DAVID HAGGART, alias JOHN WILSON, alias JOHN MORRISON, alias BARNEY M‘COUL, alias JOHN M‘COLGAN, alias DANIEL O’BRIEN, alias THE SWITCHER.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
DAVID HAGGART was born at a farm-town called the Golden-Acre, near Cannon Mills, in the county of Edinburgh, on the 24th of June 1801. His father was a gamekeeper, and lived in the service of a gentleman of large fortune and great respectability. The first depredation committed by young Haggart was that of stealing a neighbour’s bantam cock, and from this small beginning he was guilty of nearly every crime referred to in the Statute book. To go through a history of all his offences would be nearly to fill our volume, and we shall therefore give only a short sketch of his brief career. Having, after the commencement of his depredations in the manner we have described, quitted that restraint to which his parents had hitherto subjected him; he found himself, at the age of sixteen, plunged into the very depth of misery and crime. He soon formed an acquaintance with a lad name M‘Guire, who was a native of Ireland, and was of a bold enterprising spirit, of surprising strength, and besides an experienced pickpocket. Instructed by this veteran in the arts of wickedness, they agreed to travel to England together, and share the fruits of their unlawful occupation. It was when in company with, and encouraged by the daring acts of this lad, that he first attempted to pick a pocket in open day-light; and this attempt was made on a race ground, on the person of a gentleman who had been very successful in his bets. Haggart was so eager on his prey as to pull out the pocket along with the money, and the gentleman turned quickly round and examined his hands; but the booty was already passed to his companion, and the gentleman appeared satisfied of his innocence, but said that some one had picked his pocket. The produce of this his first public achievement was eleven pounds.
The scenes of most of the depredations which he subsequently committed were the fairs and races held in the north of England, and in Scotland; and he followed his new business with varied success. Kendal and Carlisle afforded him admirable opportunities of pursuing his avocation, and having secured a good booty, he proceeded with M‘Guire to Newcastle, where they obtained lodgings in the family of a respectable widow lady, who had three daughters, by whom they were supposed to be respectable persons, travelling for pleasure, and in whose society they assumed the names of Wilson and Arkinson. Although they were admitted to the table and society of this lady, they continued to exercise their profession; and not unfrequently when they had accompanied their landlady’s daughters to the theatre, did one of them retire, leaving his companion in care of the young ladies, while he proceeded to attack some gentleman, from whom he supposed he might be able to secure a booty.
In January 1818, on their way to Durham, to attend a fair, they came to a house in a lonely place, and determined to break into it. They entered it by a window, and met a strong resistance from the master of the house; but, having knocked him down, they succeeded in binding him hand and foot, and gagging him with a handkerchief. The rest of the family were females, and were too much terrified to interrupt them, and they proceeded to rifle the house. Having taken about thirty pounds, they went to Durham, where Haggart was apprehended the next day; but having changed his clothes, and considerably disguised himself, the man whose house they had entered could not identify him; and he was liberated, and returned to Newcastle.
In two or three days they were both apprehended, and carried back to Durham, having on the same clothes in which they had committed the burglary; and the man whom they had robbed having then immediately recognised them, he was bound over to prosecute. They were tried under the feigned names of Morrison and Arkinson, and were found guilty, and sent back to prison, in order to be brought up for sentence of death at the end of the assizes.
They, however, lost no time in contriving their escape, and after long deliberation with their fellow-prisoners, they resolved on the attempt. They set to work on the wall of their cell, and had got out to the back passage, when the turnkey made his appearance. They seized him, took his keys, bound and gagged him; and having gained the back yard they scaled the wall, but Barney and another prisoner fell, after gaining the top: by this time the alarm was given, and the two latter were both secured; but Haggart having made his escape, returned to Newcastle, in company with a Yorkshireman, where he obtained a tool with which to assist M‘Guire in making his escape; and they were returning to Durham when they were pursued by two officers, who got close to them on a wild part of the road unobserved. Just as they were springing on Haggart, he laid one of them low with his pistol, and left him, uncertain whether he had his murder to answer for. The Yorkshireman knocked down the other, and they then proceeded to Durham; where, in the night-time, Haggart, by means of a rope-ladder, got over the back wall of the jail, and conveyed a spring saw to M‘Guire, who made his escape that same night, by cutting the iron bars of his cell window, and followed Haggart to Newcastle, and thence accompanied him to Berwick-on-Tweed, Dunse, and Coldstream. At these places they lost no opportunity of plying their trade; but on their reaching Kelso, M‘Guire was secured while in the act of picking a farmer’s pocket, and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.
Being now left without an associate, Haggart returned to Newcastle, where he resided for four months, in the house of his old friend, Mrs. A——. During his stay there, one of the young ladies was married to a respectable shopkeeper, when Haggart took the lead in conducting the festivities of the wedding. One evening, having accompanied one of the Miss A——’s to the theatre, on their return, a gentleman much in liquor attempted to insult the young lady; struggling in her defence, Haggart contrived to pick the pocket of his antagonist of nineteen guineas, with which he escaped unsuspected. At length having, as he conceived, remained as long as was expedient in this place, he took his departure in the month of June, and he then proceeded to Edinburgh, where he pursued the occupation of a shop-lifter. At this time, it appears, that he was suddenly seized with a severe and dangerous fit of illness, and being struck with remorse at his past conduct, he returned to the house of his parents; but he was soon after apprehended on a charge of shop-lifting, of which he had been previously guilty, and being sent to jail, all his determinations to be more circumspect and honest, were put to flight. On his release he joined one of his fellow prisoners, named Graham, and with him recommenced the system of plunder, by means of which he had before supported himself.
Having stolen a pedlar’s pack, and several articles of linen drapery and hosiery, Haggart assumed the character of a pedlar, and travelled the country to dispose of his ill-gotten goods. After this he returned to Edinburgh, where he remained till January 1820, committing depredations of every description. On the 1st of March he was arrested at Leith, in company with an accomplice named Forest. The offenders made a desperate resistance, but were at length secured and committed for trial. The confinement was too much for our hero, however, and on the evening of the 27th of March, having obtained a small file, he cut the irons from his legs, and then forced up the door of his cell, and got into the passage. He next set to work upon a very thick stone wall, through which he at length made a hole, and got on the staircase just as the clock struck twelve. He had still the outer wall to penetrate, on which he fell to work with great caution, lest he should be heard. Having made considerable progress, he returned to the room where his companion Forest was, and brought him to his assistance; he also awoke one of the debtors whom he knew, and obtained his assistance in removing his handcuffs, having all along been working with them upon him. After great labour and violent pain they succeeded in wrenching the chain in two pieces. He then renewed his operations on the outer wall, and, having removed a large stone, got out a few minutes before five o’clock in the morning. When he gained the outside stair he saw a man coming towards him, and, supposing him to be an officer in pursuit of him, he leaped over the back of the stair; but recollecting that Forest had yet to get out, he prepared to give the man battle, lest he should attempt to seize Forest; but the man said to him, “Run, Haggart, run; I won’t touch you.” Forest then came out, and he took hold of his hand, and ran off at full speed, pulling him along with him.
Although he had thus extraordinarily succeeded in escaping from jail, it was not long before he was again secured for a new offence, committed in company with his old companion M‘Guire, whom he had met at Dumfries. While the latter, however, was again convicted and received sentence of transportation for fourteen years, the former again obtained his liberation from prison, but under circumstances which eventually cost him his life. He was detained in the jail of Dumfries, and a fellow named Laurie, who was confined in the adjoining cell, suggested to him the possibility of their making their escape, by knocking down the jailor and taking the keys from him. Haggart, however, opposed a scheme, which he deemed unnecessarily violent, for he had already made arrangements, by which he hoped to secure his own safety; but another prisoner, named M‘Grory, who was under sentence of death, urging the absolute necessity of violent means, he consented to seize and gag Thomas Morrin, the head turnkey, and to take his keys from him, and then to open the doors for all the prisoners to fly. Laurie, however, still persisted that they should use violence, and he employed a debtor, who was in the same jail, to procure him a large stone, with which he expressed an intention of attacking the jailor; and it appears that Haggart now agreed to his proposition. Hunter, the keeper of the jail, having gone to the races, it was determined to seize the earliest opportunity, and Simpson and Dunbar, two other prisoners, were made acquainted with the plot. M‘Grory’s irons having been removed, Morrin was called up on some pretended errand, and Haggart immediately burst upon him. He struck him one blow with the stone, dashed him down stairs, and without the loss of a moment, took the key of the outer door from his pocket. Dunbar picked up the stone, but it appears that no more blows were given, although Morrin received some other wounds in falling.