Tyburn Tree: Its History and Annals

by Alfred Marks

Something of this symbolical character was retained by the elm in France long after the name “The Elms” had been forgotten here. Rabelais (1483?-1553) speaks of “juges sous l’orme,” and, later, Loyseau (1556-1627) has a great deal to say of these “judges under the elm-tree.”[83]

“The Elms” of Smithfield came by the name in the same way, as, there is little doubt, did also “The Elms,” now Dean’s Yard, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey; “The Elms” in the abbey lands at Covent Garden, and “Homors” in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral, derived, no doubt correctly, by Professor Willis, from a corruption of Ormeaux, Ormayes, Ormoies, or Ormerie, plantations of elms.[84] In like manner Elms Lane, now Elms Mews, a turning out of the Bayswater or Uxbridge Road, probably preserves the name given to the gallows which the abbat of Westminster had at “Westburn” towards the end of the thirteenth century.[85]

It would not be surprising to find more of such names, in form more or less corrupt, in connection with places in the precincts of old monastic foundations. It may even be hoped that some of the gallows of the abbat of Westminster, in addition to the gallows of “Westburn,” have bequeathed place-names still surviving.

Before introducing further evidence as to the establishment of gallows at Tyburn, reference must be made to the confusion existing between “The Elms” of Tyburn and “The Elms” of Smithfield. Maitland, and after him Parton,[86] maintained, in ignorance or oblivion of the facts, that the gallows (presumably for Middlesex) formerly stood at “The Elms” of Smithfield; that, at some date before 1413, the gallows was removed to St. Giles’s, where it continued till its removal to Tyburn. But this ignores the fact that a gallows did undoubtedly exist at Tyburn at the end of the twelfth century. There is, besides, no evidence whatever that a royal gallows ever existed at St. Giles’s, except when a gallows was erected here for a special case.[87] There may possibly have been here a local, manorial gallows, for, as has been shown, such gallows abounded. There was even another gallows at Tyburn, set up by the Earl of Oxford, who, when challenged, seems to have admitted that he had no right to erect a gallows here.[88]

The confusion will cease if we keep firm hold of the fact that Smithfield was within the liberty of the city, and that the civic gallows was here erected. There is not, so far as I know, any evidence as to the suppression of the civic gallows at Smithfield. There were in late times executions here, but so there were in many other places. Smithfield comes into notice in the second year of the fifteenth century as the place of execution, by burning, for heresy, a character which it retained so long as the punishment was inflicted.[89]

It is not at all probable that the first execution recorded as having taken place at Tyburn in 1196 was actually the first execution there. I have ventured to allot to Tyburn an execution which took place in London in 1177, nineteen years before the execution of William Longbeard. There is evidence of the existence of a gallows at Tyburn at an uncertain date, but going in probability still further back. In 1220 the king, Henry III., ordered the immediate erection of two good gibbets of the best and strongest material, for hanging thieves and other malefactors, in the place where gallows were formerly erected, namely, at “The Elms” (ad Ulmellos).[90] Strype, in his edition of Stow’s “Survey,” and, seemingly, Peter le Neve, whom he quotes in the margin, refer this order to “The Elms” of Smithfield, but this is clearly a mistake, as the order evidently concerns the royal gallows, not the gallows in the jurisdiction of the City of London.[91]

The order refers to “the place where gallows were formerly erected, namely, the Elms.” It must be taken to be an order to replace decayed gallows. We may safely allow a life of at least fifty years to the old gallows, and it results that gallows had been here from at least as early as 1170.

There is no need to follow further in this place the course of executions at Tyburn. We come now to the question of the site of the gallows.

In one of the most recent books in which reference is made to the site we find this: “It was customary to vary the position of the gallows of Tyburn from time to time, but we may roughly put its approximate position where the Marble Arch now stands.” It is to be feared that the writer would be sorely puzzled if he were asked to produce either evidence that the gallows ever stood “where the Marble Arch now stands,” or evidence of so much as a single change of position. But statements of the kind, unsupported by evidence, are constantly found in books upon London. Those who make these statements are probably misled by knowledge of the fact that in our times a gallows is brought out for the purpose of a rare execution, and then laid up against the time when it will be again required. But of old the gallows—of Tyburn, at least—was in constant requisition, and, till a date which is well known, was a permanent structure—permanent, that is, having regard to its material. The gallows of Tyburn was permanent, subject to renewal from time to time, till the year 1759, when, as will be shown, the permanent gallows gave place to a movable gallows. It is in no degree probable that the site of a fixed gallows in frequent and continuous use should be changed without some good reason.

The first information of the site of the gallows other than the vague indication “Tyburn” is found in one of the old chronicles, which tells that, in 1330, Mortimer was executed at “The Elms, about a league outside the city.”[92] The distance thus vaguely stated would apply about equally to any one of the conjectured sites from Marylebone Lane to the head of the Serpentine, at which writers have severally placed the gallows.