Only five months after William Lewin had been gibbeted for robbing the mails, almost in the same locality Edward Miles robbed and murdered the post-boy carrying the Liverpool mail-bag to Manchester on September 15th, 1791. For this crime he was hanged, and suspended in chains[67] on the Manchester Road, near "The Twysters," where the murder had been committed. In 1845 the irons in which the body had been encased were dug up near the site of the gibbet, and may now be seen in the Warrington Museum. Our illustration is reproduced from a drawing in Mr. Madeley's work, "Some Obsolete Modes of Punishment." It will be observed the irons which enclosed the head are wanting.
MILES'S GIBBET IRONS, WARRINGTON MUSEUM.
Spence Broughton was tried at York, in 1792, for robbing the mail running between Sheffield and Rotherham. He was found guilty, and condemned to be executed at York, and his body to be hung in chains near the place where the robbery had been committed. The gibbet-post (which was the last put up in Yorkshire), with the irons, the skull, and a few other bones and rags, was standing in 1827-28, when it was taken down.[16]
We learn from "The Norfolk and Norwich Remembrancer" (1822), that on May 2nd, 1804, the gibbet on which Payne, the pirate, was hung about 23 years previously, upon Yarmouth North Denes, was taken down by order of the Corporation.
Lincolnshire history supplies some curious details[68] respecting the gibbeting of a man named Tom Otter, in the year 1806. We are told that he was compelled by the old poor law regulations to wed a girl he had injured. He lured her into a secluded spot the day after their marriage, and deliberately murdered her. According to the prevalent custom, Tom Otter's corpse was hung in chains. The day selected for that purpose inaugurated a week of merry-making of the most unseemly character. Booths were pitched near the gibbet, and great numbers of the people came to see the wretch suspended. It is reported that some years later, when the jaw bones had become sufficiently bare to leave a cavity between them, a bird built its nest in this unique position. The discovery of nine young ones therein gave rise to the following triplet still quoted in the neighbourhood:—
"There were nine tongues within the head,
The tenth went out to seek some bread,
To feed the living in the dead."
The gibbet was standing until the year 1850, when it was blown down.
At the Derby March Assizes, 1815, a young man named Anthony Lingard was tried and convicted for murdering Hannah Oliver, a widow,[69] who kept the turnpike-gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell. The following account of the crime is from the Derby Mercury, for March 13th, 1815:—
"On Saturday morning, Anthony Lingard, the younger, aged 21, was put to the bar, charged with the murder (by strangulation) of Hannah Oliver, a widow woman, aged 48 years, who kept the turnpike gate at Wardlow Miers, in the parish of Tideswell, in this county.