Bygone Punishments Part 4

Terror and indignation were felt by the inhabitants of the quiet midland town of Derby on Christmas day, in the year 1775, as the news spread through the place that on the previous evening an aged lady had been murdered and her house plundered. An Irishman named Matthew c.o.c.klain disappeared from the town, and he was suspected of committing the foul deed. He was tracked to his native country, arrested, and brought back to Derby. At the following March a.s.sizes, he was tried and found guilty of the crime, sentenced to be hanged, and afterwards gibbeted. His body was for some time suspended in the summer sun and winter cold, an object of fright to the people in the district.

Christmas eve had come round once more, and at a tavern, near the gibbet, a few friends were enjoying a pipe and gla.s.s around the cheerful burning yule-log, when the conversation turned to the murderer, and a wager was made that a certain member of the company dare not venture near the grim gibbet at that late hour of night. A man agreed to go, and take with him a basin of broth and offer it to Matthew c.o.c.klain. He proceeded without delay, carrying on his shoulder a ladder, and in his hand a bowl of hot broth. On arriving at the foot of the gibbet, he mounted the ladder, and put to c.o.c.klain's mouth the basin, saying, "Sup, Matthew," but to his great astonishment, a hollow voice replied, "It's hot." He was taken by surprise; but, equal to the occasion, and at once said, "Blow it, blow it," subsequently throwing the liquid into the face of the suspended body.

He returned to the cosy room of the hostelry to receive the bet he had won. His mate, who had been hid behind the gibbet-post, and had tried to frighten him with his sepulchral speech, admitted that the winner was a man of nerve, and richly ent.i.tled to the wager.

It has been a.s.serted by more than one local chronicler that John Whitfield, of Coathill, a notorious north country highwayman, about 1777, was gibbeted alive on Barrock, a hill a few miles from Wetherell, near Carlisle. He kept the countryside in a state of terror, and few would venture out after nightfall for fear of encountering him. He shot a man on horseback in open daylight; a boy saw him commit the crime, and was the means of his identification and conviction. It is the belief in the district that Whitfield was gibbeted alive, and that he hung for several days in agony, and that his cries were heartrending, until a mail-coachman pa.s.sing that way put him out of his misery by shooting him.

On the night of July 3rd, 1779, John Spencer murdered William Yeadon, keeper of the Scrooby toll-bar, and his mother, Mary Yeadon. The brutal crime was committed with a heavy hedge-stake. The culprit was soon caught, and tried at Nottingham. It transpired that the prisoner was pressed for money, and that the murders were committed to obtain it. He was found guilty, and condemned to be executed at Nottingham, and then his body was to be hung in chains near Scrooby toll-bar. In his hand was placed the hedge-stake with which he had committed the murders. After the body had been suspended a few weeks the body was shot through by the sergeant of a band of soldiers pa.s.sing that way with a deserter. For the offence he was followed and reported, tried by court-martial, and reduced to the ranks. This disturbance of the body caused its rapid decomposition, and the odour blown over the neighbouring village was most offensive.[12]

Several instances of persons being gibbeted for robbing the mails have come under our notice. In the columns of the _Salisbury Journal_ for August 18th, 1783, it is stated:--"The sentence of William Peare for robbing the mail near Chippenham stands unreversed.... He will be executed at Fisherton gallows, on Tuesday morning, about 11 o'clock, and his body will then be inclosed in a suit of chains, ingeniously made by Mr. Wansborough and conveyed to Chippenham, and affixed to a gibbet erected near the spot where the robbery was committed." The allusion to "unreversed" has reference to the common practice of condemning people to death, and shortly afterwards granting a pardon. The issue of the paper for the following week records that: "On Tuesday morning Peare was executed at Fisherton gallows.... The remaining part of the sentence was completed on Wednesday, by hanging the body in Green Lane, near Chippenham, where it now is; a dreadful memento to youth, how they swerve from the paths of rect.i.tude, and transgress the laws of their country." The body of Peare was not permitted to remain long on the gibbet. We see it is stated in a paragraph in the same newspaper under date of November 10th, 1783, that on the 30th of October at night, the corpse was taken away, and it was supposed that this was done by some of his Cricklade friends.

Near the Devil's Punch Bowl, at Hind Head, an upright stone records the murder of a sailor, and the inscription it bears is as under:--

ERECTED IN DETESTATION OF A BARBAROUS MURDER committed here on an unknown sailor, On September 24th, 1786, BY EDWD. LONEGON, MICHL. CASEY, AND JAS. MARSHALL, WHO WERE TAKEN THE SAME DAY, AND HUNG IN CHAINS NEAR THIS PLACE.

"_Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed_."

--Gen. chap. 9, ver. 6.

And on the back:--

THIS STONE WAS ERECTED BY ORDER AND AT THE COST OF JAMES STILWELL, ESQ., OF COSFORD, 1786.

CURSED BE THE MAN WHO INJURETH OR REMOVETH THIS STONE.

The stone was removed from its original position on the old Portsmouth road, which ran at a higher level, and placed where it now stands some years since.

The three men who committed the crime were arrested at Rake, near Petersfield, and in their possession was found the clothing of the unfortunate sailor. They were tried at Kingston, and found guilty of murder, and condemned to be hanged and gibbeted near where they had committed the foul deed. On April 7th, 1787, the sentence was carried into effect. The gibbet remained for three years, and was then blown down in a gale. The hill is still known as Gibbet Hill.

The murdered man was buried in Thursley churchyard, and over his remains was erected a gravestone, bearing a carving representing three men killing the sailor, and an inscription as follows:--

In Memory of A generous, but unfortunate Sailor, Who was barbarously murder'd on Hindhead, On September 24th, 1786, By three Villains, After he had liberally treated them, And promised them his further a.s.sistance, On the Road to Portsmouth.

When pitying Eyes to see my Grave shall come, And with a generous Tear bedew my tomb; Here shall they read my melancholy fate-- With Murder and Barbarity complete.

In perfect Health, and in the Flower of Age, I fell a Victim to three Ruffians' Rage; On bended Knees, I mercy strove t'obtain Their Thirst of Blood made all Entreaties Vain, No dear Relations, or still dearer Friend, Weeps my hard lot or miserable End.

Yet o'er my sad remains (my name unknown) A generous public have inscribed this Stone.

On February 2nd, 1787, two dissolute young men named Abraham Tull and William Hawkins, aged respectively nineteen and seventeen, waylaid and murdered William Billimore, an aged labourer. They stole his silver watch, but were too frightened to continue their search for money which they expected to find, and made a hasty retreat; but they were soon overtaken, and were subsequently, at Reading a.s.sizes, tried and condemned to be gibbeted on Ufton Common within sight of their homes.

For many years their ghastly remains were suspended to gibbet posts, much to the terror and annoyance of the people in the district. No attempt was made to remove the bodies, on account of it being regarded as unlawful, until Mrs. Brocas, of Beaurepaire, then residing at Wokefield Park, gave private orders for them to be taken down in the night and buried, which was accordingly done. During her daily drives she pa.s.sed the gibbeted men and the sight greatly distressed her, and caused her to have them taken down.[13] The ironwork of the gibbets are in the Reading Museum.

William Lewin, in 1788, robbed the post-boy carrying the letters from Warrington to Northwich, between Stretton and Whitley. He managed to elude the agents of the law for three years, but was eventually captured, tried at Chester, and found guilty of committing the then capital offence of robbing the mail. He was hanged at Chester. Says a contemporary account:--"His body is hung in chains on the most elevated part of Helsby Tor, about eight miles from Chester; from whence it may be conspicuously seen, and, by means of gla.s.ses, is visible to the whole county, most parts of Lancashire, Flintshire, Denbighshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, etc., etc."[14] About this period there were three gibbets along the road between Warrington and Chester.[15]

Only five months after William Lewin had been gibbeted for robbing the mails, almost in the same locality Edward Miles robbed and murdered the post-boy carrying the Liverpool mail-bag to Manchester on September 15th, 1791. For this crime he was hanged, and suspended in chains on the Manchester Road, near "The Twysters," where the murder had been committed. In 1845 the irons in which the body had been encased were dug up near the site of the gibbet, and may now be seen in the Warrington Museum. Our ill.u.s.tration is reproduced from a drawing in Mr. Madeley's work, "Some Obsolete Modes of Punishment." It will be observed the irons which enclosed the head are wanting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MILES'S GIBBET IRONS, WARRINGTON MUSEUM.]

Spence Broughton was tried at York, in 1792, for robbing the mail running between Sheffield and Rotherham. He was found guilty, and condemned to be executed at York, and his body to be hung in chains near the place where the robbery had been committed. The gibbet-post (which was the last put up in Yorkshire), with the irons, the skull, and a few other bones and rags, was standing in 1827-28, when it was taken down.[16]

We learn from "The Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer" (1822), that on May 2nd, 1804, the gibbet on which Payne, the pirate, was hung about 23 years previously, upon Yarmouth North Denes, was taken down by order of the Corporation.

Lincolnshire history supplies some curious details respecting the gibbeting of a man named Tom Otter, in the year 1806. We are told that he was compelled by the old poor law regulations to wed a girl he had injured. He lured her into a secluded spot the day after their marriage, and deliberately murdered her. According to the prevalent custom, Tom Otter's corpse was hung in chains. The day selected for that purpose inaugurated a week of merry-making of the most unseemly character.

Booths were pitched near the gibbet, and great numbers of the people came to see the wretch suspended. It is reported that some years later, when the jaw bones had become sufficiently bare to leave a cavity between them, a bird built its nest in this unique position. The discovery of nine young ones therein gave rise to the following triplet still quoted in the neighbourhood:--

"There were nine tongues within the head, The tenth went out to seek some bread, To feed the living in the dead."

The gibbet was standing until the year 1850, when it was blown down.

At the Derby March a.s.sizes, 1815, a young man named Anthony Lingard was tried and convicted for murdering Hannah Oliver, a widow, who kept the turnpike-gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell. The following account of the crime is from the _Derby Mercury_, for March 13th, 1815:--

"On Sat.u.r.day morning, Anthony Lingard, the younger, aged 21, was put to the bar, charged with the murder (by strangulation) of Hannah Oliver, a widow woman, aged 48 years, who kept the turnpike gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell, in this county.

"It appeared in evidence that the prisoner committed the robbery and murder in the night of Sunday the 15th of January last; that he took from the house several pounds in cash and notes, and a pair of new woman's shoes; that immediately after the deed was perpetrated, he went to a young woman in the neighbourhood, who was pregnant by him, and offered to give her some money with a view to induce her to father the child upon some other person; that he gave her the shoes, and also some money; but it being rumoured that Hannah Oliver had been murdered, and that a pair of shoes had been taken from her, the young woman returned the shoes to the prisoner, who said she had no occasion to be afraid, for that he had had them of a person in exchange for a pair of stockings. The shoes, however, were returned to him; and the evidence adduced in respect to them, as well as in respect to a great variety of circ.u.mstances connected with the horrid transaction, was given in such a very minute detail of corroborative and satisfactory proofs, as to leave no doubt in the minds of everyone that the prisoner was the person who had committed the murder, independent of his own confession, which was taken before the magistrates, previous to his committal.

"The trial on the part of the prosecution being closed, and the prisoner not having any witness to call, the learned judge carefully summed up the evidence to the jury, who after a few minutes returned a verdict of guilty.

"His Lordship then pa.s.sed the awful sentence of the law upon the prisoner, which was done by the learned judge in the most solemn and impressive manner, entreating him to make the best use of his time, and to prepare himself during the short period he had to live, for the great change he was about to undergo.

"Since his condemnation he conducted himself with greater sobriety than he had manifested before his trial; but his temper was obstinate, and his mind lamentably ignorant: and being totally unacquainted with religious considerations, he exhibited very imperfect signs of real penitence, and but little anxiety respecting his future state. He acknowledged the crime for which he was about to suffer the sentence of the law, but was reluctantly induced to p.r.o.nounce his forgiveness of the young woman who was the princ.i.p.al evidence against him.

"At 12 o'clock yesterday he was brought upon the drop in front of the County gaol, and after a short time occupied in prayer with the chaplain (who had previously attended him with the most unremitting and tender a.s.siduity), he was launched into eternity. He met his fate with a firmness which would deserve the praise of fort.i.tude if it was not the result of insensibility. He appeared but little agitated or dejected by his dreadful situation.

"Let the hope be encouraged that his example may operate as a warning to those among the mult.i.tude of spectators, who might not before feel all the horror with which vice ought to be regarded.

When wickedness is thus seen not in its allurements, but in its consequences, its true nature is evidenced. It is always the offspring of ignorance and folly, and the parent of long enduring misery.

"Before the Judge left the town, he directed that the body of Lingard should be hung in chains in the most convenient place near the spot where the murder was committed, instead of being dissected and anatomized."

The treasurer's accounts for Derbyshire, for 1815-16, show, says Dr.

c.o.x, that the punishment of gibbeting involved a serious inroad on the county finances. The expenses for apprehending Anthony Lingard amounted to 31 5s. 5d., but the expenses incurred in the gibbeting reached a total of 85 4s. 1d., and this in addition to ten guineas charged by the gaoler for conveying the body from Derby to Wardlow.[17]

A paragraph in Rhodes's "Peak Scenery," first published in 1818, is worth reproducing:--"As we pa.s.sed along the road to Tideswell," writes the author, "the villages of Wardlow and Litton lay on our left....

Here, at a little distance on the left of the road, we observed a man suspended on a gibbet, which was but newly erected. The vanity of the absurd idea of our forefathers, in thinking that a repulsive object of this kind would act as a deterrent of crime, was strikingly shown in the case of this Wardlow gibbet." It is related of Hannah Pecking, of Litton, who was hung on March 22nd, 1819, at the early age of sixteen, for poisoning Jane Grant, a young woman of the same village, that she "gave the poison in a sweet cake to her companion, as they were going to fetch some cattle out of a field, near to which stood the gibbet-post of Anthony Lingard."

The gibbet was taken down on April 10th, 1826, by order of the magistrates, and the remains of Lingard buried on the spot. We give a drawing of Lingard's gibbet-cap, which is now in the museum at Belle Vue, Manchester.

The Rev. Dr. c.o.x contributed to the columns of _The Antiquary_, for November, 1890, some important notes on this theme. "It was usual," says Dr. c.o.x, "to saturate the body with tar before it was hung in chains, in order that it might last the longer. This was done with the bodies of three highwaymen about the middle of last century, gibbeted on the top of the Chevin, near Belper, in Derbyshire. They had robbed the North Coach when it was changing horses at the inn at Hazelwood, just below the summit of the Chevin. After the bodies had been hanging there for a few weeks, one of the friends of the criminals set fire at night time to the big gibbet that bore all three. The father of our aged informant, and two or three others of the cottagers near by, seeing a glare of light, went up the hill, and there they saw the sickening spectacle of the three bodies blazing away in the darkness. So thoroughly did the tar aid this cremation that the next morning only the links of the iron remained on the site of the gibbet."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LINGARD'S GIBBET-CAP.]

On the high road near Brigg, in 1827, a murder was committed by a chimney-sweep. At the Lincoln a.s.sizes he was condemned to be hanged, and hung in chains on the spot where the tragedy occurred. The inhabitants of Brigg pet.i.tioned against the gibbeting, as it was so near the town, and consequently that part of the sentence was remitted.

A strike occurred at Jarrow Colliery, in 1832, and Mr. Nicholas Fairles, one of the owners, was a magistrate for the county of Durham, the only one in the district, and he took an active part in preserving peace during the troublesome time. He was seventy-one years of age, and greatly esteemed for his kindly disposition and high moral character. On June 11th he had been transacting some business at the Colliery, and was riding home to South Shields on his pony. When he had reached a lonely place, two men attacked him, dragging him from his horse, because he refused to give them money. They then felled him to the ground with a bludgeon, and as he lay helpless on the ground, heavy stones were used to end his life.

He was left for dead, but on being found and carried to a neighbouring house, it was discovered that he was alive, and after a few hours he recovered consciousness, and was able to give the names of the two men who had attempted to murder him, whom he knew, and who were Jarrow colliers, William Jobling and Ralph Armstrong. After lingering a few days, Mr. Fairles died. Jobling was soon caught, but Armstrong escaped, and was never brought to justice. Jobling was tried at Durham a.s.sizes, and condemned to be hanged and gibbeted. On August 3rd he was executed at Durham, and his body was subsequently escorted by fifty soldiers and others to Jarrow Slake, and set up on a gibbet 21 feet high. The post was fixed into a stone, weighing about thirty hundredweight, and sunk into the water a hundred yards from the high-water mark, and opposite the scene of the tragedy. The gruesome spectacle was not permitted to remain, for on the night of the 31st of the same month it was erected it was taken down, it is supposed, by some of his fellow workmen, and the body was quietly buried in the south-west corner of Jarrow churchyard.

It only remains to be added that during the construction of the Tyne Dock, the iron framework in which Jobling's body was suspended was found, and was in 1888 presented by the directors of the North Eastern Railway Company to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries. On 14th April, 1891, pa.s.sed away at the advanced age of 96, Jobling's widow, and it has been stated, with her death the last personal link with the gibbet was severed.

The last man gibbeted in this country was James Cook, a bookbinder, at Leicester. He was executed for the murder of John Paas, a London tradesman, with whom he did business. Cook's body was suspended on a gibbet thirty-three feet high, on Sat.u.r.day, August 11th, 1832, in Saffron Lane, Aylestone, near Leicester. The body was soon taken down, and buried on the spot where the gibbet stood, by order of the Secretary of State, to put a stop to the disturbances caused by the crowds of people visiting the place on a Sunday.[18]

Some little time before the execution of a criminal who was also condemned to be hung in chains, it was customary for the blacksmith to visit the prison and measure the victim for the ironwork in which he was to be suspended.