other things, for the introduction of a new device. “Under the gallows
was a new-invented stage, to be struck from under him.… As the machine
was new, they were not ready at it: his toes touched it, and he suffered
a little, having had time by their bungling to raise his cap: but the
executioner pulled it down again, and they pulled his legs, so that he
was soon out of pain, and quite dead in four minutes.” The “drop” was
no more used at Tyburn, but it became a feature of the new gallows of
Newgate.
Walpole says that “the executioners fought for the rope, and the one that
lost it cried.”
There is a story that Ferrers was hanged by a silk rope, or, in another
version, that he desired to be hanged by such a rope. Timbs, in his
“Curiosities of London,” even asserts that the bill for this rope of silk
is still in existence; he does not say where. The legend must have arisen
later. It is a detail which would have delighted Walpole; he mentions the
rope, as we have seen; his silence as to its particular character seems
conclusive. But the curious in the matter may consult an article by M.
Feuillet de Conches (“Causeries d’un Curieux,” 1862, ii. 333-40); Abraham
Hayward, “Biographical and Critical Essays,” ii. 30; an article in the
_Quarterly Review_, lxxxv. 378, and the account of Earl Ferrers in the
“Dictionary of National Biography.”
[Illustration: THE EXECUTION OF EARL FERRERS AT TYBURN ON THE NEW MOVABLE
GALLOWS, 1760.]
The experience gained by the State during six centuries of hanging
enabled it to make two immense advances in the art. To the great
Elizabethan era we owe the invention of a machine on which a number of
victims, up to at least twenty-four, could be simultaneously choked out
of life. This enabled the spectators to concentrate their attention
on one spot, and therefore to lose not one jot of the moral lesson
inculcated with so great pains.
What was behind the invention of the “drop” is not so clear. On first
sight we are inclined to deem it the whim of some “faddist”: indeed, it
exhales a strong and disagreeable odour of humanitarianism. As such we
are naturally inclined to condemn it. Our conservative instincts are
also against the daring innovation. Here was a new principle: the fall
would dislocate the neck, and the victim would die otherwise than by
strangulation. The “fall,” resulting in immediate death, would deprive
the public of what was regarded as the most diverting episode of the
piece—the tugging by friends at the legs of the suspended man, the
thumping him on the chest, rough methods of accelerating his death.
But on consideration it seems probable that the State began to have a
real concern as to the effect of mere hanging. We have seen (pp. 221-3)
how “half-hanged Smith” was brought back to life—a life which, thus
prolonged, did indeed prove useful to the State. But awkward questions
arose as to the proper way of dealing with such cases: the mob, indeed
the public, and the legal experts took different views. Moreover, a
new art was arising, based on these cases of recovery. Bronchotomy, as
applied to victims of the scaffold, did not, for all I have been able to
find, become recognised as a branch of the healing art till some years
later than 1760. But so early as 1733, Mr. Chovet had made such progress
in “preventing the fatal consequences of the Halter” that the State may
well have trembled. Here was a new development of smuggling. On the whole
it seems safer to conclude that the “fall” was adopted as a means of
bringing to naught these ingenious attempts to rob the State of its due.
=1767.= Mrs. Brownrigg, the wife of James Brownrigg, at one time a
domestic servant, was the mother of a large family. To support the
household Mrs. Brownrigg learnt midwifery, and received an appointment
as midwife to women in the workhouse of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-West. She
had the character of being skilful and humane: she was reputed to be
a faithful wife and an affectionate mother. About 1763 Brownrigg took
a house in Fetter Lane, and in February, 1765, Mrs. Brownrigg took
as apprentice a poor girl of the precinct of Whitefriars: a little
later another girl was bound apprentice to her by the governors of
the Foundling Hospital. Mrs. Brownrigg treated these poor girls with
unimaginable cruelty. She tied them up naked, and flogged them with
a horse-whip, made her husband and son do the same: starved them and
gave them insufficient clothing. This went on for two years. At last
the neighbours, constantly hearing groans in the Brownriggs’ house,
watched, and at last caught sight of one of the poor creatures in a
most deplorable condition. Information was given and the girls were
rescued. But relief came too late to save Mary Clifford, who died of the
most terrible wounds inflicted on her by these monsters. On September
12, father, mother, and eldest son were tried for the murder of Mary
Clifford: only Elizabeth Brownrigg was found guilty. She was executed on
September 14, her body was carried to Surgeons’ Hall to be anatomised.
Afterwards “her skeleton has since been exposed in the niche opposite the
first door in the Surgeons’ Theatre, that the heinousness of her cruelty
may make the more lasting impression on the minds of the spectators.”
The _Gentleman’s Magazine_ adds to a full account of the story an
engraving showing the “Hole” under the stairs in which the poor wretches
were confined, and the kitchen in which one of the girls is shown tied up
to be flogged. The case made a profound impression on the public, and to
this day remains the most shocking case of its kind on record.
=1767.= _October 14._ William Guest, a teller in the Bank of England,
was convicted of filing guineas. Guest’s crime was high treason: he was
therefore drawn to the gallows in a sledge. “After the three others
were tied up, he got into the cart: he was not tied up immediately,
but was indulged to pray upon his knees, attended by the ordinary, and
another clergyman of the Church of England. He joined in prayers with the
clergymen with the greatest devotion, and his whole deportment was so
pious, grave, manly, and solemn as to draw tears from the greatest part
of the spectators.” There exists a print showing Guest in the sledge on
the way to Tyburn.
=1768.= _March 23._ James Gibson, attorney-at-law, convicted of forgery,
and Benjamin Payne, footpad, were executed at Tyburn. For a long time, as
has been shown, the “respectability” of criminals had been recognised by
permitting them to be carried to their doom in a mourning coach, instead
of in the ordinary cart. To Gibson, as the erring member of an honoured
profession, this indulgence was granted. Gibson desired that the footpad
might be allowed to accompany him in the coach. There is something
pathetic in this practical recognition of the truth that death makes all
men equal. The authorities might well have granted the request, but it
was refused.
=1769.= The manufacture of silk fabrics was highly protected, but
protection did not bring prosperity to the workers. The condition of the
weavers of Bethnal Green and Spitalfields was deplorable, leading to
constant disturbances. The destruction of looms, and the cutting of woven
silk—capital offences—became frequent.
On December 20 three men were executed at Tyburn for destroying
silk-looms. Their execution had been preceded on the 6th by that of two
others, hanged at Bethnal Green for cutting woven silk. In connection
with this execution at Bethnal Green a grave question arose. The sentence
passed on the condemned men was that they should be taken from the prison
to the usual place of execution, but the Recorder’s warrant for the
execution directed they should be hanged at the most convenient place
near Bethnal Green church. The variation of place was directed by the
King. A long correspondence ensued between the Sheriffs and the Secretary
of State. The point raised was whether the King had power thus to vary
the sentence. The condemned men were respited in order that the opinion
of the judges might be taken. It was unanimous that the King had the
power of fixing the place of execution, and the men were executed at
Bethnal Green, as directed. There was great apprehension of tumult, and
not without cause, for in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ we read: “The mob on
this occasion behaved outrageously, insulted the Sheriffs, pulled up the
gallows, broke the windows, destroyed the furniture, and committed other
outrages in the house of Lewis Chauvette, Esq., in Spitalfields.” The mob
dispersed only on being threatened with military execution.
It was observed that when the Recorder next passed sentence of death, he
omitted direction as to the place of execution.
=1771.= On October 16, Mary Jones was executed at Tyburn for stealing
from a draper’s shop on Ludgate Hill some pieces of worked muslin. The
annals of Tyburn contain the record of no more poignant tragedy than
this. It is a story so piteous that, once heard, it ever after haunts
the memory. Mary Jones was a young woman whose age is variously given as
nineteen and twenty-six: all accounts tell of her great beauty. She was
married, lived in good credit, and wanted for nothing till her husband
was carried off by a press-gang. Then she fell into great straits, having
neither a bed to lie on, nor food to give to her two young children, who
were almost naked. On her trial her defence was simple: “I have been a
very honest woman in my lifetime. I have two children: I work very hard
to maintain my two children since my husband was pressed.” Her beauty and
her poverty prove Mary’s averment that she had been a very honest woman.
But when the jury gave in a verdict of guilty, Mary cursed judge and jury
for a lot of “old fogrums.” It was really for this that she died on the
gallows. The theft had not been completed: she was arrested in the shop
and gave up the goods. It was her first offence. Her neighbours in Red
Lion street, Whitechapel, presented a petition in her behalf, but there
was against her the record of her “indecent behaviour.” One of the two
children was at her breast when she set out in the cart on the journey
from Newgate to Tyburn. Her petulance had gone: “she met death with
amazing fortitude.”
So perished Mary Jones, whose husband had been torn from her side, who
was now, in her turn, torn from her helpless babes. Poor Mary Jones!
Beautiful Mary Jones, with your great crown of auburn hair! Our hearts
are wrung as we seem to see you setting out on your last journey in
this world, with your little one at your breast. Your last prayer was
for your babes, your last thoughts of your husband, to whom, as honest
as beautiful, you remained true in spite of the temptation to stay your
children’s hungry cries with bread earned by your shame.
History does not tell us more. Did the husband return from fighting the
battles of his country—or rather of its politicians—to find that his
true wife had perished on the gallows? Better far that he should have
met his death in some glorious victory or inglorious defeat, reddening
with his blood some distant sea. And the little ones, robbed by the
cruel State of father and mother—what became of them? These are things
it behoves us to know, for they are one side of glory, of imperialism.
How many Mary Joneses, how many broken hearts and ruined lives are behind
the naval victories celebrated by painting, by song, by sculptured
tombs in temples dedicated to the Prince of Peace? Or are we to dry our
tears, comforting ourselves with the reflection that “the suffering is
irrelevant”?
Mary Jones did not die wholly in vain. Six years later, after “John the
Painter” had been hanged on a gallows sixty feet high, for setting fire
to the rope-house in Portsmouth Dockyard, ingenuity discovered a chance
of adding one more capital offence to the two hundred or so already on
the Statute-book. A Bill was promoted for making it a hanging matter to
set fire to private dockyards. Sir William Meredith, a “faddist” of his
day, inveighed against the Bill and the atrocious cruelty of the laws. He
cited the case of Mary Jones. “I do not believe,” he said, “that a fouler
murder was ever committed against law, than the murder of this woman by
law.”[214] A girl of fourteen had lately been sentenced to be burnt for
hiding, at her master’s bidding, some white-washed farthings. The faggots
had been laid, the cart was setting out, when a reprieve, granted at the
instance of the Lord Mayor, saved this poor child from the flames. “Good
God, Sir,” he cried, “are we taught to execrate the fires of Smithfield,
and are we lighting them now to burn a poor harmless child, for hiding a
white-washed farthing?” This speech, delivered in Parliament, was printed
by the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge upon the Punishment of
Death, founded by Basil Montague in 1808, and was also printed separately
in several editions down to 1833.
=1771.= _January 1._ John Clark and John Joseph Defoe executed at Tyburn,
for robbery of a gold watch and money. Defoe was said to be a grandson of
the immortal author of “Robinson Crusoe.”
=1773.= _September 13._ Mrs. Herring was thus executed for murdering her
husband:—
She was placed on a stool something more than two feet high, and, a chain
being placed under her arms, the rope round her neck was made fast to
two spikes, which, being driven through a post against which she stood,
when her devotions were ended, the stool was taken from under her, and
she was soon strangled. When she had hung about fifteen minutes, the rope
was burnt, and she sunk till the chain supported her, forcing her hands
up to a level with her face, and the flame being furious, she was soon
consumed. The crowd was so immensely great that it was a long time before
the faggots could be placed for the execution.
=1773.= _October 27._ The two sheriffs and under-sheriff attended the
execution of five malefactors on horseback, and two persons clothed in
black walked all the way before the prisoners to the place of execution,
where they were allowed an hour and a half in their devotions, a
circumstance not remembered for a great many years past.
A vivid picture of the manners of the times is given in these two
extracts from the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of 1774.
The first passage shows the extraordinary prevalence of highway robbery,
which at this time seems to have become a recognised form of out-door
sport among young men:—
“As lord Berkeley was passing over Hounslow Heath in the dusk of the
evening [of November 11] in his post-chaise, the driver was called to
stop by a young fellow, genteelly dressed and mounted, but the driver
not readily obeying the summons, the fellow discharged his pistol at the
chaise, which lord Berkeley returned, and, in one instant, a servant
came up, and shot the fellow dead. By means of the horse, which he had
that morning hired, he was traced, and his lodgings in Mercer-street,
Long-Acre, discovered; where Sir John Fielding’s men were scarce entered,
when a youth, booted and spurred, came to enquire for the deceased by
the name of Evan Jones. This youth, upon examination, proved to be an
accomplice, and impeached two other young men belonging to the same
gang, one of whom was clerk to a laceman in Bury-street, St. James’s,
after whom an immediate search being made, he was traced along the road
to Portsmouth, and, at three in the morning, was surprised in bed at
Farnham, and brought back to London, by Mr. Bond and other assistants.
The other accomplice was also apprehended, and all three were carried
before Sir John Fielding, when it appeared, that these youths, all
of good families, had lately committed a number of robberies in the
neighbourhood of London: that their names were Peter Holtum, John Richard
Sauer, and William Sampson: that Sampson in particular, had 50 guineas
due to him for wages when he was apprehended, and that he had frequently
been intrusted with effects to the amount of 10,000_l._ An evening paper
says, that there are no less than seven of these youths in custody,
from 18 to 20 years of age, some of whose parents are in easy, some in
affluent circumstances, all of them overwhelmed with sorrow by the vices
of their unhappy sons.”
Here is a batch of executions:—
=1774.= _November 30._ The six following malefactors, were executed at
Tyburn, pursuant to their sentence, viz., John Coleby and Charles Jones,
for breaking into the dwelling-house of Lancelot Keat, and stealing
goods: William Lewis, for publishing a forged draught upon Mess. Drummond
and Co. for 48_l._ 18s.: John Rann, alias Sixteen-string Jack, for
robbing the rev. Dr. Bell, near Gunnerbury-lane: and William Lane and
Samuel Trotman, for robbing the Knightsbridge stage-coach.
Lewis, the unhappy sufferer for forgery, was a most ingenious copyist,
and could counterfeit copper-plate writing to astonishing exactness. He
was far from an abandoned character, and died an example of penitence,
which, in some measure, atoned for the injury he had done the public. He
composed a prayer in the cells, which does credit to his understanding.
The friends of Coleby and Jones, in passing the house of Mr. Keat, their
prosecutor, in order to the interment of their bodies, committed the
most outrageous acts of violence that have been known in any civilised
country, by breaking the windows, attempting to set the house on fire,
and threatening the life of Mr. Keat.
=1776.= _January 17._ Robert and Daniel Perreau executed at Tyburn.
They were twin brothers, natives of St. Kitts. Robert was an apothecary
“in high practice” in Golden Square, then a fashionable quarter. Daniel
lived “a genteel life” with his mistress, Mrs. Rudd. Robert Perreau
sought a loan of Drummonds, the bankers, on bonds, afterwards found to
be forged. The evidence made it probable that the actual forgery was by
Mrs. Rudd, but that all three were acting in concert. The brothers were
both found guilty on their trials, but a strong feeling existed that the
sentence on Robert was harsh. A petition to commute the sentence to
one of transportation was presented on behalf of seventy-eight “capital
Bankers and Merchants” of the City. The king was, however, obdurate,
and after the acquittal of Mrs. Rudd let the law take its course. The
execution was witnessed by 30,000 persons. The brothers, born together,
were not divided in death. They fell from the cart with their four hands
clasped together.
Mr. Bleackley has told the story at length in “Some Distinguished Victims
of the Scaffold,” 1905.
=1777.= _June 27._ Execution of Dr. Dodd.
William Dodd, born in 1729, was the popular preacher of his day. He came,
a young man of 21, from Cambridge to London in 1750. He hesitated between
adopting literature as a profession and the Church, but took orders in
1751. He still dabbled in literature, and is said to have been the author
of a work, “The Sisters,” which gave no very favourable idea of the
purity of his mind. In 1758 he became chaplain of the Magdalen Hospital,
and fine ladies came to hear his sermons “in the French style.” In 1763
he was made one of the king’s chaplains, an appointment he lost when,
in 1774, Mrs. Dodd wrote to the wife of the Lord Chancellor, offering
a bribe for the living of St. George, Hanover Square. Dodd got into
debt: he had to sell a proprietary chapel in which he had sunk money:
it is said that he even “descended so low as to become the editor of a
newspaper.” He fell still lower: in his need he forged the signature of
his patron, Lord Chesterfield, to a bond for £4,200. The forgery was
discovered, and warrants were issued against Dodd and his broker. Dodd
made partial restitution, offered security for the remainder, and the
affair might have been settled had not the Lord Mayor, who had issued
the warrants, refused to let the case be hushed up. Dodd was tried on
February 22, 1766. The evidence was irresistible. Only a legal point
stood in the way of sentence. This point was decided adversely to Dodd,
and on May 26 sentence of death was passed. “They will never hang me,”
said Dodd, and indeed everything possible was done to save him. “The
exertions made to save him were perhaps beyond example in any country.
The newspapers were filled with letters and paragraphs in his favour.
Individuals of all ranks and degrees exerted themselves in his behalf:
parish officers went from house to house to procure subscriptions to a
petition to the king, and this petition, which, with the names, filled
twenty-three sheets of parchment, was actually presented. The Lord Mayor
and Common Council went in a body to St. James’s, to solicit mercy for
him, but all this availed nothing; government were resolved to make
an example of him.” Foremost among those who pleaded for Dodd was Dr.
Johnson. There was nothing in common between the shallow flippancy of
Dodd, and the great, rough, earnest nature of Johnson; being once asked
whether Dodd’s sermons were not addressed to the passions, “They were
nothing, Sir,” growled the lexicographer, “be they addressed to what they
may.” But to misery Johnson’s heart was more tender than a woman’s; he
was agitated when application was made to him on behalf of Dodd; he paced
up and down the room, and promised to do what he could. He wrote the
speech delivered by Dodd before the passing of the sentence and more than
one petition in his behalf.
All was in vain: “If I pardon Dodd, I shall have murdered the Perreaus.”
So the king is reported to have said—and, indeed, although Dodd’s
partisans fell foul of court and jury, it is not easy to see how, if
Dodd had been pardoned, the punishment of death for forgery could ever
after have been inflicted. There is a pathetic touch in the fact that,
many years before his fall, Dodd preached a sermon, afterwards printed,
deprecating the frequency of capital punishment. In “Prison Thoughts” he
foretold the abolition of the procession to Tyburn, or perhaps of public
executions:—
“… yes, the day—
I joy in the idea—will arrive
When Britons philanthropic shall reject
The cruel custom, to the sufferer cruel,
Useless and baneful to the gaping crowd!”
On June 27 the fatal procession set out from Newgate. On this occasion
“there was perhaps the greatest concourse of people ever drawn together
by a like spectacle.” “Just before the parties were turned off Dr. Dodd
whispered to the executioner. What he said cannot be known; but it was
observed that the man had no sooner driven away the cart, than he ran
immediately under the gibbet, and took hold of the doctor’s legs, as if
to steady the body.” Another account says that the executioner, gained
over by Dodd’s friends, had arranged the knot in a particular manner,
and whispered to him as the cart drew off, “You must not move an inch!”
When cut down the body was conveyed to the house of an undertaker in
Goodge Street, where a hot bath was in readiness. Under the direction
of Pott, a celebrated surgeon of the day, every effort was made to
restore animation. But in vain. The crowd was so enormous that there
had been great delay in the transport of the body, and this was fatal.
Nevertheless, there were not wanting people who believed that Dodd had
been resuscitated and carried abroad.
=1779.= _April 19._ The Rev. James Hackman executed at Tyburn for the
murder of Miss Martha Ray.
As the spectators were leaving the performance of “Love in a Village” at
Drury Lane, on the night of April 7, a gentleman, seeing Miss Ray, with
whom he had some little acquaintance, in difficulty in getting to her
coach, stept forward and offered his assistance. When close to the coach
he heard the report of a pistol, and felt the lady fall. For a moment
he thought that she had fallen in fright at the report, but on stooping
down, to help her to rise, he found his hands covered with blood. With
the aid of a light-boy, he got the lady into the Shakespeare tavern. She
was dead. The murdered woman was Miss Martha Ray, the mistress of Lord
Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty; her murderer the Rev. Mr. Hackman.