The death of Black Bess, illustration from Rookwood. (Author)
Case Three
The Thief-taker
1723
Suspect:
Jonathan Wild
Age:
Unknown
Charge:
Prison Breaking & Theft
Sentence:
Execution
The ‘golden age’ of highwaymen during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries led to the development of new types of policing. One of these was the ‘thief-taker’ who tracked down criminals and stolen loot in return for large rewards. The most notorious of them all was Jonathan Wild, a godfather-type figure who won the admiration of the country for his ability to catch criminals and to restore stolen goods to their rightful owners.
On 30 August 1721, Wild successfully prosecuted two footpads from Islington on the testimony of their criminal colleagues. The first, a forty-year-old plasterer called John Wigley, was convicted of stealing a silver watch and spurs from a gentleman in Islington even though the victim could not identify him as the robber. The crucial evidence came from Jonathan Wild and the hardened criminal William Burridge. ‘Jonathan Wild deposed that Burridge told him that the prisoner, James Shaw and himself did the Fact. The Prisoner denied the Fact and said that it was a malicious Prosecution in Burridge.’ Wigley was convicted and executed the following week, having confessed to carrying out ‘many robberies’ in Islington. The second, thirty-five-year-old James Reading, was one of three footpads who jumped out of a ditch, pulled George Brownsworth off his horse and made off with his watch, silver spurs, silver buckles and two guineas. Burridge testified that he, Reading and Shaw carried out the robbery together and Reading was duly executed in September 1721. Both of these cases illustrate the sayings ‘No honour among thieves’ and ‘Thieves never prosper’. They also demonstrate that testifying for Wild was no guarantee that you would escape the dock. Before his arrest, James Reading testified against four other criminals and implicated Shaw in at least one robbery. Five months after Reading’s execution Shaw, twenty-eight, was himself sentenced to death for the murder of Philip Potts during a robbery in the parish of St Pancras (which was also said to involve Reading). A month after that Burridge was executed for stealing a horse.
Jonathan Wild being pelted with stones and dirt on the way to the gallows at Tyburn in the back of a cart. (Author)
In truth, Wild’s empire was corrupt to the core; he orchestrated the robberies, kept the stolen goods and after a time returned them to the owners to claim the reward. If any of his thieves turned against him or failed to give him a share of the loot he would pursue them to the gallows. Wild, who lived down the road from the Old Bailey, effectively controlled all crime in London. But eventually he too met a gruesome end – in May 1725 Wild was prosecuted for stealing 50 yards of lace from a shopkeeper and then claiming the reward of ten guineas for returning it. Three months later he was hanged at Tyburn in front of a huge crowd, including the authors Daniel Defoe and Henry Fielding.
Twenty-four years later, Henry Fielding and his brother John founded the Bow Street Runners, London’s first professional police force. Then in 1755, John Fielding published his ‘plan for preventing robberies within twenty miles of London’. Fielding complained that while more robberies took place within 20 miles of London than in the whole country, ‘not one in a hundred of these robbers are taken in the fact’. His solution was the creation of horse patrols; ‘always ready to pursue and attack the most daring villain’. At first these patrols monitored the popular places of entertainment, but by 1763 they circled the whole of London from Pimlico to Highgate and back again via Fulham, Hammersmith, Ealing, Paddington, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Greenwich, Clapham and Wandsworth. Unfortunately, the treasury withdrew its funding the following year and the highwaymen returned; the Prime Minister Lord North, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of York were all robbed on the roads in the 1770s, but the patrols were not brought back until 1805. By then a series of police stations had been established around London, a further step on the slow evolution towards the Metropolitan Police, established in 1829.
Drawing of the Red Lion, from Walter Thornbury’s Old and New London. (Author)
Memories of Jonathan Wild and Dick Turpin were stirred again more than a century after their deaths when demolition workers began clearing old houses in West Street, Clerkenwell, for the building of Farringdon Lane. In one of them they found evidence that it had been used as a thieves’ den. ‘It has all the conveniences of a hiding place, with concealed means of escape in dark closets, sliding panels and secret recesses, and by as many trap doors as in the stage of a theatre,’ claimed the Illustrated London News on 17 August 1844. Crowds gathered at the scene to see for themselves how wanted men of old had evaded the authorities by climbing through a window, crossing the Fleet Ditch over a plank and disappearing down Black Boy Alley and Cow Cross.
View over the Fleet Ditch from the rear of the Old Red Lion, from Old and New London. (Author)
It was claimed that the building at No. 3 West Street (formerly Chick Lane) was once the Red Lion, the reputed haunt of Dick Turpin. According to the Examiner newspaper, the tavern was built by the chief of a tribe of gypsies as a front for their criminal activities, including handling stolen goods and harbouring convicted thieves. Down in the foundations, labourers uncovered two male skeletons, who ‘must have become the victims of the wretches who inhabit this den of infamy and after being murdered, thrown through a trapdoor immediately over the spot’.
Another account suggested that No. 3 West Street was used by the thief-taker Jonathan Wild himself, on the evidence of an old rusty knife found in one of the rooms. According to the Illustrated London News, the blade bore the name of Rippam, and the handle ‘J. Wilde’. Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, on the other hand, claimed that, ‘An old rusty pronged fork, with a silver handle, evidently of very ancient manufacture, was found in the lower part of the premises.’ It was taken to Clerkenwell Police Court and presented for inspection on the basis that ‘it was found in Jonathan Wild’s old house in West Street’.
The Examiner reported: ‘we can find no account of its being the residence of Jonathan Wild, his houses being in the Old Bailey and Wych Street. There is not the slightest doubt, however, that it was one of his principal hoards.’
Yet another account suggested it was a hiding place of Jack Sheppard, a prolific thief and burglar who achieved fame by escaping from prison four times (St Giles’ Roundhouse, Clerkenwell New Prison, and Newgate Prison twice). Sheppard was only twenty-two when he was executed at Tyburn on 16 November 1724, having been convicted at the Old Bailey of housebreaking and theft of 118 yards of woollen cloth. The key witness for the prosecution was Jonathan Wild.
Case Four
A Duel
1712
Suspect:
Patrick French
Age:
Unknown
Charge:
Murder
Sentence:
Found not guilty
On 14 August 1712, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy decided to spend the evening at the theatre. The establishment that Mr Ingram Thwaits chose was one of the most notorious in London: Sadler’s Wells, otherwise known as Miles’ Musick House. Here the paying customer could enjoy all manner of debauchery from drinking and feasting to dancing and fornication. A few years earlier it had been the scene for one of the most disgusting performances ever staged, when the so-called ‘Hibernian Canibal’ ate a whole live cockerel in front of a baying – and vomiting – crowd.
He catch’d him behind the Gills, and snap’d off his Head with as much Slight and Expedition, as a New-England Hog will an Acorn from a Dwarf-Oake, cracking the Skull as nimbly, to come at the Brains, as a Squirrel does a Nutshell, to come at the Kernel; then dipping on’t in a Platter of Sawce, gave it all Mastication together, except the Beak, and down he swallow’d it, Feathers and all, that it might sit the lighter upon his Stomach: Then he clap’
d the Fundament to his Mouth, and dragging out several Yards of Guts, he laid those by him, to East at last; as People do Cheese for Digestion.
Sadler’s Wells in 1756, from Old and New London. (Author)
The theatre was notorious not only because of the entertainment but also the clientele. Mr Thwaits sat in his box in the Gallery with his bottle of cider, would have had a fine view of the cheap seats in the ‘Pit’ below:
Where Butchers and Bailiffs, and such sort of Fellows,
Were mix’d with a Vermin train’d up to the Gallows;
As Buttocks and Files, Housebreakers and Padders,
With Prize-Fighters, Sweetners, and such sort of Traders,
Informers, Thief-Takers, Deer-Stealers and Bullies,
Old Straw-Hatted Whores, with their Twelve-Penny Cullies,
Some Dancing & Skipping, some Ranting & Tearing
Some Drinking and Smoking, some Lying and Swearing
From ‘A Walk to Islington’ (1699)
But Mr Thwaits would not live to see the last act that night. After leaving his box briefly during the performance, he returned to find it had been occupied by Patrick French, a lawyer from Clerkenwell. The stand-off quickly deteriorated into a deadly duel:
Mr Thwaits thereupon demanded his Place, which Mr French readily resign’d; but said afterwards, if he had thought it was not his Place, he would not have parted with it so easily; whereupon Mr Thwaits reply’d, He was a foolish Fellow to think he’d tell him a Lye; immediately upon which, Mr French clapt his Hand upon his Sword, and drew it part out, and then Mr Thwaits and he drew both, and made four or five Passes at each other, and Mr Thwaits fell.
Thwaits, his heart pierced, bled to death within seconds.
A month later French was put on trial at the Old Bailey for murder. He did not deny inflicting the injury but claimed that he had been trying to defend himself. Mr Thwaits was the aggressor and had been the first to draw a weapon, he told the court, and forced him into a corner from which there was no escape. According to Patrick French, he had little choice but to drive his blade into the lieutenant’s chest to a depth of six inches. French also called witnesses to say that the victim was an ill-tempered, quarrelsome man whereas he, French, was ‘a very quiet honest Gentleman, and of very inoffensive conversation.’ French was acquitted by the jury and walked out a free man.
Case Five
The Cricket Field
1797
Suspect:
Martin Clinch & James Mackley
Age:
22
Charge:
Highway Robbery & Murder
Sentence:
Execution
It was a pleasant Sunday evening on 7 May 1797, when Sydney Fryer, a young lawyer and ‘gentleman of considerable property’, set off with his cousin Ann from Southampton buildings at the junction between Holborn and Chancery Lane. Their destination was Islington, up Grays Inn Lane towards Mount Pleasant, the Clerkenwell House of Correction and the edge of the city. Taking the path north from Baynes Row (now Exmouth Street) would have taken them across open fields to a pleasure garden called ‘Merlin’s Cave’, thought to have been built in imitation of an entertainment created at George II’s royal gardens at Richmond in 1735. To the right was the New River Head, Islington Spa and Sadler’s Wells, and to the left across the fields was Bagnigge Wells. The path continued to the reservoir and the New Road. Here they would have briefly been plunged back into an urban landscape as they made their way up Penton Street towards White Conduit House, a popular working-class attraction boasting tree-lined walks, bowling greens, Dutch-pin grounds, boxing matches, a fish pond and a tea house offering buttered rolls and cream.
Behind the house and gardens (which used to stand roughly at the junction of Barnsbury Road and Dewey Road) there was the cricket field, former home of the White Conduit Club which moved to Marylebone and became the MCC in 1787. The path then took Mr Fryer and his cousin through open land towards the ‘Workhouse Field’, so-called because of the workhouse just north of what is now Barnsbury Street. It was here, about three quarters of a mile north of White Conduit House, that Sydney and Ann Fryer heard the sound of a woman in distress.
Drawing of White Conduit House in around 1820, from Old and New London. (Author)
Drawing of White Conduit House from 1731, viewed from the south, in Pinks’ History of Clerkenwell.
Islington in 1780, from Old and New London. (Author)
‘I observed to Mr Fryer that I heard a noise … from the right-hand side,’ said Ann Fryer. ‘He stopped with me to listen and said “There is”, and immediately went over the stile.’ She followed him and saw a man on the other side with a silk handkerchief covering the lower half of his face. Sydney Fryer asked what he was doing. The man’s response was to raise a pistol to Fryer’s head and pull the trigger. There was a flash and a bang and Sydney Fryer fell down into a small pond, a bullet wound just above his left temple. The gunman then calmly went through the stricken Mr Fryer’s pockets, pulled out a watch, and advanced towards Ann.
‘He came up to me with a pistol, and desired me to deliver my money,’ she recalled. ‘My hand trembled and I could not get to my pocket. He said “Make haste, give me your money”, and I gave him my purse.’ A second man appeared and demanded she hand over her black silk cloak. The two robbers then fled.
Ann Fryer ran across the fields to get help at the King’s Arms in Park Place (now Islington Park Street). The landlord, William Rise, roused his neighbours and led them into the fields to collect the injured victim and search for the robbers. It was too late for Mr Fryer – he died two hours later at around eleven o’clock. The culprits had also long since disappeared.
Nine days later, a tip-off led to the arrest of gambling addict and bookbinder Martin Clinch at the Weavers Arms near Finsbury Square. The following evening James Mackley, a printer with the Logographic Press, was taken at the Magpie & Stump in Sun Street, Finsbury. When they were hauled before Worship Street Police Court, Ann Fryer fixed her gaze upon them and declared that Clinch was the first robber and Mackley the man who took her cloak. Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, she repeated her identification of Clinch, pointing him out in the dock. ‘The shortest man in the blue coat, I believe, from my soul, to be the man.’ As for the second robber, she stated that Mackley ‘resembles him in his person’, even though she never saw his face.
The only support for her claims was a sighting of two men in the fields about 200 yards from the scene of the murder, just over an hour before Sydney Fryer was shot. Descriptions of the men varied. Elizabeth Goddard, who was walking through the area with her husband and two sons, described one man as having ‘carrotty hair’ like Mackley’s, and the other as wearing a brown coat and a light waistcoat, but was not prepared to positively identify either prisoner. Her husband Robert said the prisoners ‘very much resembled’ the two men in the fields but added, ‘I am not confident whether those men are the men.’ Their eldest son Robert positively identified Clinch, but thirteen-year-old George Goddard told the court that he had not taken much notice of them and could not help the court either way. However, he did reveal that on his way back home alone from White Conduit House he had seen the same two men sat only 10 yards from the stile where the murder was committed.
The jury were not told that Clinch had been tried for another highway robbery just three months earlier, only to be acquitted after the witness stated he could not be certain of his attackers. Similar problems with witness identification afflicted this case. Could Ann Fryer be certain who was responsible, given her distress at witnessing her cousin’s cold-blooded murder? The judge, Mr Justice Grose, declared that:
Undoubtedly, if you believe the witnesses, it clearly appears that Clinch is the man who committed the fact, and the other is the man who is stated to have been present at the time … it will be for you to judge whether a better and more distinct account could be given by a female, under the circumstance in which she was, and under which she had now
been examined.
Half an hour later, Clinch and Mackley were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death at the age of twenty-two. Clinch thanked the court for the fairness of the trial but insisted that he was no more guilty of murder than Miss Fryer.
Those looking for a sign that an injustice had been done would have been satisfied by the botched nature of the execution. For as Clinch and Mackley waited for the caps to be drawn over their eyes, the entire wooden platform suddenly collapsed. The executioner, his assistant, Clinch’s Catholic priest and Mackley’s Protestant clergyman were all sent crashing to the ground, while the condemned men felt the noose tighten around their necks much earlier than they expected. But the end result was the same and both of their bodies were taken off to be publicly displayed at Apothecaries’ Hall not far from the Old Bailey. Then, as was the custom, they were dissected.
Despite the verdict, it was widely believed that Clinch and Mackley were both innocent of the crime. The Newgate Calendar reported:
When the two men died most of the people were of opinion that their fate was just; but soon after the confessions of three separate criminals, who could have had no interest in taking the crime upon themselves, threw a different light upon the transaction, and recalled to mind the strong assertions which Clinch and Mackley had made of their innocence.
Murder & Crime Page 2