundred pounds for the relief of the
family. He left his widow far advanced in pregnancy. The money thus
subscribed was placed in the hands of trustees, to be dispensed to
the family as occasion might require. It was soon discovered that the
objects of this liberal benevolence were unworthy of the exertions that
had been made in their behalf, for the widow of the deceased and her
son-in-law scrupled not to live together openly as man and wife. The
money, however, had been raised for them, and the trustees who had no
power to withhold it, were pestered with applications until the family
had secured the whole. A great portion of it went into the hands of
the widow, the son, and the daughter, who is now the wife of Williams,
alias Head.
The conduct of both Williams and Bishop on the day previous to their
execution was an intermixture of hardened indifference, and that
agonizing restlessness which harrows up the soul of the criminal as
the hour of his execution approaches.
Both the convicts slept during Sunday night, but awoke at intervals,
and conversed with the officers of the jail appointed to watch them.
Occasionally they entered into religious observances, but generally
were averse to them. Once, when the person who sat up with Williams
proposed to read to him some extracts out of religious books left with
him by the Ordinary, Williams roughly declined the proposal, saying,
'I had religious talk enough during the day--I will have none of it
to-night.' He then entered into conversation with the officer upon the
subject of the offence for which he was going to suffer. He solemnly
assured him that, up to the time of his marriage, he had never had any
connexion with resurrection-men, and even added, that it was not until
his wedding-night that he had any idea that Bishop got his livelihood
by that horrible trade. He told the officer that on that night,
shortly after he had got to bed, his wife conjured him not to have
anything to do with the snatchers. This led to inquiries on his part,
which terminated in a full disclosure, by his wife, of the practices
by which her brother-in-law supported his family. No communication
took place between himself and Bishop on the subject till some time
afterwards, when he was suddenly thrown out of work. Bishop then
gradually disclosed to him his mode of life, and asked him to become
a partner in the trade. Williams assented. He then became a regular
resurrection-man; but being tired with the difficulties and dangers of
the trade, he proposed to Bishop, that, instead of disinterring, they
should murder subjects. He was then asked what led him to make such a
proposal; and his reply was, 'The recollection of what Burke had done
at Edinburgh.'
After some other facts, tallying with those in Bishop's account, he
stated that on the Sunday after the murder of the woman Pigburn, they
attempted to Burke a man whom they accidentally lured into their power.
The laudanum, however, which they had mixed with his liquor was not
strong enough, as Bishop said, to stupify him beyond resistance, and he
was, therefore, allowed to escape, partly from a fear of his struggles,
and partly from Bishop's arm being palsied by a similar feeling to that
which palsied _Lady Macbeth's_ arm in a similar situation,--namely,
the feeling that the man whom he was about to despatch 'resembled
_his_ father as he slept.' Still bent on their murderous trade, they
endeavoured, on the following Tuesday, to get another subject by the
same means. Again was the laudanum inefficient; and in this case, as in
the former, both the intended victims left the house in which they met
these ruffians, without any idea of their having been exposed to such
great and imminent danger.
Two men were appointed to sit up with each of the criminals during
Sunday night. About half-past twelve o'clock, Williams, who had evinced
during the evening a great degree of restlessness and feverish anxiety,
became somewhat calmer, and said, 'I shall now go to bed for the last
time.' He first threw himself upon his knees, and prayed for some
time fervently, and then undressing himself, went to his couch, but
continued in conversation with the men for more than an hour, during
which time he wrote a note, of which we give a copy, addressed to the
Rev. Mr. Russell, the chaplain to the Penitentiary, where he (Williams)
was confined for about three years.
'_Newgate, Dec. 4th, 1831._
'Mr. Russell,--If you will be kind enough to let my brother
prisoners know the awful death which I shall have suffered when
you receive this, it will, through your expostulations, prevent
them from increasing their crimes when they may be liberated;
and tell them bad company, and drinking, and blasphemy, is the
foundation of all evil. Give my brotherly love to them, and tell
them never to deviate from the paths of religion, and to have
a firm belief in their blessed Saviour. Give my love to John
Edwards, John Justin, and John Dingle, and receive the prayers of
the unfortunate and guilty
'THOMAS HEAD.'
Both prisoners rose at six o'clock in the morning, and were soon after
visited by the rev. gentlemen who had before attended them. Williams,
at times, appeared fervent in his devotions, and prayed earnestly; but
at intervals he would pause, and seem as if his prayer was hopeless;
again he would resume his prayer, and clasp his hands in great agony.
Bishop also prayed; but he by no means showed the same fervour as
his companion. There was a listlessness in his manner approaching to
indifference, not merely to religion, but to everything passing around
him. At one time, when urged on the subject of his hope of forgiveness,
he said, he did hope and trust for mercy through Jesus Christ. He
added, that he fully deserved what he was about to suffer, but that his
case would be desperate, if some greater mercy were not extended to him
in the world which he was about to enter.
We should here mention a fact, that has been communicated to us on
highly respectable authority, that on Sunday, besides the Rev. Mr.
Cotton and another gentleman, there were two clergymen present with
the convicts. The two clergymen were instructing the men on doctrinal
points, which Mr. Cotton thought unnecessary. He therefore advised
that the prisoners should retire into different corners of the room,
and pray silently to God. Mr. Cotton found it necessary to give this
advice twice. On both occasions the men withdrew as desired, fell on
their knees, prayed for a short time, and then burst into tears. Before
this, both prisoners seemed agitated to a degree which it was most
distressing to witness. As they prayed they became more composed. The
Rev. Mr. Russell, and another clergyman, were with the prisoners early
on Monday morning, and remained with them up to the time of their being
removed into the press-room.
The applications made on Sunday to the sheriffs, by the nobility and
gentry, to allow them admission to the interior of the prison to
witness the preliminaries of the execution were beyond all precedent.
Many applications were also made for admission to the condemned sermon.
None, however, was preached. In the case of murderers this solemnity is
not granted. The tolling of the prison-bell, which adds so much to the
horrors of a common execution, by sounding the knell for the dead in
the ears of those about to die, was also dispensed with. We never heard
that any sufferer complained of the omission. We have seen many who
were not murderers deeply affected by the funeral honour or compliment
thus paid to them on their way to the scaffold.
During the whole of Saturday and Sunday, the lord-mayor and sheriffs,
assisted by the city marshals, Messrs. Brown and Cope, were busily
engaged in adopting precautions to guard against the possibility of
accident at the execution. All the officers of the various wards
in the city were ordered to attend; and besides the usual force of
the city police, a large body of special constables were sworn in.
An extra number of heavy barriers were erected in the Old Bailey,
immediately contiguous to the space on which the gallows stands, at
short distances, so as to prevent the crush of the multitude as much
as possible; and the same precautions were adopted at either end of
the Old Bailey, at the end of Newgate-street, Giltspur-street, and
Skinner-street.
All the constabulary force received orders from the city marshals to
assemble at five o'clock in the morning, and to take the stations
appointed for them.
During the afternoon of Sunday groups of persons were congregated
in different parts of the Old Bailey. Towards evening the crowds
increased, and by midnight great numbers were assembled, who actually
remained all night on the spot, in order to secure places near the
scaffold on the following morning. The occupiers of houses, from
the windows of which a view could be obtained of the execution,
exhibited placards, announcing various prices for seats according
to the proximity of the domicile to the spot, and though it was
generally stipulated that such seats could not be kept for parties
after six o'clock in the morning, they were eagerly sought for and
secured at a guinea per seat and upwards. So much as ten guineas was
given for a single window, and all these seats were occupied by those
who had engaged them, at so early an hour as five o'clock, upon a
cold, cheerless, and most uninviting morning. Shortly after midnight
the gallows was brought from the yard, and the workmen proceeded to
erect it in the usual place, opposite the debtors' door of Newgate. A
large space around it was barricadoed to keep off the crowd, and the
inside of that space was subsequently nearly filled by constables and
marshalmen.
The crowd, as early as one o'clock, amounted to several thousand
persons, and continued rapidly increasing. By five o'clock nearly
two-thirds of the Old Bailey were filled with a dense mass of people.
The continued buzz among the multitude at this time, the glare of light
from the torches that were used for the purpose of enabling the workmen
to proceed with their labours, and the terrific struggles among the
crowd, altogether presented a scene which those who witnessed it will
not soon forget. As the dawn of day approached, and with it the fatal
hour that was to consign the wretched criminals to their well-merited
fate, all the streets leading to the Old Bailey were thronged with
people, chiefly of the working classes, hastening to the spot. Constant
streams of population were pouring into the Old Bailey till they
formed, around the scaffold and at the corner of every street from
whence even a distant or a faint view could be obtained, a vast lake of
life. Amongst the immense assemblage might be noticed several females,
most of them of that _caste_ whose attendance on such an occasion might
be naturally expected, but some of them, we regret to state, of a class
that decency, if not humanity, should have kept away from a scene so
revolting to those delicate sensibilities that generally characterize
females.
When the fatal drop was stationed in its usual place, it was observed
that three chains were suspended from it. As soon as Mr. Wontner, the
governor of Newgate, heard of it, he ordered an officer to remove
one of them, May having been respited. This was done, and although
it was then dark, it was instantly communicated throughout the vast
assemblage, and a general cry of 'May is respited' was uttered. The
announcement did not seem to excite much surprise, although a few
individuals expressed their disapprobation by yelling and hooting.
About half-past six o'clock a body of city police, amounting to about
two hundred men, came up the Old Bailey, but the crowd was so dense
at this time that it was found impossible for them to proceed to
their station, which was at the foot of the gallows. After several
ineffectual attempts to pass on, it was arranged that they should
be allowed to go through the prison. Several persons seized this as
a favourable opportunity, by presenting constables' staves, to pass
themselves off as belonging to the police; but Mr. Browne, the marshal,
suffered no one to pass whom he did not recognize either as belonging
to the city police or as special constables. The pressure in the
immediate neighbourhood of the scaffold was tremendous, in spite of the
barriers; and many persons exhausted with fatigue, as early as seven
o'clock, rescuing themselves with difficulty from the throng, were
heard to exclaim, as they passed the outskirts of the mob, 'Thank God,
I have got away!' Many who thus quitted the scene with torn clothes,
and faces streaming with perspiration, had remained on the spot for
hours. Indeed, the avenue from the house of Mr. Cotton, the ordinary,
to the house of Mr. Wontner, the governor of Newgate, was so completely
blocked up at an early hour, that Mr. Cotton, and another clergyman
who accompanied him on his last visit to these unhappy convicts, were
unable to force their way through the crowd, and could only obtain
admittance into the prison by making a _detour_ to the other end of the
Old Bailey, and by entering it through the iron railings around the New
Court.
As day began to break we had an opportunity of surveying the crowd from
the top of Newgate, and we should think that at that time there were
not less than from thirty thousand to forty thousand persons assembled.
The tops of the houses, lamp-posts, and every station from which the
most distant view of the execution could be obtained, were by this time
occupied. In fact, from one end of the Old Bailey to the other, was one
dense mass; and the streets in the neighbourhood, although not a glance
could be had of the platform or the proceedings, were, from an early
hour, rendered impassable by the throng of persons hurrying towards the
scene of execution. The assemblage was the largest that has ever been
witnessed on an occasion of the kind, since the execution of Holloway
and Haggarty, upwards of twenty years since, when some fourteen or
fifteen persons were trampled to death in the crowd. The following
fact will convey some idea of the extent and densely-congregated state
of the crowd on Monday,--namely, that even so far as St. Sepulchre's
church, in Skinner-street, several individuals, whose screams for
relief had induced the people to raise them up, were passed over the
heads of their neighbours for some dozen yards before they could obtain
a resting-place.
Notwithstanding the many precautions taken by the city authorities
to prevent accidents, we are sorry to say that several occurred;
and though no lives were lost, we fear that some of the injuries
that were sustained were of a very serious description. At the end
of Giltspur-street, immediately opposite the Compter, a very heavy
barrier was erected across the road for the purpose of counteracting
the immense pressure of the mob, which in that direction extended
to Smithfield. This barrier was fastened to two uprights, that were
placed two feet in the ground, by iron hooping, which was by no means
of sufficient strength for the immense weight of the timber to which
it was attached. The consequence was, that at the moment the culprits
were visible on the gallows, the barrier was forced down, and a number
of persons of both sexes fell with it. The screams of the females, and
the confusion that ensued, were truly alarming. One female of very
respectable appearance, with her husband, were most dreadfully injured,
the barrier having fallen upon their chests, and others of the mob
pressing upon them. A city constable was also under the barrier, which
rested on his abdomen, and his cries were most deplorable. In this
dreadful situation did the sufferers remain for some minutes. A cry of
'Stand back; for God's sake, stand back!' was raised, but all was of no
avail, and people in all directions were trampling upon each other.
At length some of the officers from the Compter came out, and with
the assistance of several other officers, a space of ground was
obtained, and the individuals were rescued from their perilous
situation and carried to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where they were
promptly attended to by Mr. Birkett, the dresser to Mr. Vincent, the
principal surgeon, who had been in attendance all night to receive any
accident that might be brought in. Before nine o'clock, every bed in
Colston-ward was occupied by persons who had been injured at the moment
the barrier gave way, and many of them most seriously so.
As the hour of eight approached, the anxiety of the multitude became
more intense, and every eye became directed towards the door through
which the wretched criminals were to be led to the scaffold.
At half-past seven o'clock, the Sheriffs, accompanied by the
Under-Sheriffs and several gentlemen to whom they had given permission
to be present, entered the prison. The Sheriffs immediately proceeded
to the condemned cells, where Mr. Wontner, the Governor, delivered the
prisoners up to them for execution. The Sheriffs then proceeded to the
Press-room, in which the strangers who had got admission to the prison
were also admitted. The prisoners were soon after introduced by the
Sheriffs' officers. Bishop entered first. That kind of stupor which
we already noticed when the verdict of the jury was pronounced, was
still more strongly upon him. He advanced in rather a drooping manner,
his eye fixed on the ground. His step was slow without being firm, and
his whole bearing was rather that of a man unconscious of, than of one
indifferent to, the dreadful scene through which he was about to pass.
He had got more than half way to the upper end of the room before he
looked around; when he did, a kind of half-suppressed groan escaped
him, as from one who was for a moment roused to a quick sense of an
approaching violent death. But it was only for a moment, for at once he
seemed to relapse into his former stupor: his eye was again bent on the
ground, and he moved mechanically up to the officer, who stood ready to
tie his hands, and stretched forth his arms, the wrists being closely
pressed together. When that part of the preparation was concluded, he
turned round and allowed his arms to be pinioned. This done, he took
his seat at a side-bench without uttering a word. There were many
persons in the room who seemed to think that this calm and quiet manner
showed great firmness, but if they had seen him before, or watched him
more closely, they would have perceived that there was nothing of real
firmness in the man. His eye was sunk and heavy, and seemed to shrink
from the gaze of those around him. It was for the most part fixed on
the ground. One of the Under-Sheriffs took a seat by his side, and in
a low tone asked him (we understood) whether he had anything more to
confess. His answer was, 'No, Sir, I have told all.' The Under-Sheriff
remained with him for a few moments, but the only answers we could
hear from him were to the effect that he had nothing more to tell.
Williams was next introduced, and came up the room with the same
short hasty step, which we noticed at the time of his sentence. Since
then, however, his whole appearance had undergone the most terrible
alteration. That cunning and flippant look, which we noticed in him on
his trial, had left him, and had given place to a wild and frenzied
stare. His look, as he entered the Press-room, was one of downright
horror--every limb trembled as he approached the officer by whom he was
to be pinioned, and his hands shook to that degree, that one person was
obliged to hold them up while another bound the wrists together. While
submitting to this operation, he frequently ejaculated, 'Oh, I have
deserved all this, and more!--oh, I have deserved all that I am about
to suffer!' One of the Under-Sheriffs now asked him whether he had
anything more on his mind, or wished to make any further disclosure; he
replied, 'Oh no, Sir, I have told all--I hope I am now at peace with
God. What I have told is the truth.'