London to Witt
In Pursuance of an Act of Parliament made in the Thirty second year of King Henry the Eighth and of an order of Sessions bearing date the eighth day of July in the Fifteenth year of our late Sovereign Lord King Charles the First Sir Maurice Abbott Mayor. Wee do order and command our Officers who are entrusted with or attend the execution of such Malefactors as shall be to dye at any time hereafter during our Sheriffalty to deliver to Henry Gretton and William Littlebury Beadles of the Company of Barbers and Surgeons of London or such other Officer or Officers as the Company shall appoint, One of the Bodys of the said Malefactors from time to time for a publick Dissection and to assist them with the said body to their Hall according to an Order of the Court of Aldermen of the Thirteenth of February 1675[221] Sir William Hooker Mayor and to two other subsequent Orders of the Court of Aldermen one bearing date the fourth day of February the other the fourth day of March 1728[222] Sir Robert Baylis Knight Lord Mayor.
Given under our hands this 29th day of September 1735.
Jno Barnard
Rot Godschall.
1st June, 1736. It is ordered that the Constables of the Holborn Division shall be allowed Three Guineas and a halfe above the Guinea already paid them in regard to their expences at the last execution, when the Body was taken from the Beadles and retaken by the Constables and the Clerk is ordered to repay the same But the Clerk is not to pay the officers of the Compter the Two guineas usually received by them at every execution.
24th September, 1741. John Thrift the Executioner this day attended on a complaint made against him by the Beadles for obstructing the Bodys being brought from Tyburne to the Hall for dissection and threatning to prevent the Company’s measures for obtaining the same, when after he had been reproved, was Dismissed, But the Court then agreed (in order to prevent his intended proceedings) to attend the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen that they may on complaint made be releived therein.
18th December, 1741. Ordered that the High Constable of Holburne be allowed Ten shillings and sixpence as his ffee for every Body that shall be brought from Tyburne and delivered at this Company’s Hall and for his aiding and assisting the Company’s Beadles therein and not otherwise.
10th February, 1742. The Court either forgetting or ignoring their order of 7th May, 1713, now ordered that Mr. William Skelton, a proctor in Doctors’ Commons, who had for many years past received five guineas annually as Caveat money (being Registrar of the Bishop of London) and “pretended to be allowed him by this Company on account of his Lordship’s Grant for the Prohibiting of Surgeons to practice within his Diocese be no longer entitled to such fee untill such time as this Court shall be better informed of the nature of his right of demanding the same.”
23rd November, 1740. Great consternation prevailed at the Hall in consequence of a malefactor who had been hung at Tyburn having revived when brought here for dissection. The account of this remarkable occurrence is recorded by the Clerk, Mr. Joseph Wheeler, on the last page of the rough Minute Book 1738–1742, and is very interesting. From the record of his trial at the Old Bailey (see Sessions Papers) Duell appears to have been an outrageous young scoundrel. A popular impression prevails, and frequent currency has been given to it, that Duell subsequently made a fortune abroad and out of gratitude to the Barber-Surgeons for saving his life, presented them with the handsome leather folding screen now in the Court Room, the best answer to which is, that the screen in question is referred to in the Company’s Inventory some thirty years previously to Mr. Duell’s visit to Tyburn.