then said "his name was James May, and that he lived in Dorset-street,
Newington. He went into the country on Sunday, the 29th of October, and
returned on the evening of Wednesday, and went to Mr. Grainger's, in
Webb-street, with a couple of subjects. On the following morning
(Thursday), he removed them to Mr. Davis's, at Guy's; and, after
receiving the money, he went away to the Fortune-of-War, in Smithfield,
and stayed there about two or three hours. Between four and five
o'clock, to the best of his recollection, he went to Nag's-head-court,
Golden-lane, and there he stopped with a female until between eleven and
twelve o'clock the next day (Friday). From Golden-lane he went to the
Fortune-of-War again, and stopped drinking there until six o'clock or
half-past. Williams and Bishop both came in there, and asked him if he
would 'stand anything' to drink; which he did. Bishop then called him
out, and asked him where he could get the best price for 'things.' He
told him where he had sold two, meaning Guy's; and he (Bishop) then told
him that he had got a good subject, and had been offered eight guineas
for it. He (May) replied, that he could get more for it; and then Bishop
said, that all he could get over nine guineas he might have for himself.
He agreed to it; and they went from thence to the Old Bailey, and had
some tea at the watering-house there, leaving Williams at the
Fortune-of-War. After tea they called a chariot off the stand, and drove
to Bishop's house. When there, Bishop showed him the lad in a box, or
trunk. He (May) put it into a sack, and brought it to the chariot, and
conveyed it to Mr. Davis's, at Guy's. Mr. Davis said, "You know, John, I
cannot take it; because I took two of you yesterday, and I have not got
names enough down for one, or I would take it.' He (May) then asked him
if he could leave the body there that night, and he said he might.
Bishop then desired Mr. Davis not to let any person have it, as it was
his subject, but to deliver it to his ownself. He (May) also told Mr.
Davis not to let the body go without him, or he should be money out of
pocket. May then went on to say, that he went to his own house and slept
there that night, and the next morning he went to Guy's, and Bishop and
Shields came in with a hamper, which was taken to King's College, where
he was taken into custody."
John Williams stated, "That in the first place he met Bishop on Saturday
morning, the 5th of November, in Long-lane, Smithfield, and asked him
where he was going. He said he was going to the King's College. They
went into the Fortune-of-War public-house; and, after that, Bishop went
to Guy's Hospital, and then to the King's College. May and the porter
met them against the gate. Bishop went in, and he (Williams) asked him
to let him go in with him. That was all he had got to say, except that a
porter took a basket from the Fortune-of-War to Guy's Hospital, and he
(Williams) helped him part of the way with it."
The case being thus concluded at the police-office, the prisoners
Bishop, Williams, and May, were committed to Newgate to take their
trial. Shields, however, who, it was admitted on all hands, was only the
porter employed by the other prisoners to carry the body, and of whose
knowledge of the murder there was not the smallest evidence, was
discharged out of custody.
We shall now lay before our readers the statement of the circumstances
attending the identification of the clothes found at the house which had
been occupied by the prisoner Williams, at Nova Scotia Gardens, and
which eventually proved to have belonged to a woman named Frances
Pigburn, another victim to the designs of these atrocious conspirators.
Three persons--named Mrs. Lowe, wife of James Lowe, of Great
Charles-street East, City-road; Mrs. Mayo, her daughter; and a Mrs.
Hitchwell--came forward at Bow-street on Saturday, the 26th of November,
to speak as to their belief of the identity of the clothes, and to give
an account of the disappearance of the unfortunate woman to whom they
belonged.
Mrs. Lowe stated, that Mrs. Pigburn was her sister, and was forty years
of age. On the night of the 15th of October, she left her house to go to
a Mr. Campion's, in Church-street, about half-a-mile from Bishop's
cottage, where she intended to sleep, and where witness promised to call
upon her on the ensuing morning. On the following morning witness did
call at Campion's, but, to her surprise, discovered that her sister was
not there, as she had left on the preceding evening, at nine o'clock, to
seek another lodging, from their inability to accommodate her. From that
morning they had heard no tidings of her, till their suspicions were
aroused by the perusal of a bill, put forth by Mr. Thomas, describing
the female attire already alluded to. These she determined to examine,
and for that purpose went to the station-house, where she at once
recognised them to be those of her sister; she could speak positively to
the camlet cloak, plaid gown, &c.; she could not speak to the petticoat
and shift, the former of which had marks of blood upon it.
Mr. Thomas stated that a further search had been made at the house of
Bishop, and in the garden a well had been discovered, from the bottom of
which a shawl, which he produced, had been brought up. Mrs. Lowe was
able to identify this also as having belonged to her sister; and he gave
it as his opinion that in all probability the poor woman had been
inveigled into the premises, and thrust head-foremost into the well,
where her shawl had fallen in the struggle.
Mrs. Hitchwell, who knew the deceased intimately, also recognised the
pocket, and produced the fellow to it; both pockets had been made by a
Mrs. Bell, who gave Mrs. Pigburn one, and her the other; both pockets
were made of blue cloth, and singularly formed; to the other articles
she also spoke with confidence, having seen Mrs. Pigburn wear them on
the 15th of October, which was also the last day she had seen her.
Mrs. Mayo, niece to Frances Pigburn, also identified the clothes, and
spoke more particularly to the shawl, which she had seen Mrs. Pigburn
wear.
Mr. Minshull said no doubt could exist that the clothes were the same
which had been worn by Frances Pigburn, and he feared there was as
little doubt that the poor woman had been murdered. It was inferred that
the body had been sold for the purposes of dissection, and the clothes
thrown down the privy to avoid detection. In all probability the poor
creature was in search of lodgings, and being met by some of the
infernal gang, was lured into their den and there destroyed. To what
extent these horrors had been committed it was impossible to imagine.
A further warrant for the detention of Bishop, May, and Williams, upon
this fresh charge, was then made out, and Mr. Thomas was requested to
make every possible inquiry among the hospitals and dissecting-rooms in
the metropolis, to ascertain, if possible, whether any body, answering
the description of Mrs. Pigburn, had been offered for sale by any of the
prisoners within the last six weeks. Mr. Thomas said he would not relax
his efforts to throw every light on these horrible transactions, and
thus the inquiry terminated.
On Friday, December the 2nd, 1831, the prisoners Bishop, May, and
Williams, were placed at the bar of the Old Bailey to take their trial,
upon the charge of murder preferred against them.
The court was crowded to excess at eight o'clock in the morning, the
greatest anxiety being manifested to witness the proceedings.
The indictment charged the prisoners with the wilful murder of Carlo
Ferrari, and the second count with the wilful murder of a male person,
whose name was unknown. At ten o'clock Chief Justice Tindal, Mr. Justice
Littledale, and Mr Baron Vaughan took their seats upon the bench, the
remaining portion of which was instantly occupied by members of the
nobility and persons of distinction, amongst whom was observed His Royal
Highness the Duke of Sussex.
The prisoners, on being placed at the bar, seemed but little moved by
the awful situation in which they were at that moment placed; and they
encountered the inquisitive glances of the assembled crowd with a
careless air. Their appearance rather indicated low cunning than
hardened ferocity.
Mr. Bodkin having opened the case,
Mr. Adolphus proceeded to state the leading facts of it to the jury. In
doing so, he said that he did not feel it necessary to solicit their
most serious attention to it, for he knew that it would receive such
attention from them, being a case in which the three prisoners at the
bar stood charged with the foul crime of murder; and one of which, as
persons living in society, they must have heard a great deal for many
days past. Aware as he was that they knew this to be a case of great and
important interest, he felt certain that they required no suggestions
from him to induce them to pay the strictest attention to all its
details; and having alluded to the interest which it excited out of
doors, he was sure that he need scarcely remind them, that they should
not allow themselves to be at all swayed by any thing that they might
have heard with regard to this case previous to their entering that box,
but that their duty there was merely to judge the case by the evidence
which should be laid before them. When he spoke of their deciding on
this case according to the evidence which should be laid before them, he
begged to say that there was one point to which he was anxious to call
their particular attention. In cases of murder, it often happened that
the direct evidence of eye-witnesses could not be produced as to the
blow which had been struck, or the injury which had been inflicted, and
the infliction of which constituted the crime; but it was settled by the
constitution of this country, that in all cases of the kind a jury might
select, from the circumstances of the evidence laid before them, such
facts as might produce a conviction in their minds as to the guilt of
the prisoners charged with the offence. The application of the facts and
circumstances of a case for such a purpose was, by the law of the land,
vested in a jury constituted as they now were;--and it was for them to
decide according to the evidence which should be laid before them, as it
appeared to their minds; it was for them, after they had heard the great
body of evidence which would be submitted to them in this case, to say
whether the prisoners were or were not guilty of the heinous crime laid
to their charge. If the facts which would be laid before them should
produce on their minds a conviction of the guilt of the prisoners, he
was sure that they would without hesitation pronounce a verdict which
would consign some, if not all of them, to a certain, speedy, and
ignominious death; and he was equally sure that if an opposite
conviction was the result of the evidence, the jury would at once acquit
the prisoners at the bar. Without further introduction, he would proceed
to state to them the facts which had given rise to this painful and
extraordinary inquiry, as he felt justified in calling it; for the
murder to which it had reference did not appear to have been committed
through any of those motives that had ordinarily occasioned the
commission of such a crime in this country. It was not to gratify
revenge for wrong done, that the unfortunate victim, in this instance,
had been deprived of existence. The minds of his murderers were
stimulated by no passion of that description to the commission of the
dreadful deed. Neither wealth, nor the other common allurements which
influenced the actions of wicked men under such circumstances, had
impelled them to perpetrate this crime. Nothing but the sordid and base
desire to possess themselves of a dead body, in order to sell it for
dissection, had induced the prisoners at the bar to commit the crime for
which they were now about to answer before a jury of their countrymen.
The learned gentleman then proceeded to detail the facts of the case, as
they were afterwards stated in the evidence subsequently produced. He
dwelt in terms of well-deserved eulogy on the meritorious exertions of
Mr. Thomas, the superintendant of police, and of Mr. Corder, the
vestry-clerk of St. Paul's, Covent-garden, in prosecuting the inquiry
which had led to the trial. He acknowledged that the case depended on
circumstantial evidence; but he contended that a large and
well-connected body of such testimony was, in many cases, superior to
the positive declarations of eye-witnesses. The judgment of an
eye-witness might be deceived; but it was impossible that the jury,
after putting all the circumstances of the case together, and weighing
them seriously and deliberately, could be mistaken in their decision; it
was for them to say, after doing so, whether the prisoners at the bar
were, or were not guilty of the crime with which they stood charged. He
was convinced that they would give this important case the deep and
serious attention which it deserved; and he relied confidently on the
integrity and good sense of a British jury, which a long life of
practice had left him no room to doubt.
The evidence, the particulars of which we have recited, was then
adduced, Mr. Curwood and Mr. Barry, on behalf of the prisoners,
cross-examining the witnesses examined, with little effect in impugning
their evidence.
The prisoners being called on for their defence, they put in written
statements. Bishop's was first read to the Court. He said that he was
thirty-three years of age, and had followed the occupation of a carrier
till the last five years, during which he had occasionally obtained a
livelihood by supplying surgeons with subjects. He most solemnly
declared that he had never disposed of any body that had not died a
natural death. He had been in the habit of obtaining bodies from
workhouses, with their clothes on, so that he could have no difficulty
in procuring them after a natural death. The statement then went on to
describe the localities of the prisoner's residence, in order to show
that they admitted of great facilities of ingress and egress to all
persons in the neighbourhood. His garden and premises were open to them,
and theirs to him. With respect to the clothes found in his garden, he
knew nothing. As to the cap, he should be able to prove that it was
bought by his wife from a woman named Dodswell, who resided in Hoxton
Old Town. The prisoner called upon the jury to divest their minds of all
undue prejudices, and judge his case by the evidence alone. By so doing,
they would be discharging their duty, and would acquit him of the crime
then alleged against him. In conclusion, the prisoner declared that
neither Williams nor May knew how he had procured the body.
Williams' defence briefly stated that he had never been engaged in the
business of a resurrectionist; and that he had only, by accident,
accompanied Bishop on the sale of this body.
May admitted his employment, for the last six years, in the disgusting
trade of selling dead bodies, but he denied that he had ever had
anything to do with the sale of subjects which had not died a natural
death. He then repeated the explanation of his conduct on this occasion,
which he had before given; and stated that, on the night of the supposed
murder, he was sleeping with a girl named Carpenter.
Rosina Carpenter was then examined, and deposed that the prisoner May
came to her on the afternoon of Thursday, the 3rd of November, at her
lodgings in Macbeth-court, Golden-lane, and that he stayed with her
until twelve o'clock the next day. She had known him for fourteen or
fifteen months, and had been frequently in his company.
Mrs. Mary Dodswell, of 26, Hoxton Old Town, was called to prove the sale
of the brown cap to Bishop's wife; but her evidence totally failed in
this particular.
The Chief Justice then proceeded to recapitulate the evidence to the
jury, first warning them of the necessity of founding their decision on
the evidence then adduced, without being at all influenced by statements
made elsewhere. The indictment contained two counts--one charging the
prisoners at the bar with the murder of Carlo Ferrari, an Italian boy;
the other with the murder of a boy, name unknown. The jury would learn
from this circumstance, that it was by no means necessary that the name
of the murdered party should be known, and that all that they had to
decide was, the fact itself. They accordingly would first direct their
attention to the determining the fact whether the body which the
prisoners had proffered for sale had come by a natural death or not; and
next, whether, if they were of opinion that it had not, the prisoners
were the murderers, and to what degree they were implicated. With
respect to the first point, he thought they would experience but little
trouble after the explicit evidence of the medical gentleman who had
been that day examined, and whose conduct, it was but justice to say,
was an honourable rebuke to any calumnious imputation on the medical
profession to which the present case might have given birth. The learned
judge then went through the evidence with the most pains-taking
minuteness, commenting on those points which, in his mind, would enable
the jury to determine the guilt of the prisoners, and their share in the
crime. The evidence, to show that May was present, or participated in
the actual offence, he remarked, was by no means decisive; so that the
jury would have to determine how far he was, or was not, a principal or
accessory. It might be that they would arrive at the conclusion that
Bishop alone, or Bishop and Williams, were the criminals,--and in such
case they would find a verdict of acquittal for May; or it might be,
that they would find that all three were equally guilty; or that they
were guilty, but not in an equal degree. Their verdict would be
according to their decision on this point, rendering it incumbent on
them cautiously to weigh those parts of the evidence which bore
particularly on Bishop and Williams, and on the other prisoner. He left
it to their unbiassed judgment, to find according to the evidence which
had been submitted to them.
At eight o'clock the jury retired to consider their verdict, and the
prisoners were removed from the bar, and taken out of court. The
interval between that and the return of the jury, was a period of
intense anxiety to every one in court; and, as is usual on such
occasions, there were various conjectures hazarded as to what would be
the verdict. That a verdict of "Guilty" would be returned against two of
the prisoners, namely, Bishop and Williams, none who had heard the
evidence, and the summing up of the learned judge, could doubt; but the
same confident opinion by no means existed with respect to the fate of
the prisoner May.
These conjectures and speculations were put an end to by the return of
the jury at half-past eight o'clock.
The most death-like silence now prevailed throughout the court,
interrupted only by a slight buz on the re-introduction of the
prisoners.
Every eye was fixed upon them; but though their appearance and manner
had undergone a considerable change since their being first placed at
the bar, they did not seem conscious of the additional interest which
their presence at this moment excited.
Bishop advanced to the bar with a heavy step, and with a slight bend of
the body; his arms hung closely down, and it seemed a kind of relief to
him, when he took his place, to rest his hand on the board before him.
His appearance, when he got in front, was that of a man who had been for
some time labouring under the most intense mental agony, which had
brought on a kind of lethargic stupor. His eye was sunk and glassy; his
nose drawn and pinched; the jaw fallen, and the mouth open; but
occasionally the mouth closed, the lips became compressed, and the
shoulders and chest raised, as if he were struggling to repress some
violent emotion. After a few efforts of this kind, he became apparently
calm, and frequently glanced his eyes towards the bench and the
jury-box; but this was done without once raising his head. His face had
that pallid appearance which so often accompanies and betokens great
mental suffering.
Williams came forward with a short quick step; and his whole manner was
the reverse of that of his companion in guilt. His face had undergone
very little change; but in his eye and in his manner there was a
feverish anxiety, which was not to be observed during the trial. When he
came in front, and laid his hand on the bar, the rapid movement of his
fingers on the board--the frequent shifting of the hand, sometimes
letting it hang down for an instant by his side, then replacing it on
the board, and then resting his side against the front of the dock,
showed the perturbed state of his feelings. Once or twice he gave a
glance round the bench and the bar, but after that he seldom took his
eye from the jury-box.
May came forward with a more firm gait than either of his
fellow-prisoners; but his look was that of a man who thought that all
chance of life was lost. He seemed desponding; but there appeared that
in his despondency which gave an air of--we could not call it daring, or
even confidence--we should rather say, a physical power of endurance,
which imparted to his whole manner a more firm bearing than that of the
other prisoners. He was very pale, but his eye had not relaxed from that
firmness which was observable in his glance throughout the whole of the
trial.
Ordinary physiognomists, who (without having seen the prisoners) had
read the accounts of their examinations at the police-office--of their
habits and mode of living, and the horrible atrocities with which there
is now no doubt they were familiar--would have been greatly disappointed
in the appearance of all of them as they stood at the bar. There was
nothing in the aspect or manner of any of them which betokened a
predisposition to anything like the outrage on humanity of which they
stood convicted. There was something of heaviness in the aspect of
Bishop, but altogether his countenance was mild. Williams had that kind
of expression with which men associate the idea of sharpness and
cunning, and something of mischief, but nothing of the villain. May, who
was the best-looking of the three, had a countenance which most persons
would consider open and manly. There was an air of firmness and
determination about him; but neither in him nor his companions was there
the slightest physiognomical trait of a murderer, according to the
common notions on the subject.
When the three prisoners were placed at the bar, the names of the jury
were called over, and on being asked whether they had agreed to their
verdict, they answered that they had.
The question was then put to them as to each of the prisoners, and they
returned as their verdict, that John Bishop, Thomas Williams, and James
May were severally "Guilty of murder."
The verdict was received in court with becoming silence; but in a moment
it was conveyed to the immense multitude assembled outside, who evinced
their satisfaction at the result, by loud and long-continued cheering
and clapping of hands. To such an extent was this expression of the
popular feeling carried, that the windows of the court were obliged to
be closed, in order that the voice of the Recorder might be heard in
passing sentence.
The prisoners were severally called upon to say why sentence of death
and execution should not be pronounced upon them; but none of them
availed themselves of this opportunity of addressing the Court.
The Recorder then proceeded to pass the awful sentence of death upon
them, but was for some moments again interrupted by the renewed shouts
of the populace from without. Silence having been restored, the learned
judge proceeded:--