in the chapel immediately before his being carried out for execution. He
still wore the clothes in which he was dressed at the time of his trial.
As allusions were made to his unhappy situation in the prayers which
were read, he appeared convulsed with agony; and when the service was
over, although he appeared calm, his limbs gave up their office, and he
was obliged to be carried to his cell.
At a few minutes before twelve o'clock he was removed from the dungeon
in which he had been confined, and conveyed to the press-room, where he
was pinioned by the hangman, who had been carried down from London for
the purpose of superintending the execution. He was resigned, but was so
weak as to be unable to stand without support. On his cravat being
removed he groaned heavily, and appeared to be labouring under great
mental agony. When his wrists and arms were made fast, he was led round
towards the scaffold; and as he passed the different yards in which the
prisoners were confined, he shook hands with them, and speaking to two
of them by name, he said, "Good bye, God bless you!" They were
considerably affected at the wretched appearance which he made; and "God
bless you!" "May God receive your soul!" were frequently uttered as he
passed along. The chaplain preceded the prisoner, reading the usual
Burial Service, and the governor and officers walked immediately after
him. The prisoner was supported up the steps which led to the scaffold;
he looked somewhat wildly around, and a constable was obliged to support
him while the hangman was adjusting the fatal cord. A few moments before
the drop fell he groaned heavily, and would have fallen, had not a
second constable caught hold of him. Everything having been made ready,
the signal was given, the fatal drop fell, and the unfortunate man was
launched into eternity. He did not struggle; but he raised his hands
once or twice, as if in prayer; the hangman pulled his legs, and he was
in a moment motionless. In about nine minutes, however, his shoulders
appeared to rise in a convulsive movement; but life, it seemed, had left
him without any great pain. Just before he was turned off, he said, in a
feeble tone, "I am justly sentenced, and may God forgive me." Mr.
Orridge then informed the crowd that the prisoner acknowledged the
justice of his sentence, and died in peace with all men. Thus did this
unhappy man terminate, by an ignominious death, a life which, judging
from his age and healthy appearance, might have been prolonged to an
advanced period in comfort and independence.
The mob collected on this occasion was computed to amount to upwards of
seven thousand persons, and occupied every spot of ground from which a
glimpse of the final scene of the wretched man's life could be obtained.
A considerable portion of the persons collected were women; and as soon
as the execution was over, they dispersed from before the drop, and
proceeded to the Shire Hall, where a large number of persons had
assembled in order to obtain a view of the body.
At two o'clock the body was exposed on the table in the centre of the
Shire Hall; it was naked from the navel upwards. The crucial operation
had been performed, and the skin of the breast and stomach turned back
on each side. The body measured, as it lay, five feet five inches in
length, and presented a very muscular appearance. The face and throat
were somewhat swollen and discoloured, the right eye was open, and the
left partially so; the mouth was also open sufficiently to show the
teeth. The body was taken to the hospital the next day to be dissected,
in pursuance of the sentence.
After the execution a spirited bidding took place for the rope which was
used by the hangman; and as much as a guinea an inch was obtained for
it. Large sums were offered for the pistols and dagger which were used
in the murder, but they became the property of the sheriff of the
county, who very properly refused to put them up to public competition.
A piece of the skin of the wretched malefactor, which had been tanned,
was exhibited for a long time afterwards at the shop of a leather-seller
in Oxford-street.
We regret to say that little credit is to be attached to the confession
which was made by the unhappy man on the night before his execution;
for, taking the case in all its bearings, there can be little doubt that
the murder was the result of premeditation. The pistols which the
wretched malefactor carried with him had, according to the testimony of
witnesses who were called for the defence, long been in his possession;
but we are at a loss to know with what object he should have carried
them in his pocket, loaded as they were, on the day of the murder,
unless with a preconceived intention of taking away the life of his
unhappy paramour. Upon consideration of the main features of the case,
we fear that, revolting as such a conclusion must be to all persons
possessing the common feelings of humanity, it must be supposed that the
unhappy Maria Marten was enticed by her bloodthirsty assassin to the Red
Barn, for the sole purpose of being there murdered. Corder's possession
of the gun and the pistols, as well as the circumstance of his having
been seen carrying the pickaxe to the barn, all tend to confirm this
belief; and if a motive be looked for sufficient to induce the
commission of this most heinous offence, a second murder, namely that of
the infant child of the malefactor and his victim, and a desire to
conceal a secret which he knew to be in the possession of the latter,
and which might have been employed by her to the detriment of her
seducer, may be at once assigned. There can be little hesitation in
imputing so fearful an addition to his offence as that to which we have
alluded to a man, whose cold-blooded villany shines through every
passage of his connexion with his miserable victim, and of his
subsequent life. His conduct in buoying up the anxious and inquiring
hopes of the girl's mother after the murder, in so long residing on the
very spot where his crime had been committed, probably in the daily
habit of visiting the very barn, which was at once the scene of the
death, and the grave of the wretched girl, exhibit him to have possessed
a heart callous to the feelings of a man. Frightful, however, as was his
crime against society, awful as was the expedient to which he resorted
to get rid of what he deemed an annoyance and an obstruction to his
wishes and comfort, he committed a no less dreadful offence against the
welfare and happiness of the woman whom he made his wife, in permitting
her to enter into the bonds of matrimony with him--a wretch, for whom
even the punishment which he received at the hands of justice was
scarcely retributive; knowing, as he did, that accident, one false step
of his own, a persevering inquiry as to the place of abode of the girl
Marten, would at once and for ever blast the hopes which she might have
formed of future peace and domestic felicity. The mode in which he
proceeded in this new insult to humanity, at once exhibited a heart upon
which the recollection of past guilt could produce no effect.
The advertisement which he caused to be inserted in the paper was in the
following form:--
"A private gentleman, aged twenty-four, entirely independent, whose
disposition is not to be exceeded, has lately lost the chief of his
family by the hand of Providence, which has occasioned amongst the
remainder circumstances the most disagreeable to relate. To any female
of respectability, who would study for domestic comfort, and who is
willing to confide her future happiness to one in every way qualified to
render the marriage state desirable, as the Advertiser is in affluence;
many happy marriages have taken place through means similar to this now
resorted to. It is hoped none will answer through impertinent curiosity:
but should this meet the eye of any agreeable Lady who feels desirous of
meeting with a sociable, tender, kind, and sympathising companion, she
will find this advertisement worthy of notice. Honour and secrecy may be
depended on. As some little security against idle application, it is
requested that letters may be addressed (post paid) A. Z., care of Mr.
Foster, stationer, 68, Leadenhall-street, with _real_ name and address,
which will meet with most respectful attention."
The following curious conversation in reference to his marriage is
related to have taken place after his conviction.
Attendant: Pray, Mr. Corder, may I ask whether it is true that it was by
advertisement that you were first introduced to Mrs. Corder?--Corder: It
is perfectly true.
Did you receive any answers to it?--I received no less than forty-five
answers, and some of them from ladies in their carriages.
Really! well, that surprises me.--It may well surprise you, as it did
myself, but I missed of a good ----
Pray how was that?--I will tell you. In one of the answers which I
received, it was requested that I should attend a particular church on
an appointed day, dressed in a particular way, and I should there meet a
lady wearing a certain dress, and both understanding what we came
about, no further introduction would be necessary.
But how could you know the particular lady, as there might be another
lady dressed in the same way?--Oh, to guard against any mistake, the
lady desired that I should wear a black handkerchief, and have my left
arm in a sling; and in case I should not observe her, she would discover
me and introduce herself.
And did you meet her?--I did not; I went to the church, but not in time,
as the service was over when I got there.
Then as you did not meet her, how could you tell that she was a
respectable woman?--Because the pew-opener told me that such a lady was
inquiring for a gentleman of my description, and that she had come in an
elegant carriage, and was a young woman of fortune. [Here the prisoner
sighed heavily.]
Then you never saw her afterwards?--No, never; but I found out where she
lived, and who she was; and would have had an interview with her, were
it not that I was introduced to Mrs. Corder, and we never parted until
we were married.
Pray, sir, was that long?--About a week.
We have reason to believe that this last assertion, like many of those
made by the wretched man, was totally untrue; and that in reality he had
been introduced to Mrs. Corder at a sea-port town, in the course of the
summer before the marriage. They afterwards met at the shop of a
pastry-cook in Fleet-street, and subsequently, singularly enough, the
young lady having answered the advertisement, her next meeting with her
future husband took place at the same shop. Mrs. Corder, whose maiden
name was Moore, previously to her marriage kept a school in the
neighbourhood of Gray's-inn-lane, and was very respectably connected.
ANN HARRIS, JOHN COX THE ELDER, JOHN COX THE YOUNGER, ROBERT COX, AND
JAMES PUGH.
CONVICTED OF MURDER.
The case of these diabolical criminals, as it was proved at the trial,
which took place at Shrewsbury on the 2nd of August 1828, before Mr.
Justice Gazelee, scarcely finds a parallel in the whole series which we
present to our readers. It exhibits the dreadful features, of a mother
and father-in-law combining to procure the commission of murder, to save
their son from justice; and that son, the object of their solicitude,
procuring the conviction of those by whose means he had been before
saved from an ignominious end, for the offence to which they had made
themselves parties on his behalf, to relieve himself from the due reward
of further crime committed by himself.
It appeared that, in the neighbourhood of Market Drayton, on the borders
of Shropshire and Staffordshire, there existed a dreadfully depraved set
of people; and that a gang, to the amount, it was said, of from forty to
sixty, was confederated for general purposes of plunder. The nucleus of
this gang consisted of several persons, closely knit by ties of
relationship, of connexion, and of neighbourhood, as well as of guilt;
while the general depravity of the district enabled them, as occasion
required, to add to their numbers, to almost any extent. One of these
persons, by name Thomas Ellson, was in 1827 taken up for stealing
potatoes; and, whilst in jail upon that charge, an accusation of
sheep-stealing was brought against him. The chief evidence upon which
this latter charge, a capital one, depended, was that of a man who had
occasionally joined in the proceedings of the gang, named James
Harrison. It became, therefore, the object of the friends of Ellson to
get this man out of the way. First, they determined to poison him; and
Ellson's father-in-law, John Cox, went to an apothecary's shop to buy
arsenic for that purpose. The boy in the shop refused to sell it to him,
unless some one else were by, which, as there was no one else in the
house, could not then be the case; and Cox, probably not liking such
formal proceedings, retired.
The next step was one of the most extraordinary in the whole case. Ann
Harris, Ellson's mother, who had married a second husband of the name of
Harris, went to a woman living in Drayton, whom she knew, and asked her
if her husband were not going to Newcastle. The woman answered that he
was. "I wish then," said Harris, "that he would buy me an ounce of
arsenic." "What do you want it for?" "I want it to poison that damned
scoundrel, James Harrison."--The woman upon this remonstrated--assured
her it was a very wicked thing to poison James Harrison,--and, after
some conversation, old Ann Harris went away, promising that she would
not carry out her expressed intention.
Poison having failed, it was determined to have recourse to more direct
means; and Ann Harris and old Cox subscribed fifty shillings a-piece, to
_hire_ Cox's two sons, and a young fellow of the name of Pugh, to put
Harrison to death! Harrison lodged in the house of Pugh's father, and,
it was said, occupied the same bed with Pugh himself. On the night of
the murder, Pugh, to use his own expression, "ticed" Harrison out of the
house, to go and steal some bacon. At a spot previously agreed upon,
they met the two younger Coxes; and proceeding to a remote place, Pugh
seized Harrison by the throat, while John Cox, the younger, took hold of
his legs, and throwing him down, they strangled him. Meanwhile, Robert
Cox was digging the grave!
The wretched man thus disposed of, everything remained perfectly quiet
and unsuspected. It was generally supposed that he had gone out of the
way to avoid giving evidence on Ellson's trial; though it seems very
extraordinary that, after the latter had been acquitted, the non-return
of Harrison excited no suspicion. No supposition of his death, however,
appeared to have arisen, and the murder was discovered only by the means
of Ellson himself. As soon as this fellow came out of jail, the Coxes,
Pugh, and his mother, at various times, sometimes when several of them
were together, and sometimes separately, told him all that had taken
place, vaunting to him how they had saved him. The very night of his
release, old Cox, one of his sons, and Pugh, bragged to him, that "if it
had not been for them, he would not be there,"--and the next day, when
he was at his mother's, Robert Cox came thither, and said to her with
oaths and abuse, "If thee doesn't give me more money, I will fetch him,
and rear him up against thy door!"--alluding to the murdered man!
Nothing, however, transpired till towards the end of June 1828, when
Ellson was taken up for stealing fowls, and then, in order to save
himself from the punishment attending this offence (at the most seven
years' transportation), he told all that the guilty persons had told
him; and on his evidence they were apprehended.
Such are the facts of this revolting case; but we must describe some of
the peculiarities of the trial itself.
The five prisoners were placed at the bar: old Ann Harris stood
first;--she seemed what would ordinarily be called a smart old
woman--her features were small and regularly formed, and her countenance
was remarkable only for a pair of exceedingly keen and sparkling black
eyes, the expression of which, however, was certainly in no degree
indicative of ferocity. Old Cox stood next to her, and his countenance
presented a most unpleasing, almost revolting, aspect. It was easy to
believe the current story that he was at the head of the gang at
Drayton--the very patriarch of all the thieves and scoundrels in that
part of the country. He had, undoubtedly, brought his sons up to robbery
as to a trade, and he had now hired them to commit murder! The two sons
were next to him, and were not remarkable in their aspect. Pugh was
last--and he was an ill-looking fellow enough, though not strikingly so.
As the trial proceeded, one of its peculiarities soon became apparent.
This was that a vast proportion of the witnesses were of the closest
kindred to the accused. And what was more horrid, was the fact of the
father of the murdered man being called to speak to the identity of the
body, which, having lain in the earth nearly a year, was so totally
decomposed as to be recognizable only by the clothes; but to this the
father added that "the colour of the hair was that of his son!"
It shocked all present greatly, when the father and mother of Pugh were
called to speak to some minute facts with regard to the night on which
Harrison was murdered, with reference to his leaving their house, where
he lodged. The chief evidence was what the prisoners themselves had told
to Ellson; but he being a person of execrable character, it was
necessary to support his testimony by every corroborative circumstance
that could be proved. Accordingly, in the early part of the trial, these
wretched old people were brought forward to give testimony to facts
bearing against their son's life: they were but very slight, but, as far
as they went, they were confirmatory of the main story; and it is
difficult to say whether the extreme coolness and composure with which
the parents gave their evidence were not still more dreadful than if
they had been violently affected.
Besides Ellson himself, there were also his wife, who was the daughter
of one and the sister of two of the prisoners, and his sister, who was
the daughter of another, called as witnesses! These young women also
gave their evidence without strong emotion, although they certainly
seemed far more impressed with the position in which they stood than the
other witnesses named.
Ellson was calm, decided, and firm, to a degree which gave rise to
unmingled disgust in every one who heard him. It will be recollected
that the crime had been committed to save him--Pugh certainly committed
the murder _for hire_; and the Coxes, perhaps, might have had some
interests of their own mixed up with his;--but, even as regarded these
last, the first object had been his escape; and his mother undoubtedly
had dyed her hands in blood, solely to save her child.
The witness was a fine, well-looking fellow of about
five-and-twenty--and, undoubtedly, until the severe cross-examination
he underwent caused a struggle--though a perfectly successful one--to
keep down his temper, his countenance was rather agreeable than
otherwise. His story was clear, consecutive, and, no doubt, true. Each
individual concerned in the transaction had, immediately on his release
from jail, very naturally told to him, for whose sake it had been
committed, all the circumstances regarding the murder. Pugh appears to
have been the most detailed in his account, and to have rather bragged
that it was he who "'ticed un out o' feyther's house, to steal some
bacon,"--and that it was he who had "gripped un by the throat." In some
instances, the Coxes were present during these recitals, and at others
they spoke of the subject to Ellson themselves. While this part of the
evidence was going forward, the strongest horror was excited against the
perpetrators of the crime--so treacherous as it was in its concoction,
and so coldly cruel in the manner in which it was carried into effect.
Moreover, the idea that Pugh certainly altogether, and the two young
Coxes in great part, had committed this murder _for hire_, was a
circumstance of a character so new, and so awfully depraved, that the
story carried the auditory along with it, and they forgot altogether the
scoundrel who was telling it. But when he came to speak of his own
mother, what must have been their sensations! Her guilt, dreadful as it
was, almost disappeared; the thought could be only of the unnatural and
ungrateful villain, who, to save himself from a light and temporary
punishment, was thus giving to the gallows the mother who had born him,
for a crime caused by her extravagant affection for him. He repeated
twice or three times, in answer to the questions of the examining
counsel, who felt it necessary to make the matter quite clear, that his
mother had told him that she and old Cox had given fifty shillings a
piece to have Harrison murdered. He said this as calmly as any other
person would narrate any indifferent fact--and his mother's eyes were on
his face all the time!
Mr. Charles Phillips cross-examined the witness at great length, very
severely, and very skilfully: he drew from him that he had been in jail
repeatedly, almost constantly, for theft of all kinds and descriptions;
and he drove him into attempts to shuffle, very nearly approaching to
prevarication, on several minor points, not connected with the case.
But, regarding the case itself, he was not shaken at all; and although
the universal sensation in the court must have been that of loathing and
disgust for the mercenary cold-bloodedness of the proceedings to which
he had had recourse, no serious doubt could for one moment be
entertained that he was telling the truth.
The jury under these circumstances were compelled to return a verdict,
consigning the wretched prisoners to a violent death.
The extreme sentence of the law was immediately passed upon the
convicts, and their execution was appointed to take place on the
following Monday, the 4th of the same month.
On the next day, a reprieve was granted in the case of Robert Cox, one
of the sons, upon grounds which do not appear to have been well
understood at the time, and he was transported for life. A respite for a
week was also granted in the case of the elder Cox, and Ann Harris, who
had been convicted only as accessories before the fact; but the awful
punishment of death was left to be carried out in its due course upon
Pugh, and John Cox the younger. The former, after his trial, declared
his sense of the justice of his sentence, and that he regarded the
termination of his career as a happy one, for that he constantly saw
Harrison by his side; while the latter, with cold-blooded firmness,
urged him to keep up his spirits, for that "he could die but once."
The execution had been appointed to take place at mid-day; and at a few
minutes before twelve o'clock all the convicts, together with Ellson,
were drawn up in the inner yard of the jail. Pugh and Cox were then
pinioned; and while Ann Harris, old Cox, and his son Robert, were
reconducted to the jail, Ellson was carried to a spot from which he must
witness the conclusion of this dreadful scene. The authority by which
this course was adopted, may well be doubted, for the miserable wretch
was undoubtedly entitled to his discharge, as the indictment against him
had been withdrawn; but it is probable that it was thought that the
example afforded by such a proceeding might tend in some degree to check
the thirst for crime, which appeared to exist in that district of the
county.
The miserable convicts were directly afterwards led to the scaffold,
dreadfully agitated, and uttering ejaculations imploring mercy for their
sins; and all being in readiness, the drop fell, and they were launched
into eternity.
The sentence of the wretched mother of Ellson, and of old Cox, was
subsequently changed for that of transportation; and with this bare
recitation of its facts, we shall close the scene upon this frightful
case.
JOSEPH HUNTON.
EXECUTED FOR FORGERY.
The case of this criminal excited considerable attention from the
circumstance of the offender having been long known in the city of
London, as being a person of good repute, and also from the fact of his
being a quaker.