The circumstances under which Mr. Pitt the governor of Newgate was superseded in his functions have been described in a previous chapter. Mr. Pitt was so strongly suspected of Jacobite leanings that he was tried for his life. No doubt escapes were scandalously frequent during his régime, and it is just possible that they were due to the governor’s complicity, although Mr. Pitt was actually acquitted of the charge. More probably they owed their success to the ingenuity of desperate men easily triumphing over the prevailing carelessness of their keepers. The first escape which made a considerable noise was that of Mr. Forster, commonly known as General Forster, who headed the Northumbrian rising in 1715, and lost the battle of Preston Pans. Mr. Forster was allowed considerable liberty, and lodged in apartments in the keeper’s house. One afternoon, when Forster and another were drinking French wine with Mr. Pitt, Mr. Forster sent his servant to fetch a bottle of wine from his own stock to “make up the treat.” The servant on pretence of going to the vault left the room. Being long away, Mr. Forster pretended to be very angry, and followed him out of the room. Meanwhile the servant had sent the governor’s black man, a species of hybrid turnkey, down to the cellar for the wine, and had locked him up there. The black thus disposed of, Forster’s servant returned and waited for his master just outside Mr. Pitt’s parlour door. Being an adept at the locksmith’s art as well as a smart intelligent fellow, the servant had previously obtained an impression in clay of Mr. Pitt’s front door key, and had manufactured a counterfeit key. Directly Mr. Forster appeared, the front door was unlocked, master and servant passed through and went off together, first taking care to lock the door on the outside and leave the key in the lock to prevent their being readily pursued. Mr. Forster got to Prittlewell in Essex by four o’clock next morning with two more horsemen that had been waiting to attend them. From Prittlewell they hastened on to Leigh, where a vessel was provided, in which they made a safe voyage to France. “By this it appears,” says the chronicler, evidently a stout Whig, “that Mr. Forster was much better skilled in contriving an escape than leading an army, which shows the weakness of the Pretender and his council, who put so great a trust in the hands of a person who was altogether unfit for it, and never made other campaign than to hunt a fox and drink down his companions.”
The next attempt was on a larger scale. It was planned by Brigadier Macintosh, with whom were Mr. Wogan, two of the Delmehoys, Mr. James Talbot, and the brigadier’s son, with several others, to the number of fifteen in all. The prime mover was the brigadier, who, having “made a shift to get off his irons, and coming down with them in his hand under his gown, caused a servant to knock at the gaol door outside, himself sitting close by it.” As soon as the door was opened he pushed out with great violence, knocking down the turnkey and two or three of the sentinels. One of the soldiers made a thrust at him with his bayonet; but the brigadier parried the charge, seized the piece, unscrewed the bayonet, and “menaced it at the breast of the soldier, who thereupon gave way and suffered him and fourteen more to get into the street.” Eight of the fugitives were almost immediately recaptured, but the other gentlemen got clean off. One of them was Mr. James Talbot, who, unhappily, fell again into the hands of the authorities. He was discovered by the chance gossip of a garrulous maid-servant, who, chattering at an ale-house in Windmill Street, near the Haymarket, said her master had a cousin come to see him who had the whitest hands she ever saw in her life. This caused suspicion, and suspicion brought discovery. A reward of £500 had been offered by proclamation for the arrest of any fugitives, except the brigadier, who was valued at £1000, and Talbot was given up.
The escapes did not end here. The next to get away was Mr. George Budden, an upholsterer, who had a shop near Fleet Bridge, a Jacobite, but not in the rebellion of ’15. He effected his escape at the time when Mr. Pitt was himself a prisoner, suspected of collusion in the previous evasions. Mr. Budden’s plan was simple. He was possessed of money, and had friends who could help to convey him away could he but get out of Newgate. One night as he sat drinking with the head turnkey, Mr. Budden purposely insulted the officer grossly, and even went so far as to strike him. The turnkey was furious, and carried off his prisoner to the lodge, there to be heavily ironed, Mr. Budden trusting that either on the way there or back he might contrive to escape. On reaching the lodge Mr. Budden apologised and “made atonement to the good-natured keeper, who was a little mellower than ordinary,” and was led back to his former apartment; on the way he turned up the keeper’s heels and made off through the gate. Once outside, Budden ran into Newgate Market, and thence by many windings and turnings out of London, riding post haste seventy miles to the coast, and so across to France.
There were other attempts, such as that of Mr. Robertson, who tried to make off in a clergyman’s habit, but was discovered and stopped before he had passed one of the doors; and of Mr. Ramsay, who escaped with the crowd that came to hear the condemned sermon. Now and then there was the concerted action of a number, as when the prisoners thronged about the gates in order to make their escape; “and to promote the design the High Church cobbler fought with one of the servants, which occasioned a great disturbance and confusion.” Trouble, again, was only prevented by timely warning that there was a design to convey large iron crows to the rebels, by which they might beat open the gaol and escape. The most important and about the last of the rebel escapes was that of Mr. Ratcliffe, brother of the unfortunate Lord Derwentwater. This was effected so easily, indeed, with so much cool impudence, that connivance must assuredly have been bought. Mr. Ratcliffe seized his opportunity one day when he was paying a visit to Captain Dalziel and others on the master’s side. At the gate he met by previous agreement a “cane-jobber,” or person who sold walking-sticks, and who had once been an inmate of Newgate himself. Mr. Ratcliffe paused for a time and bargained for a cane, after which he passed under the iron chain at the gate, and upon the cane-seller’s saying that he was no prisoner, the turnkey and guard suffered Ratcliffe to get off. The author of the ‘History of the Press-Yard’ says that Mr. Ratcliffe bribed the officer, “which,” as another writer adds, “must be owned to be the readiest way to turn both lock and key.”
Mr. Ratcliffe, thirty years later, paid the penalty to the law which he had escaped on this occasion. A warm adherent of the Pretender, he embarked from France for Scotland to take part in the Jacobite rising in 1745. The French ship was captured, and Ratcliffe sent as a prisoner to the Tower. He was presently arraigned at the Bar of the King’s Bench for having escaped from Newgate in 1716, when under sentence of death for high treason. Ratcliffe at first refused to plead, declaring that he was a subject of the French king, and that the court had no jurisdiction over him. Then he denied that he was the person named in the record produced in court, whereupon witnesses were called to prove that he was Charles Ratcliffe. Two Northumbrian men identified him as the leader of five hundred of the Earl of Derwentwater’s men, remembering him by the scar on his face. They had been to see him in the Tower, and could swear to him; but could not swear that he was the same Charles Ratcliffe who had escaped from Newgate prison. A barber who had been appointed “close shaver” to Newgate in 1715, and who attended the prison daily to shave all the rebel prisoners, remembered Charles Ratcliffe, Esq., perfectly as the chum or companion of Basil Hamilton, a reputed nephew of the Duke of Hamilton; but this barber, when closely pressed, could not swear that the prisoner at the bar was the very same Charles Ratcliffe whom he had shaved, and who had afterwards escaped out of Newgate. No evidence indeed was forthcoming to positively fix Mr. Ratcliffe’s identity; but “a gentleman” was called who deposed that the prisoner had in the Tower declared himself to be the same Charles Ratcliffe who was condemned in the year 1716, and had likewise told him, the witness, that he had made his escape out of Newgate in mourning, with a brown tye wig, when under sentence of death in that gaol. Upon this evidence the judge summed up against the prisoner, the jury found a verdict of guilty, and Ratcliffe was eventually beheaded on Tower Hill.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GAOL CALENDAR.
Newgate Calendars—Their editors and publishers—All based on Sessions’ papers—Demand for this literature fostered by prevalence of crime—Brief summary of state of crime in the first half of the 18th century—State of the Metropolis—Street robberies—Burglaries—Henry Fielding on the increase of robbers—The Thieves’ Company—The Revolution Club—Firearms in the Law Courts—Causes of the increase of crime—Drunkenness—The Gin Act—Gaming universal—Faro’s daughters—Lotteries—Repression of crime limited to hanging—No police—The Charlies or watchmen—Civil power lethargic—Efforts made by private societies for reformation of manners—Character of crimes—Murders, duels, and affrays—Richard Savage, the poet, in Newgate for murder—Major Oneby for murder, commits suicide—Marquis de Paleoti for murdering his man-servant—Colonel Charteris for rape, sentenced to death, but pardoned—Crime in high place—The Earl of Macclesfield, Lord Chancellor, convicted of venal practices—Embezzlement by public officials—Crimes more commonplace, but more atrocious—Murder committed by Catherine Hayes and her accomplices—She is burnt alive for petty treason—Sarah Malcolm the Temple murderess—Other prominent and typical murders—Jack Ketch hanged for murder—Wife murderers, Houssart, Vincent Davis, George Price, Edward Joines, John Williamson—Theodore Gardelle, the murderer of Mrs. King—Two female murderers—Mrs. Meteyard—Her cruelty to a parish apprentice—Elizabeth Brownrigg beats Mary Clifford to death.
PRISON calendars obviously reflect the criminal features of the age in which they appear. Those of Newgate since the beginning of the eighteenth century are numerous and voluminous enough to form a literature of their own. To the diligence of lawyers and publishers we owe a more or less complete collection of the most remarkable cases as they occurred. These volumes have been published under various titles. The ‘Newgate Calendar,’ compiled by Messrs. Knapp and Baldwin, attorneys-at-law, is one of the best known. This work, according to its title-page, professes to contain “interesting memoirs of notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the law of England; with essays on crimes and punishments and the last exclamations of sufferers.” There are many editions of it. The first I think was published by Nuttall, Fisher, and Dixon, of Liverpool; a later edition issues from the Albion Press, Ivy Lane, London, under the auspices of J. Robins and Co. But another book of similar character had as its compiler “George Theodore Wilkinson, Esq.,” barrister-at-law. It was published by Cornish and Co. in 1814, and the work was continued by “William Jackson, Esq.,” another barrister, with Alexander Hogg, of Paternoster Row, and by Offor and Sons of Tower Hill as publishers. Early and perfect editions of these works are somewhat rare and curious, fondly sought out and carefully treasured by the bibliophile. But all of them were anticipated by the editors of the ‘Tyburn Calendar,’ or ‘Malefactor’s Bloody Register,’ which issued soon after 1700 from the printing office of G. Swindells, at the appropriate address of Hanging Bridge, Manchester. The compilers of these volumes claimed a high mission. They desired “to fully display the regular progress from Virtue to Vice, interspersed with striking reflections on the conduct of those unhappy wretches who have fallen a sacrifice to the injured laws of their country. The whole tending to guard young minds from allurements of vice and the paths that lead to destruction.” Another early work is the ‘Chronicle of Tyburn, or Villainy displayed in all its branches,’ which gave the authentic lives of notorious malefactors, and was published at the Shakespeare’s Head in 1720. Yet another dated 1776, and printed for J. Wenman of 144, Fleet Street, bears the title of ‘The Annals of Newgate,’ and claims upon the title-page, that by giving the circumstantial accounts of the lives, transactions, and trial of the most notorious malefactors it is “calculated to expose the deformity of vice, the infamy, and punishments naturally attending those who deviate from the paths of virtue; and is intended as a beacon to warn the rising generation against the temptations, the allurements, and the dangers of bad company.”
All Newgate calendars have seemingly a common origin. They are all based primarily upon the Sessions’ Papers, the official publications which record the proceedings at the Old Bailey. There is a complete early series of these session papers in the Library of the British Museum, and another in the Home Office from the year 1730, including the December sessions of 1729. The publisher, who is stated on the title-page to be “T. Payne, at the corner of Ivy Lane, near Paternoster Row,” refers in his preface to an earlier series, dating probably from the beginning of the century, and a manuscript note in the margin of the first volume of the second series also speaks of a preceding folio volume. These sessions papers did not issue from one publisher. As the years pass the publication changes hands. Now it is “J. Wilford, behind the Chapter House, St. Pauls”; now “I. Roberts at the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane.” Ere long “T. Applebee in Bolt Court, near the Leg Tavern,” turns his attention to this interesting class of periodical literature. He also published another set of semi-official documents, several numbers of which are bound up with the sessions’ papers already mentioned, and like them supplying important data for the compilation of calendars. These were the accounts given by the ordinary of Newgate of the behaviour, confessions, and dying words of the malefactors “executed at Tyburn,” a report rendered by command of the Mayor and corporation, but a private financial venture of the chaplains. As the ordinary had free access to condemned convicts at all times, and from his peculiar duties generally established the most confidential relations with them, he was in a position to obtain much curious and often authentic information from the lips of the doomed offenders. Hence the ordinary’s account contained many criminal autobiographies, and probably was much patronized by the public. Its sale was a part of the Reverend gentleman’s perquisites; and that the chaplains looked closely after the returns may be gathered from the already mentioned application made by the Rev. Mr. Loraine, chaplain in 1804, who petitioned Parliament to exempt his “execution brochure” from the paper tax.[140]
In the advertisement sheets of these sessions’ papers are notices of other criminal publications proving how great was the demand for this kind of literature. Thus in 1731 is announced ‘The History of Executions: being a complete account of the thirteen malefactors executed at Tyburn for robberies, price 4d.,’ and this publication is continued from year to year. In 1732 “T. Applebee and others” published at 3s. 6d. the ‘Lives of the most Remarkable Criminals,’ a volume containing as a frontispiece the escape of Jack Sheppard from Newgate. In the description of this book the public is assured that the volume contains a first and faithful narration of each, “without any additions of feigned or romantic adventures, calculated merely to entertain the curiosity of the Reader.” Jack Sheppard had many biographers. Seven accurate and authentic histories were published, all purporting to give the true story of his surprising adventures, and bequeathing a valuable legacy to the then unborn historical novelist, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. Again, Rich, the Manager of the Lincoln’s Inn Theatre, brought out ‘Harlequin Jack Sheppard’ in the year of that desperado’s execution, an operatic pantomime founded upon his exploits. A little before this another dramatic performance, the ‘Beggars Opera,’ having a criminal for its hero, had taken the town by storm; and many strongly and with reason condemned the degradation of national taste which could popularize the loves of ‘Polly Peachum’ and ‘Captain Macheath.’ Besides these books and plays there was a constant publication of broad-sheets and chap-books of a still lower type, intended to pander to the same unwholesome taste, while a great novelist like Fielding did not hesitate to draw upon his personal acquaintance with crime, obtained as a police magistrate, and write the life of Jonathan Wild.