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.