Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen

by Abbott, Geoffrey

  The latter offer of access was impossible, of course, Amelia Dyer repeatedly changing her name and address. Women who responded to the advertisement usually handed over a parcel of clothes, ten pounds in cash, a considerable sum in those days, and the baby – which she never saw again.

  When her house was searched by the police, no less than three hundredweight (336 lb) of children’s clothes were found, together with a large number of pawn tickets for baby clothes.

  In May 1896 Amelia appeared in court charged with murdering a four-month-old baby girl named Doris Marmon and a boy, Harry Simmons. Her plea, that she was insane, was not accepted, the jury taking only five minutes to find her guilty, and she was sentenced to death. Confident of a reprieve, doubtless because of her age – she was 57 – she spent her time in the condemned cell praying and writing poems, one of which survives:

  By nature, Lord, I know with grief,

  I am a poor fallen leaf Shrivelled and dry, near unto death

  Driven with sin, as with a breath.

  But if by Grace I am made new,

  Washed in the blood of Jesus, too,

  Like to a lily, I shall stand

  Spotless and pure at His right hand.

  And not content with the hypocritical tone of the verse, she had the appalling gall to sign it ‘Mother’.

  In accordance with the regulations, which stipulated that executions should take place at 8 a.m. on the first day after the intervention of three Sundays from the day on which the sentence was passed – in this case 10 June 1896 – Amelia herself was taken into care, James Billington, the public executioner, a muscular ex-coalminer, having temporarily adopted her. He escorted her up the steps of the scaffold behind the high walls of Newgate Prison and there guided her on to the trapdoors, where he hooded her. The prison bell had already been tolling for the past fifteen minutes and would continue to do so for the same length of time after the execution had taken place. Crowds had gathered outside, waiting to see the regulatory black flag which would be raised on the prison’s flagpole at the moment the trapdoors opened, and also, within the next few minutes, to read the Certificate of Death which had to be displayed near the principal entrance to the prison. They did not have long to wait, for Billington, never one to linger, and no doubt recalling the manner in which Amelia Dyer had strangled her helpless charges, positioned his version of a tape, the noose, around her neck and swiftly operated the drop – sending the cold-blooded killer plummeting into the depths of the pit.

  Whether Amelia’s spirit departed with her, though, is another matter, it being rumoured that her ghost haunted the chief warder’s office for some years following her execution.

  Dyer, Mary (USA)

  In England members of the Society of Friends, founded by George Fox (1624–1691), were unpopular with the populace because they opposed the Presbyterian system in force at the time. As a result of his unceasing and public protests, Fox himself spent some time in prisons in Lancaster, Nottingham and Scarborough. It was hardly to be wondered, therefore, that some Quakers, as they became known, sailed to the New World as colonists in order to spread their beliefs.

  Their activities were far from welcome, many of them being persecuted and harshly punished, in particular by the Puritans in Massachusetts. One of the Quakers was Mary Dyer who, together with two male colleagues, was sentenced to be hanged for returning after being earlier driven out of the colony. On 27 October 1659 they were escorted under armed guard to Boston Common. On attempting to address the large crowd which had assembled, army drummers drowned out their voices – interestingly enough, the same tactics which were used over a hundred years later in France when the Revolutionaries guillotined their king.

  The method of the trio’s execution was identical to that in use at the time at Tyburn, London. After her companions had been executed, Mary, having been blindfolded, was forced to climb the ladder propped against the branch of the tree, the noose already in place around her neck, the other end tied to the branch. The crowd fell silent as the hangman gripped the ladder, preparatory to turning it and causing her to hang, when suddenly it was announced that she had been reprieved. So strong was her faith that almost reluctantly she descended the ladder, to be returned to gaol and from thence to Rhode Island.

  However, the challenge to spread Quaker beliefs was too strong for her. Having already brushed shoulders with death she was aware of the appalling risk she was taking; nevertheless, a few months later, she returned to Boston, only to be arrested again. Clemency was shown once more and she was urged to go into exile again. She would not, so they hanged her.

  At that time, Quakers were indeed cruelly treated. Following the ordeal suffered by one, Mary Clark, it was recounted how: ‘Her tender Body the Hangman unmercifully tore with twenty stripes of a three-fold-cordedknotted whip, as near as he could, all in one place, fetching his Stroakes with the greatest Strength and Advantage.’

  E

  Edmonson, Mary (England)

  Mary was the daughter of a farmer who lived near Leeds, Yorkshire, but had gone to live with her widowed aunt, Mrs Walker, at Rotherham. There Mary lived a decorous way of life and, being a religiously minded young lady, went to the local church regularly. What she was alleged to have done later was totally out of character – if, as some believed, she was indeed guilty of the horrendous crime.

  It seemed that a lady teacher named Toucher had been spending the evening with Mrs Walker, and Mary escorted her across the darkened street afterwards. Some time later a woman who sold oysters and had been crying her wares in the locality, saw that the house door was open and heard Mary call out: ‘Help! Murder! They have killed my aunt!’ Other neighbours, hearing the commotion, ran to help, as did some men who had been drinking in a nearby tavern. On entering the house they were shocked to find Mrs Walker lying on the floor, her head covered with a piece of linen. On removing that, it became horribly apparent that her throat had been cut.

  Mary, apparently almost incoherent, explained that four men had entered the house through the back door and that one of them put his hands round her aunt’s neck. Another man, tall and dressed in black, she said, swore that he would kill her if she spoke a single word.

  Just then one of the neighbours noticed that one of Mary’s arms was cut, and on being asked about the wound, Mary said that one of the men, when leaving, jammed her arm in the door. This sounded so much beyond belief that another neighbour shook his head and accused the girl of committing the murder herself. At his words, Mary fell into a fit and, being carried to a nearby house, was blooded by a surgeon. She remained there until the next day when a coroner’s inquest took place; the verdict being wilful murder, Mary was forthwith committed to prison.

  Investigating her statement that the four mysterious men had entered the house to steal valuables, the police searched every room, only to find a watch and other items alleged to have been stolen, hidden beneath the floorboards in the privy. Mary was held in Kingston Prison until her trial, at which, damned by such evidence, any convincing defence was out of the question.

  On 2 April 1759, only two days after being convicted, she was taken by carriage to the Peacock Inn on Kennington Lane. After a glass of wine there, she was put in a cart and driven to Kennington Common, the public execution site for the county of Surrey. Near St Mark’s Church stood the scaffold (where, only a few years earlier, some of the Jacobite rebels had been hanged, drawn and quartered). There, ignoring her continued assertions of innocence, the hangman, probably Thomas Turlis, deftly hooded and noosed her. To somewhat muted cheers from the crowd, he operated the drop, and after she had hanged for some time, her body was cut down and taken to St Thomas’ Hospital, Southwark, and there dissected ‘in accordance with the laws respecting murderers’.

  In order to control certain ‘stews’ (brothels) in Southwark, London, in 1162, it was ordained by parliament that:

  ‘No stew holder [brothel keeper] or his wife should prevent any single woman [prostitute] from coming an
d going freely at all times, whenever they wished.

  To take no more for the woman’s chamber in the week [rental] than fourteen pence.

  Not to keep his doors open [for clients] upon the holidays [holy days].

  No single woman to be kept against her will that would leave her sin

  [change her way of life].

  No stew holder to receive any woman of religion [nuns, etc.] or any man’s wife.

  No single woman to take any money to lie with any man, unless she lies with him all night till the morrow.

  No man to be drawn or enticed into any stew-house.

  The constables, bailiff and others, every week, to search every stew-house.’

  F

  Flanagan, Catherine and

  Williams, Margaret (England)

  If you have to discuss your latest crime, then whatever you do, do not discuss it within earshot of a policeman! This is the lesson to be learned from this case, which involved Catherine and Margaret, sisters who, in the 1870s, hit on the brilliant idea of taking out insurance policies on various people, without telling them, of course, then murdering them and collecting the insurance money, which they shared out between them.

  As Margaret was housekeeper to a Mr Higgins, it made sense to start with him. Accordingly they took out a policy on him and decided that, while they were at it, they might as well take out one on his elderly aunt – with a different company, naturally. What made it easy was that both their intended victims lived in the same house in Liverpool, so Margaret added a modicum of arsenic, not too little, not too much, first of all to the aunt’s food, and confidently ordered some black attire ready for the funeral. When the time came to wear it, Margaret, as befits a faithful servant, was overcome with grief at the graveside; after which, she contacted the insurance company and shared the proceeds with her sister.

  Mr Higgins was the next to savour one of his housekeeper’s special recipes, the result being one that no amount of liver salts could cure. Catherine, wishing to play her part and earn her fifty per cent, joined Margaret at the funeral service, suitably sobbing into her black-edged hanky. Another insurance company subsequently paid up.

  From then on it was all systems go; it is not known how many friends and relatives were assisted in shuffling off this mortal coil with a nasty taste in their mouths, nor how many more cheques signed by the treasurers of insurance companies would have dropped through their letterboxes, had not the two, like sisters all over the world, argued with each other. Perhaps the sister who bought the arsenic thought the percentage should be 60/40 in her favour; maybe the one who actually stirred it into the spicy bowl of soup thought she was doing all the work and so deserved 75 per cent. And if they were going to argue at all, the last place in which the disagreement should have taken place was in the cellar where they usually met to decide the division of the spoils. As sometimes happens in family rows, abusive language was used, voices were raised, and a vigilant policeman, patrolling the street, paused to listen intently to the heated disagreement which was coming via the grating at his feet. He did not need to be Sherlock Holmes to realise exactly what was being debated so vehemently, nor who was involved; entering the house he promptly arrested both of them.

  During the subsequent post-mortems carried out on the corpses of Mr Higgins and his aunt, arsenic was found to have been the cause of death. Both sisters were sentenced to be hanged on 31 August 1874, that date bringing what little luck they had left, for had they been found out and sentenced prior to July of that year, their hangman would have been William Calcraft, the rope they would have been suspended by would have been little more than three feet in length, and they would have died by being painfully and slowly strangled. As it was, Calcraft had just retired, his place on the scaffold having been taken by William Marwood, a more humane man who varied the rope length by gauging the victim’s weight and similar factors, thereby bringing death almost, though not always, instantaneously.

  In that respect at least, the sisters Margaret and Catherine were a lot luckier than their victims.

  In the court at Taunton, Somerset, in 1746, Mary Hamilton, alias Charles Hamilton, alias George Hamilton, alias William Hamilton, appeared accused of marrying no fewer than fourteen members of her own sex! Mary Price, her latest ‘spouse’ swore that she was lawfully married to the prisoner and that they had lived and bedded together as man and wife for more than three months, ‘during which time, so well did the impostor assume the character of a man that she still actually believed she had married a fellow-creature of the right and proper sex. At length she became distrustful and on comparing certain circumstances with her neighbours, became convinced that Mary Hamilton had acted the part of Charles Hamilton towards her by the vilest and most deceitful practices.’

  After hearing the evidence, the judge decreed ‘that the he, she, prisoner at the bar, is an uncommon cheat, and we, the Court, do sentence her or him, whichever he or she may be, to be for imprisoned for six months and during that time to be whipped in the towns of Taunton, Glastonbury, Wells and Shepton Mallet.’

  Oh, to have overheard the conversation between Mary Price and her neighbours!

  G

  Gaunt, Elizabeth (England)

  One day in 1683 Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York, visited the races at Newmarket. Their route home led past Rye House Farm in Hertfordshire, and it was there that an ambush had been prepared, with the intention of assassinating both royals and replacing them with a Protestant monarch. At one point hedges lined the road, and it was planned that horsemen, charging from both directions, would suddenly attack the party. However, the attempt failed, both King and Duke managing to escape.

  One of the would-be killers was a man named James Burton; frantic to avoid capture for the sake of his family, he sought refuge with a poor widow, Elizabeth Gaunt, who gave him food and shelter. Out of Christian charity she contacted friends who arranged a passage to Holland for him.

  Two years later James, Duke of Monmouth, raised a small and ineffectual army of peasants and marched to London in a futile bid to overthrow King James. One who joined his forces was James Burton, back from Holland. The attack on London was a disastrous failure and Monmouth was beheaded on Tower Hill by order of the King. Burton managed to escape and, remembering the sanctuary given to him on the previous occasion, again sought Elizabeth Gaunt’s help. For some reason she was unable to do so; however, a woman neighbour of hers persuaded her husband, Mr Fernley, a barber, to give him shelter. But the lot of Good Samaritans is a hard one, for when Burton was eventually captured, to save his own precious skin he named his benefactors and in court gave fatally incriminating evidence against them.

  The result was inevitable. Elizabeth was found guilty, the judge, in pronouncing the death sentence, saying:

  The said Elizabeth Gaunt, well-knowing one James Burton to be a False Traitor and Rebel, in a certain House to the jurors unknown, did knowingly and traitorously sustain and maintain with Meat, Drink and Five Pounds in money, for the maintenance and sustenance of the said James Burton, did maliciously and traitorously deliver against the Duty of her Allegiance.

  In the condemned cell Elizabeth composed her last speech:

  I did but relieve an unworthy, poor, distressed family, and lo, I must die for it; well, I desire in the Lamb-like nature of the Gospel to forgive all that are concerned, and to say, Lord, lay it not to their charge; but I fear it will not; nay I believe, when He comes to make inquisition for blood, it will be found at the door of the furious Judge: my blood will also be found at the door of the unrighteous Jury, who found me guilty upon the single oath of an out-lawd man.

  The barber Fernley was also sentenced to death, and was hanged at Tyburn in October 1685, where, on the 23rd of that month, Elizabeth Gaunt was burned at the stake. Quaker William Penn, himself once a prisoner in the Tower, was at Tyburn that day and afterwards told a colleague that ‘she laid the straw about her for burning herself speedily, and behaved herself in such a mann
er that all the spectators melted in tears.’

  Unfortunately the fate of James Burton is not known, but he is hardly likely to have been given a medal.

  Because in earlier centuries people in general were so poor and owned few possessions, theft was considered a heinous crime and was severely punished. In Doncaster on 23 May 1789 Mary Ashford found out how true this was when, having stolen two pieces of muslin, she was sentenced to be publicly whipped through the marketplace. She was tied with cords to the back of a horse-drawn cart and taken from the gaol along St Sepulchre’s Gate, Baxter Gate, Market Place, Scot Lane, High Street, and so back to the gaol, having received a thorough flogging from the under-gaoler. ‘Salt and brandy were applied to her lacerated back and shoulders’ the prison records stated.