1817.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
SENTENCE ON JOHN CHURCH,
THE OBELISK PREACHER.
COURT OF KING’S BENCH, NOVEMBER 24, 1817.
This morning the celebrated John Church was brought up before the Court, for the purpose of receiving its judgment, in pursuance of his conviction at the last Croydon Assizes, for an attempt to commit an unnatural crime.
During the greater part of the morning the Court was occupied by passing judgments on offenders against the Excise Laws; and it was not until one o’clock, that the Court proceeded to pronounce sentence on the above defendant.
Lord Ellenborough, who had tried the case, then read over all his notes taken on the trial, and the defendant then handed in an affidavit to the officer of the Court, for the purpose of inducing their Lordships to pass a lenient sentence on him.
This affidavit, after reciting his conviction at the above-mentioned Assizes, on the 10th of August last, complained of the title pages of several accounts of his trial, which had been printed and published, and which were strongly calculated to excite popular prejudice against him. It stated that the defendant was a married man and had several children, and that his wife had kept a school for the instruction of young females, at Hammersmith, and while she so kept such school, she received the following anonymous letter.
“London.
“Madam,
“If you have any respect for the children who are under your care, you will remove from the house you are now in, that they may not be present at the punishment of your husband.
“Believe me your Friend.”
And that soon after this, a mob assembled before the house of the defendant, with marrow-bones and cleavers, an effigy of the said defendant, and a transparency; and, after having lighted a fire before his door, the flames of which ascended as high as the windows of the first floor, they burnt his effigy in that fire; they then broke the defendant’s windows, and acted otherwise riotously, by which the defendant was compelled to leave Hammersmith. In consideration of these facts, the affidavit went on to pray a lenient punishment from the Court.