But the Old Bailey gradually, and in spite of all objections urged, monopolized the dread business of execution. The first affair of the kind on this spot was on the 3rd December, 1783, when, in pursuance of an order issued by the Recorder to the sheriffs of Middlesex and the keeper of His Majesty’s gaol, Newgate, a scaffold was erected in front of that prison for the execution of several convicts named by the Recorder. “Ten were executed; the scaffold hung with black; and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, having petitioned the sheriffs to remove the scene of execution to the old place, were told that the plan had been well considered, and would be persevered in.” The following 23rd April, it is stated that the malefactors ordered for execution on the 18th inst. were brought out of Newgate about eight in the morning, and suspended on a gallows of a new construction. “After hanging the usual time they were taken down, and the machine cleared away in half-an-hour. By practice the art is much improved, and there is no part of the world in which villains are hanged in so neat a manner, and with so little ceremony.”
A full description of this new gallows, which was erected in front of the debtors’ door, is to be found in contemporary records. “The criminals are not exposed to view till they mount the fatal stage. The last part of the stage, or that next to the gaol, is enclosed by a temporary roof, under which are placed two seats for the reception of the sheriffs, one on each side of the stairs leading to the scaffold. Round the north, west, and south sides are erected galleries for the reception of officers, attendants, &c., and at the distance of five feet from the same is fixed a strong railing all round the scaffold to enclose a place for the constables. In the middle of this machinery is placed a movable platform, in form of a trap-door, ten feet long by eight wide, on the middle of which is placed the gibbet, extending from the gaol across the Old Bailey. This movable platform is raised six inches higher than the rest of the scaffold, and on it the convicts stand; it is supported by two beams, which are held in their place by bolts. The movement of the lever withdraws the bolts, the platform falls in;” and this, being much more sudden and regular than that of a cart being drawn away, has the effect of immediate death. A broadsheet dated April 24th, 1787,[90] describing an execution on the newly-invented scaffold before the debtors’ door, Newgate, says, “The scaffold on which these miserable people suffered is a temporary machine which was drawn out of the yard of the sessions house by horses; ... it is supported by strong posts fixed into grooves made in the street; ... the whole is temporary, being all calculated to take to pieces, which are preserved within the prison.”
This contrivance appears to have been copied with improvements from that which had been used in Dublin at a still earlier date, for that city claims the priority in establishing the custom of hanging criminals at the gaol itself. The Dublin “engine of death,” as the gallows are styled in the account from which the following description is taken, consisted of an iron bar parallel to the prison wall, and about four feet from it, but strongly affixed thereto with iron scroll clamps. “From this bar hang several iron loops, in which the halters are tied. Under this bar at a proper distance is a piece of flooring or platform, projecting somewhat beyond the range of the iron bar, and swinging upon hinges affixed to the wall. The entrance upon this floor or leaf is from the middle window over the gate of the prison; and this floor is supported below, while the criminals stand upon it, by two pieces of timber, which are made to slide in and out of the prison wall through apertures made for that purpose. When the criminals are tied up and prepared for their fate, this floor suddenly falls down, upon withdrawing the supporters inwards. They are both drawn at once by a windlass, and the unhappy culprits remain suspended.” This mode of execution, it is alleged, gave rise to the old vulgar “chaff,” “Take care, or you’ll die at the fall of the leaf.” The machinery in use in Dublin is much the same as that employed at many gaols now-a-days. But the fall apart and inwards of two leaves is considered superior. The latter is the method still followed at Newgate.
The sentences inflicted in front of Newgate were not limited to hanging. In the few years which elapsed between the establishment of the gallows at Newgate and the abolition of the practice of burning females for petty treason, more than one woman suffered this penalty at the Old Bailey. One case is preserved by Catnach, that of Phœbe Harris, who in 1788 was “barbariously” (sic in the broadsheet) executed and burnt before Newgate for coining. She is described as a well-made little woman, something more than thirty years of age, of a pale complexion and not disagreeable features. “When she came out of prison she appeared languid and terrified, and trembled greatly as she advanced to the stake, where the apparatus for the punishment she was about to experience seemed to strike her mind with horror and consternation, to the exclusion of all power of recollectedness in preparation for the approaching awful moment.” She walked from the debtors’ door to a stake fixed in the ground about half-way between the scaffold and Newgate Street. She was immediately tied by the neck to an iron bolt fixed near the top of the stake, and after praying fervently for a few minutes, the steps on which she stood were drawn away, and she was left suspended. A chain fastened by nails to the stake was then put round her body by the executioner with his assistants. Two cart-loads of faggots were piled about her, and after she had hung for half-an-hour the fire was kindled. The flames presently burned the halter, the body fell a few inches, and hung then by the iron chain. The fire had not quite burnt out at twelve, in nearly four hours, that is to say. “A great concourse of people attended on this melancholy occasion.”
The change from Tyburn to the Old Bailey had worked no improvement as regards the gathering together of the crowd or its demeanour. As many spectators as ever thronged to see the dreadful show, and they were packed into a more limited space, disporting themselves as heretofore by brutal horse-play, coarse jests, and frantic yells. It was still the custom to offer warm encouragement or bitter disapproval, according to the character and antecedents of the sufferer. The highwayman, whose exploits many in the crowd admired or emulated, was cheered and bidden to die game; the man of better birth could hope for no sympathy, whatever his crime. At the execution of Governor Wall, in 1802, the furious hatred of the mob was plainly apparent in their appalling cries. His appearance on the scaffold was the signal for three prolonged shouts from an innumerable populace, “the brutal effusion of one common sentiment.” It was said that so large a crowd had never collected since the execution of Mrs. Brownrigg, nor had the public indignation risen so high. Pieman and ballad-monger did their usual roaring trade amidst the dense throng. No sooner was the “job” finished than half-a-dozen competitors appeared, each offering the identical rope for sale at a shilling an inch. One was the “yeoman of the halter,” a Newgate official, the executioner’s assistant, whom Mr. J. T. Smith,[91] who was present at the execution, describes as “a most diabolical-looking little wretch—Jack Ketch’s head man.” The yeoman was, however, under-sold by his wife, “Rosy Emma,” exuberant in talk and hissing hot from Pie Corner, where she had taken her morning dose of gin-and-bitters.[92] A little further off, says Mr. Smith, was “a lath of a fellow past three-score years and ten, who had just arrived from the purlieus of Black Boy Alley, woebegone as Romeo’s apothecary, exclaiming, ‘Here’s the identical rope at sixpence an inch.’ ”
Mr. Smith’s account of the condemned convict, whose cell he was permitted to enter, may be inserted here. He was introduced by the ordinary, Dr. Forde, a name familiar to the reader,[93] who met him at the felons’ door “in his canonicals, and with his head as stiffly erect as a sheriff’s coachman.” The ordinary “gravely uttered, ‘Come this way, Mr. Smith.’ As we crossed the press yard a cock crew, and the solitary clanking of a restless chain was dreadfully horrible. The prisoners had not risen.” They entered a “stone cold room,” and were presently joined by the prisoner. “He was death’s counterfeit, tall, shrivelled, and pale; and his soul shot out so piercingly through the port-holes of his head, that the first glance of him nearly petrified me.... His hands were clasped, and he was truly penitent. After the yeoman had requested him to stand up, ‘he pinioned him,’ as the Newgate phrase is, and tied the cord with so little feeling that the governor (Wall), who had not given the wretch his accustomed fee, observed, ‘You have tied me very tight,’ upon which Dr. Forde ordered him to slacken the cord, which he did, but not without muttering. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said the governor to the doctor, ‘it is of little moment.’ He then made some observations to the attendant about the fire, and turning to the doctor, questioned him. ‘Do tell me, sir; I am informed I shall go down with great force; is it so?’ After the construction and action of the machine had been explained, the doctor asked the governor what kind of men he had commanded at Goree, where the murder for which he was condemned had been committed. ‘Sir,’ he answered, ‘they sent me the very riff-raff.’ The poor soul then joined the doctor in prayer, and never did I witness more contrition at any condemned sermon than he then evinced. The sheriff arrived, attended by his officers, to receive the prisoner from the keeper. A new hat was partly flattened on his head, for, owing to its being too small in the crown, it stood many inches too high behind. As we were crossing the press yard, the dreadful execrations of some of the felons so shook his frame that he observed ‘the clock had struck;’ and quickening his pace, he soon arrived at the room where the sheriff was to give a receipt for his body, according to the usual custom. Before the colonel[94] had been pinioned he had pulled out two white handkerchiefs, one of which he bound over his temples so as nearly to conceal his eyes, the other he kept between his hands. Over the handkerchief around his brows he placed a white cap, the new hat being on top of all. He was dressed in a mixed-coloured loose coat with a black collar, swandown waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and white silk stockings. Thus apparelled he ascended the stairs at the debtors’ door, and stepped out on to the platform, to be received, as has been said, by prolonged yells. These evidently deprived him of the small portion of fortitude he had summoned up. He bowed his head under extreme pressure of ignominy, and at his request the ordinary drew the cap further down over his face, when in an instant, without waiting for any signal, the platform dropped, and he was launched into eternity.”
Whenever the public attention had been specially called to a particular crime, either on account of its atrocity, the doubtfulness of the issue, or the superior position of the perpetrator, the attendance at the execution was certain to be tumultuous, and the conduct of the mob disorderly. This was notably the case at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty in 1807, an event long remembered from the fatal and disastrous consequences which followed it. They were accused by a confederate, who, goaded by conscience, had turned approver, of the murder of a Mr. Steele, who kept a lavender warehouse in the city, and who had gardens at Feltham, whither he often went to distil the lavender, returning to London the same evening. One night he was missing, and after a long interval his dead body was discovered, shockingly disfigured, in a ditch. This was in 1802. Four years passed without the detection of the murderers, but in the beginning of 1807 one of them, at that time just sentenced to transportation, made a full confession, and implicated Holloway and Haggerty. They were accordingly apprehended and brought to trial, the informer, Hanfield by name, being accepted as king’s evidence. Conviction followed mainly on his testimony; but the two men, especially Holloway, stoutly maintained their innocence to the last. Very great excitement prevailed in the town throughout the trial, and this greatly increased when the verdict was known.
An enormous crowd assembled to witness the execution, amounting, it was said, to the hitherto unparalleled number of 40,000. By eight o’clock not an inch of ground in front of the platform was unoccupied. The pressure soon became so frightful that many would have willingly escaped from the crowd; but their attempts only increased the general confusion. Very soon women began to scream with terror; some, especially of low stature, found it difficult to remain standing, and several, although held up for some time by the men nearest them, presently fell, and were at once trampled to death. Cries of Murder! murder! were now raised, and added greatly to the horrors of the scene. Panic became general. More women, children, and many men were borne down, to perish beneath the feet of the rest. The most affecting and distressing scene was at Green Arbour Lane, just opposite the debtors’ door of the prison. Here a couple of piemen had been selling their wares; the basket of one of them, which was raised upon a four-legged stool, was upset. The pieman stooped down to pick up his scattered stock, and some of the mob, not seeing what had happened, stumbled over him. No one who fell ever rose again. Among the rest was a woman with an infant at the breast. She was killed, but in the act of falling she forced her child into the arms of a man near her, and implored him in God’s name to save it; the man, needing all his care for his own life, threw the child from him, and it passed along the heads of the crowd, to be caught at last by a person who struggled with it to a cart and deposited it there in safety. In another part seven persons met their death by suffocation.
In this convulsive struggle for bare existence people fought fiercely with one another, and the weakest, of course the women, went under. One cart-load of spectators having broken down, some of its occupants fell off the vehicle, and were instantly trampled to death. This went on for more than an hour, and until the malefactors were cut down and the gallows removed; then the mob began to thin, and the streets were cleared by the city marshals and a number of constables. The catastrophe exceeded the worst anticipations. Nearly one hundred dead and dying lay about; and after all had been removed, the bodies for identification, the wounded to hospitals, a cart-load of shoes, hats, petticoats, and fragments of wearing apparel were picked up. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital was converted into an impromptu Morgue, and all persons who had relatives missing were admitted to identify them. Among the dead was a sailor lad whom no one knew; he had his pockets filled with bread and cheese, and it was generally supposed that he had come a long distance to see the fatal show.