Jane Austen's England

by Roy Adkins,Lesley Adkins

  Nearly all urban centres had their own gallows, usually erected for a particular execution and dismantled afterwards, and occasionally criminals were hanged at the scene of their crime. Following execution, the body might be ‘hung in chains’ in a public place as a warning to others – this involved the corpse being bound by iron chains or fitted into a cage of iron bands to hold it together while it rotted. Sometimes the corpse was coated with tar to delay putrefaction. In March 1785 Woodforde remarked on the trials at Thetford in Norfolk:

  At the Assizes at Thetford in this county 8 Prisoners were condemned, three of the above were reprieved. The other five left for execution. One Js Cliffen a most daring fellow was hanged…on Thursday last at Norwich on Castle-Hill and behaved most daringly audacious. His crime was robbing 2 old men, brothers, by names Seaman on the Yaxham Road, knocked them both down first of which blows one of them died soon after; the other recovered. Cliffen’s body was this day carried to Badley Moor and there hung in chains at one corner of the said moor.83

  Over a week later Woodforde and a manservant ‘took a ride…thro’ Hockering, North-Tuddenham to Baddeley Moor where Cliffen stands in chains, most shocking road all around where he stands…thought we should have been mired’.84

  Gibbets with corpses suspended from them were such features of the landscape that they were landmarks for travellers, and Johnson Grant described the Sheffield neighbourhood ‘adorned with men hanging in chains’.85 Gibbets were commonly set up on waste ground within sight of thoroughfares, but one anonymous author of the poem ‘On The New Gibbet On Hounslow Heath’ considered some were too close to the highway, causing a foul stench:

  In former times, whene’er in chains

  Judges hung rogues up, like Jack Hains,

  Whose Gibbets, Hounslow-heath adorning,

  To their old fellow-rogues gave warning,

  ‘Twas thought the Gibbets did their duty

  If they stood near enough to shew t’ye

  Their tenants in a distant ken,

  Far from the highway path of men.

  So distant stood they, no offence

  Was giv’n to any other sense.

  But K_ _, or some Judge as wise,

  Not satisfied to strike our eyes,

  Now sets his gibbet at our noses;

  And, forasmuch as he supposes

  That folks may turn their head or wink,

  He makes examples by the stink.86

  Whatever remained of the corpse was eventually taken down and buried in unconsecrated ground. In Reading in the early 1800s Darter saw one that was discovered ‘in sinking a grave at the north-west corner of the churchyard (as you enter to the Butts); it seemed perfect, but it had on the legs and wrists, rings with a chain which were attached to a ring in the centre; on inquiry I was informed that this man must have been hung in chains, as the ground where the body lay was for many years appropriated to the burial of those who were executed at Gallows Tree Common.’87

  In the eyes of the law, criminals found guilty of treason deserved the harshest penalties of all. Women were burned at the stake, while men were hung, drawn and quartered. In 1782 David Tyrie was put on trial at Winchester Assizes for

  falsely, wickedly, and traitorously, (being a subject of Great Britain) compassing, imagining and intending, the king of and from the royal state, crown, title, power, and government of Great Britain, to depose and wholly deprive; and the king to kill, and bring and put to death, and to fulfil, perfect, and bring to effect, his treason, compassings and imaginations, as such a false traitor, falsely, wickedly and traitorously composing and writing, and causing to be composed and wrote, divers letters.88

  The indictment goes on at length in this overblown legal language, but basically Tyrie had been caught sending letters to the French giving sensitive strategic information about the Royal Navy. As a clerk in a naval office at Portsmouth, he was well placed to obtain such information.

  There was little doubt that Tyrie was guilty of spying, and he was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered at Portsmouth on 24 August 1782:

  The Crowd of People of all Ranks assembled by Four o’Clock this Morning at the Gates of the Gaol to see Tyrie set off for the Place of Execution, was very great. About Five o’Clock he was put into a Coach with six Horses, attended by the Ordinary, Under Sheriff, Gaoler, &c. and conveyed to Portsmouth, where being delivered up to the Mayor and Police of the Town, he was drawn on a Sledge to the Place of Execution. After praying a little Time he was turned off, and hanged till almost dead; was then cut down, his head severed from his Body, his Bowels taken out, and his Heart shewed to the surrounding Multitude, and then thrown into a Fire made for that Purpose; the Body was then quartered, and put into a Coffin. The Concourse of People was immense, and such was the singular Avarice of many who were near the Body, that happy was he who could procure a Finger, or some Vestige of the Criminal.89

  Tyrie was the last man to be executed in this way. Although men in later trials were given the same sentence, they were simply hanged or else hanged and their corpse beheaded.

  Other treasonable offences included counterfeiting, and in 1789 husband and wife ‘Hugh and Christian Bowman were convicted of counterfeiting divers pieces of base metal so as to resemble shillings and sixpences.’90 Christian was taken from Newgate and ‘chained to the stake, placed a few yards nearer Newgate-street than the scaffold, and a stool being taken from beneath her feet, she was suspended by the neck for near half an hour, when the faggots surrounding her were set on fire, and her body was consumed to ashes’.91 Because this kind of execution was unusual, her story was quickly written and printed as a chapbook, described as ‘The Life and Death of Christian Bowman, Alias Murphy; Who was burnt at a Stake, in the Old Bailey, on Wednesday the 18th of March 1789 for High Treason in feloniously and traitorously counterfeiting the Silver Coin of the Realm. Containing her Birth and Parentage, youthful Adventures, Love Amours, fatal Marriage, unhappy Connections, and untimely Death.’92

  The law changed the following year, 1790, and the sentence for such crimes for both men and women was reduced to hanging or transportation. Those convicted of capital crimes were being increasingly sentenced to transportation, and many people condemned to death were reprieved and transported. It was not until the 1820s—30s that the death penalty was abolished for numerous lesser offences – the last person hanged for stealing a sheep was executed in 1831.93

  Surprisingly, riots were not generally punished by death or transportation, unless the rioters were guilty of other crimes, and people were certainly not deterred from protesting against personal hardships like lack of work and food. Some riots were more sinister, verging on revolution, and summoning the troops was often the only way of quelling them. On 29 October 1795 Woodforde and his niece Nancy witnessed an assassination attempt on George III during a riot in London:

  As we heard when we got to London that the Sessions of Parliament was to be opened this day, at one o’clock I walked with Nancy to St. James’s Park about half a mile, where at two o’clock or rather after we saw the King go in his State Coach drawn with eight fine cream-coloured horses in red morrocco-leather harness, to the House of Lords. The Park was uncommonly crouded indeed, never was known a greater concourse of people before, and I am very [sorry] to insert that his Majesty was very grossly insulted by some of the Mob, and had a very narrow escape of being killed going to the House, a ball [bullet] passing thro’ the windows as he went thro’ old Palace-Yard, supposed to be discharged from an air gun, but very fortunately did not strike the King or Lords.94

  The jeers of the crowd that day were mingled with shouts of ‘Give us peace and bread!’, ‘No war!’, and ‘No King!’95 – as ever, the king and his government were blamed for prices having risen to famine levels, causing widespread hardship. It was with some difficulty that a strong force of Guards enabled the royal coach to reach Parliament.

  The crowd did not disperse, and Woodforde watched as the king departed:

 
; On his return from the House to James’s Palace he was very much hissed and hooted at, and on his going from St. James’s to the Queen’s Palace in his private coach, he had another very lucky escape, as the mob surrounded his coach and one of them was going to open the door but the Horse Guards coming up very providentially at the time, prevented any further danger. The state-coach windows going from St. James’s to the Mews were broke all to pieces by the Mob, but no other damage done to the coach…The Mob was composed of the most violent and lowest Democrats. Thank God the King received no injury whatever, neither did we as it happened…It was said that there were near two hundred thousand people in St. James Park about 3 o’clock. I never was in such a croud in all my Life.96

  This was by no means the largest riot of the era. Serious disturbances had taken place four years earlier in Birmingham against dissenters, and before that anti-Catholic riots had terrified London in early June 1780, incited by Lord George Gordon. For several days, the mob effectively had a free hand, despite being confronted by troops.97 Many buildings were set ablaze and several prisons destroyed, including Newgate and the Fleet. It was the worst riot in London’s history and was brought under control only when large numbers of troops were ordered into the capital with instructions to shoot to kill.

  Riots on a smaller scale were endemic, and Woodforde’s diaries are littered with incidents. At the beginning of 1801, another year of shortages, successive entries show the growing unrest, as in early April: ‘A great many mobs or risings of the poor in many parts of the country, said to be owing to the enormous price that wheat is at, risings in Somersetshire particularly named. Pray God! preserve our friends we have there.’98 Only five days later he noted: ‘Mobs in the West of England, Plymouth, Wellington and other places on account of the dearness of corn and other provisions – some lives lost.’99 Many disturbances were not true riots but the actions of desperate crowds, often of angry women, whose purpose was to force a farmer, miller or baker to sell at the old uninflated prices. Although such actions were illegal, many sympathetic magistrates ignored them, particularly if no violence was used.

  People were trying to survive in difficult circumstances, and one way was through the crimes of smuggling and buying goods from smugglers, something that people of all classes did. Because taxes on imported goods were particularly resented, there was no stigma in purchasing smuggled goods. Even clergymen happily bought from smugglers, though people with status were fearful of informers. In October 1792 Woodforde recorded: ‘John Buck, the blacksmith, who was lately informed against for having a tub of gin found in his house that was smuggled, by two excise officers, was pretty easy fined’100 – something of an understatement, since Buck was a key smuggler in that part of Norfolk. Smugglers were shielded because few people would testify against them, and even magistrates were their customers. Some of the elite actually financed smuggling ventures and were powerful enough to influence or bribe the authorities to protect their associates.

  So many people were involved in smuggling that it was only a partially covert trade. Smugglers were often surprisingly open about their activities, and it was not unusual to come across caravans of smuggled goods comprising more than a hundred packhorses or a long string of carts. One day in September 1790 John Byng stopped at an inn at Aylesford in Kent and gazed enviously at some fine horses: ‘We saw, whilst at dinner, a gang of well-mounted smugglers pass by. How often have I wish’d to be able to purchase a horse from their excellent stables.’101

  Such gangs often outnumbered the excisemen, who dared not tackle them or were easily bribed to stay away. Occasionally, excisemen were keen to publicise significant captures, as in June 1792 when The Times reported: ‘A gang of near 100 smugglers, a few nights since, were overtaken by the Supervisor of Yarmouth, and three other officers, near Helmsley Beech, and, with very little resistance, had seven carts and eight horses taken from them, containing 1012 gallons of gin, and 200 wt. [2 cwt] of tobacco, the largest seizure ever remembered by so small a number of persons.’102

  The biggest single market was London, where smuggled merchandise was openly peddled in the streets, something that Benjamin Silliman noticed:

  as I was returning home from the strand, a short fat man, in a scarlet waistcoat, addressed me in this style; ‘young gentleman-sir-your honour!’ So many titles, in such rapid succession, made me stop short, when he put his mouth to my ear, and said in a low voice; ‘I have got some nice French cambric, will you buy?’…To-day, while I was passing rapidly along Holborn, a fellow singled me out with his eye, and after following me a few paces through the crowd, said with a low, cautious voice, ‘sir, sir, will you buy a little French cambric? I have some very fine’…They were undoubtedly smugglers of that article, and had either evaded or defied the laws of the country.103

  With London expanding at a rapid rate, there was a growing market for both legal and illicit goods, and all kinds of criminals besides smugglers were attracted to the city. It was effectively a boom town, seen as a place of boundless opportunities. In the popular comedy The Heir-at-Law by George Colman the Younger, first performed in 1797, one character sings a few lines conveying that message:

  Oh, London is a fine town,

  A very famous city,

  Where all the streets are paved with gold,

  And all the maidens pretty.104

  Not everyone took such a rose-tinted view, and visitors from the countryside rightly saw the city as the crime capital of England. William Jones in 1803 summed up the views of many: ‘Returned from Town last night, where I had been since Wedny., & I never came home with more pleasure. Nothing, I think, could tempt me to live in London; indeed, its bustle, & dissipation, (without taking its fog & variety of stench into account), would soon destroy me.’105

  ELEVEN

  MEDICINE MEN

  Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.

  Emma, by Jane Austen

  Illness or accident could happen to anyone, irrespective of their rank in society, but how they were treated depended on what they could afford to pay. In October 1815 Jane Austen’s brother Henry was seriously ill in London. ‘Henry is an excellent patient, lies quietly in bed and is ready to swallow anything,’ she told Cassandra. ‘He lives upon medicine, tea and barley water.’1 It is unlikely that his medicine was proving beneficial, because so little was understood of the nature of illnesses, infection and treatment. Even minor medical complaints generated fear, and unexplained deaths were especially unnerving.

  Letters and diaries of the time are littered with obsessive details of daily evacuations and putrid discharges, all trying to make sense of the body’s behaviour. ‘I have had an attack of my old complaint,’ Nelly Weeton confided in a letter to her brother Tom in 1809,

  a pain at my stomach, brought on by eating sallad with a little vinegar, and drinking milk to it. The milk turned sour, and came up again as black as ink; and from that time till within these two days I have scarcely been able to crawl. My appetite was quite gone. Last Saturday I ventured to get an emetic at a Druggist’s. I took it that afternoon, and got up an amazing quantity of yellow stuff, since which time I have recovered rapidly.2

  While medical knowledge advanced slowly, deep ignorance prevailed. The world of superstition merged imperceptibly into that of folk wisdom, and much was blamed on the weather or the moon. Before going to the expense of calling on a professional medical man, it was customary to try remedies known to the family or possibly a local healer. Alternatively, information was obtained from the growing number of medical books or herbalist manuals such as Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. James Woodforde habitually tried such cures. In his diary for 23 March 1779 he described a method of first aid: ‘in shaving my face this morning I happened to cut one of my moles which bled much, and happening also to kill a small moth that was flying about, I applied it to my mole and it instantaneously stopped the bleeding’.3 On another occasion he had a painful sty:

  The stiony on my right eye-lid still swelled
and inflamed very much. As it is commonly said that the eye-lid being rubbed by the tail of a black cat would do it much good if not entirely cure it, and having a black cat, a little before dinner I made a trial of it, and very soon after dinner I found my eye-lid much abated of the swelling and almost free from pain. I cannot therefore but conclude it to be of the greatest service to a stiony on the eye-lid. Any other cats tail may have the above effect in all probability – but I did my eye-lid with my own black tom cat’s tail.4

  After putting his faith in a feline cure, his eye worsened: ‘My right eye again, that is, its eye-lid much inflamed again and rather painful. I put on a plaistor to it this morning, but in the aft[ernoon] took it of[f] again, as I perceived no good from it.’5 The following day brought mixed results: ‘My eye-lid is I think rather better than it was, I bathed it with warm milk and water last night. I took a little rhubarb going to bed to night. My eye-lid about noon rather worse owing perhaps to the warm milk and water, therefore just before dinner I washed it well with cold water and in the evening appeared much better for it.’6

  The root of rhubarb, dried and powdered for medicinal purposes, was a popular cure-all, and in February 1807 William Holland wrote down a description of how it was used:

  [I] mounted my horse and rode to farmer Morle. He seemed poorly and feverish and had a bad cough. I told him he should take something. He answer’d that he did not like doctor’s stuff. I asked him whether he had got any rhubarb. He believ’d there was some so they brought sad stuff. However I called for a grater, put my hand in my pocket and took out a lump of rhubarb and grated it and then some ginger and mixed all together and then had some brandy and water and made him presently a draught and off it went and they all seemed wonderfully pleased.7