by Alan Brooke
His replacement went by the name of Banks (mentioned overleaf) and he was appointed in November 1717. He hanged the Marquis de Paleotti at Tyburn in March 1718. This unsavoury young man was an Italian who had an argument with his servant which ended when he ran him through with a sword, killing him. Banks seems to have served as hangman for only a short time because the records show a Richard Arnet acting as executioner in 1719. It may have been Arnet who hanged Jack Sheppard. This would have made him extremely unpopular with the London crowds who adored the slippery and resourceful Sheppard. It was probably Arnet who hanged and burned Barbara Spencer in 1721. Her crime was coining, which was punishable as high treason. In 1726 Arnet carried out the same method of execution on the killer Catherine Hayes. In 1725 Arnet had hanged an extortionist named Smith. This would have been a fairly run-of-the-mill event but it was much enlivened when Smith, who had chosen to wear a shroud on the journey from Newgate to Tyburn as a symbol of his penitence, tried to escape. He jumped out of the cart and, elbowing members of the crowd aside, attempted to get away. Unfortunately a running man dressed in a shroud was rather conspicuous and he was quickly recaptured. He was put back in the cart and the procession continued to Tyburn, where Arnet made short work of him. The crowd, however, would have been well satisfied with the day’s entertainment.
John Hooper was appointed hangman in August 1728. There was much that was literally butchery in the work of men like Hooper at this time. In 1731, for example, he was required to inflict punishment on a forger named Japhet Crook. He was placed in the pillory at Charing Cross for an hour after which Hooper had to slice off his ears with a sharp knife and then hold them up triumphantly to the watching crowd. As if this was not punishment enough, Hooper then had to slit Crook’s nostrils with scissors whereupon a surgeon cauterised the wound. It could be argued that anyone whose job required them to carry out such appalling barbarities needed a sense of humour and Hooper was indeed famous for his. Nicknamed ‘the Laughing Hangman’, he had a reputation for clowning on the scaffold and for his fund of humorous repartee. It is unlikely that his victims appreciated a flood of jokes and witty banter on the scaffold when they were forced to make Hooper’s acquaintance. Towards the end of his career, Hooper was disciplined for selling corpses to surgeons who ran private teaching schools. Like so many others in his trade, he had made the most of all the possible perquisites on offer.
His successor was John Thrift whose career lasted almost eighteen years, a long time to spend in such a fraught occupation. What makes it more extraordinary is that Thrift was a man of very nervous temperament who had even more active criminal tendencies than most in his trade. Trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went. On one occasion he hanged a man called Thomas Reynolds. When his life was reckoned extinct, Reynolds was cut down and placed in his waiting coffin. No sooner was this done than to the crowd’s great delight he sat up! Thrift’s response was to get him back on to the scaffold and have another go at hanging him. The crowd was incensed by this, adhering to the old-fashioned idea that you should not be punished twice for the same crime. They charged the scaffold, beat Thrift up and, seizing Reynolds, carried him off to seek medical attention, although he died soon afterwards. There was at least one other occasion on which a felon hanged by Thrift returned to life afterwards. Thrift was involved in the hanging of convicted pirates at Execution Dock and in meting out retribution to supporters of Charles Edward Stuart (1720–88), known as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’. The latter’s attempt to win the throne by force of arms was finally suppressed in 1746 and it fell to Thrift to execute many of the rebels. In July 1746 nine of them were hanged, drawn and quartered by Thrift on Kennington Common. He seems to have coped with this task perfectly well but it was another matter when it came to beheading Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino on Tower Hill. It seems that Thrift was quite happy to browbeat and bully those who were of plebeian origins but it was quite another matter when it came to patricians. His behaviour then turned into a nervous and cringing obsequiousness. He was drunk and nauseatingly apologetic. He did, however, manage to draw on his professional expertise to remove Lord Kilmarnock’s noble head with just one blow. Lord Balmerino fared less well. Thrift took three blows to sever his head. Shortly afterwards it fell to Thrift to execute the egregious rapist Lord Lovat. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Lovat, in spite of his title, was of less than aristocratic origins or that the crowd were wholeheartedly repelled by him, that enabled Thrift to treat the crowd to a copy-book decapitation. Over his long career, Thrift made many enemies and in 1750 became involved in a scuffle with a hostile and insulting crowd. In the confusion, someone in the crowd was killed and Thrift found himself charged with murder. Although found guilty, he was sentenced to transportation rather than hanging and finally given a free pardon. He seems to have resumed his duties but to have died not long afterwards.
Thomas Turlis succeeded Thrift and he had the job of hanging that aristocratic scapegrace, Laurence Shirley, the 4th Earl Ferrers. This man was totally without redeeming features but is remembered in penal history as the only English peer who was hanged for murder rather than being beheaded. He died at Tyburn on 5 May 1760. In 1761 Turlis hanged a Swiss artist called Theodore Gardelle who murdered his landlady and after dismembering her, unsuc-cessfully tried to dispose of the pieces. Gardelle was hanged in the Haymarket. In 1763 Turlis had the strange job of publicly burning an edition of the radical journal North Briton. This was published and largely written by John Wilkes (1727–97) and was virulently critical of the King, the church hierarchy and many of the politicians of the day. Its iconoclastic zeal reached a peak in issue No.45 when Wilkes accused King George III of systematic lying. Wilkes was prosecuted for seditious libel and imprisoned. Londoners, however, loved him for his irreverent attitudes and acerbic wit. The burning was intended to symbolise an execution and a large and angry crowd turned out in front of the Royal Exchange yelling insults at the authorities. A fire was started on to which Turlis began to drop pages from the North Briton but this enraged the crowd, who started bombarding everybody who looked official with mud and stones. Turlis just about managed to do the job before having to run for his life. Wilkes, incidentally, was renowned for the speed of his repartee. On one occasion an eminent and powerful political enemy warned him, ‘You will either die of a pox or on the gallows.’ Wilkes’s lightning riposte is reputed to have been, ‘That depends, my Lord, on whether I embrace your mistress or your principles.’ It was Turlis who hanged the savage murderess Elizabeth Brownrigg at Tyburn on 14 September 1767. He died unexpectedly in April 1771 just after he had carried out a hanging at Kingston-on-Thames.
Turlis was followed by Edward Dennis. He had only held office for a short time when he was required to hang a young woman called Mary Jones at Tyburn. Her crime was that of stealing muslin valued at £5 5s. She was destitute and her children starving. The tragedy of the premature and savage end to her tragic life encapsulates the brutality of the ‘Bloody Code’ as it impinged on the poor and largely powerless victims of Britain’s transformation into an urban and industrial society. The most famous victim of Dennis was almost certainly the Revd William Dodd who had been sentenced to death for forgery but whose reputation as the perpetrator of good works meant that many eminent people had rallied to his defence. Dennis must have acquired something of a taste for despatching clergymen, because two years later, in 1779, he officiated at the hanging of the Revd James Hackman. In a fit of uncontrollable jealousy Hackman had murdered a young woman who, as they said in those days, had ‘thrown him over’. The tendency of hangmen to find themselves on the wrong side of the law has already been commented upon and Dennis was no exception. Implicated in the looting of a Catholic shopkeeper’s premises in High Holborn during the Gordon Riots of 1780, he was found guilty and sentenced to death but eventually pardoned. This may have had less to do with clemency and more with expediency because it seems that the hangmen brought in to replace Dennis were hopelessly incompetent. He was restored t
o his role and probably acted as hangman at the last executions performed at Tyburn.
There was a multitude of other sites in London used regularly, occasionally or in some cases only once, for executions. On 8 February 1570 John Felton was dragged on a hurdle to St Paul’s churchyard where he was hanged, drawn and quartered. His crime had been brazenly to walk up to the gate of the Bishop of London’s palace and affix to it a copy of Pope Pius V’s bull excommunicating Elizabeth I. This absolutely infuriated the Queen and her ministers, whose spies quickly got to work and identified Felton as the perpetrator of this affront. He was set on the rack, as a consequence of which he confessed and the vicinity of St Paul’s was deemed an appropriate place for him to be punished and executed. Other heretics went to their deaths at the same place.
Sometimes executions were held close to where the crimes themselves had been committed. This was intended to impress on the neighbourhood the majesty of the law and its power of retribution. A well-known example occurred in 1517 after the so-called ‘Evil May Day’. There had been extensive riots in the City aimed primarily at the growing number of foreign merchants and craftsmen who were establishing businesses in the area. Over a dozen of the ringleaders were hanged, drawn and quartered in such places as Aldersgate, Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate and Aldgate where their crimes had allegedly been carried out.
In his Diary Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) described a large crowd in Leadenhall Street that had turned out to watch the execution of Colonel Turner. The onlookers were becoming extremely restive because of the tediously lengthy valedictory speech that Turner was delivering. Pepys himself complained about Turner’s wordiness and because he had paid good money to stand on a cartwheel to obtain a better view of the proceedings. So drawn-out was the speech that he suffered painful cramps, had to climb down and missed the denouement.
In Cheapside close to the church of St Mary-le-Bow was a fountain called the Standard which was an important place for the meting out of punishment. In 1293 three men had their right hands cut off there because they had rescued a prisoner from the clutches of the authorities. In 1326 Walter de Stapleton, Treasurer to Edward II, was beheaded. In 1340 two fishmongers were executed for striking the Lord Mayor of London during a riot. During the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 Wat Tyler beheaded Richard Lions at Cheapside, and similarly in Cade’s Rebellion, in 1450, Jack Cade decapitated Lord Saye and Sele. The heads of executed felons were frequently exhibited briefly at Cheapside before being despatched to London Bridge or the Tower for longer-term display.
‘Execution Dock’ was not a dock at all but gained that ironic name because it was the location where many of the most notorious pirates ended their days. It was on the north side of the Thames about a mile downstream from the Tower. The gallows were erected on the shore close to the low-tide mark. The pirates were hanged and their bodies were left to be overwhelmed by the incoming tide. The custom was to allow three tides to pass over them, after which the bodies were removed. This may seem a curious custom but it was to stress that the crimes for which they had been punished had been perpetrated in tidal waters which were under the jurisdiction of the Admiralty. Among those who died at Execution Dock were the notorious Captain Kidd and a less well-known pirate called John Gow who was immortalised by Sir Walter Scott, the prolific Scottish writer of historical fiction, who made Gow the central figure in his novel The Pirate.
The Neckinger is a short, small stream now flowing underground from the Elephant and Castle area through Bermondsey to enter the Thames a few hundred yards east of Tower Bridge at a tidal inlet that was known as St Saviour’s Dock. It is one of the few of London’s hidden rivers easily accessible to the public at the point where it enters the Thames. A walkway now crosses the rather uninspiring muddy creek where the Neckinger and the Thames become one. The Neckinger gained its curious name from the fact that it also was used as a place for the execution of pirates, perhaps those who plundered shipping on the Thames rather than on the high seas. The rope with which they were hanged was known as the ‘Devil’s neckcloth’ or ‘neckinger’.
The executions carried out at Smithfield have mostly been dealt with elsewhere. However, it is worth mentioning the appalling fate undergone in about 1530 by a cook by the name of Rose or Roose who was boiled to death at Smithfield for allegedly having placed poison in gruel prepared for the household of the Bishop of Rochester. Two of the company died and seventeen were taken seriously ill. Roose was placed in a cauldron and the water gradually heated over a great fire. Later executions by this method were designed to be more humane – they placed the offender in the cauldron when the water was already boiling!
The Tower of London is probably the best-known castle in the world. Over the centuries the Tower has acted as a royal residence, a military stronghold, an arsenal and armoury, a mint, an observatory, a menagerie, a prison and a place of execution. Many nobles and others have been executed within its precincts. Some died by royal command surreptitiously and away from prying eyes in one or other of the buildings which make up this enormously complex structure. Others, more openly but still not subject to public scrutiny, died on Tower Green. The first to die there was probably Lord Hastings in 1483. He was a powerful advocate of the infant Edward V against the monarchial ambitions of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who had him executed once he felt his own position was strong enough to get away with it. Close by Anne Boleyn breathed her last in 1536, executed with a sword.
Few executions in the Tower have been more undignified than that of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, who was the last of the Plantagenet family and was seventy-one years of age when she was put to death in 1541. A woman of formidable spirit as well as remarkable fleetness of foot for one of her years, she absolutely refused to lay her head on the executioner’s block and, dodging the guards, was pursued round and round the scaffold by the executioner who hacked pieces off her whenever his axe could make contact. He completed the job in the end, a new type of death by a thousand cuts.
In 1542 Jane, Viscountess Rochford, fell foul of Henry VIII, who believed that she had assisted his fifth wife, Catherine Howard, to carry on various adulterous affairs. Both women were executed within minutes of each other on Tower Green. It is said that Henry had been so incensed when he heard of Catherine’s sexual adventures that his first instinct had been to rush for his sword and execute her there and then. Lady Jane Grey, ‘the Nine Days’ Queen’, was executed at the same spot in 1554. In 1743 three soldiers of the regiment which became the Black Watch were executed on Tower Green having been found guilty of inciting disaffection. As late as the twentieth century, spies were executed within the precincts of the Tower.
Many executions took place publicly on Tower Hill. The victims were usually traitors or the high-born. Possibly the first to die there was Richard Wyche, in 1440. Condemned to death for being a Lollard, that is, a religious zealot of subversive views, he was very popular and became a revered martyr after being burned at the stake. In his memory a cross and small cairn were erected which attracted substantial numbers of pilgrims. Many of them showed their devotion by buying some of his ashes. Interestingly, even after a hectic day selling these ashes to eager pilgrims, there was always a plentiful supply for renewed trading the next day. The glorification of Wyche irked the authorities who had the cross and the cairn removed.
Among those who died at Tower Hill was Sir Thomas More. Not normally known for his levity, he made a jest as he ascended the scaffold in 1535. He is purported to have said, ‘See me safely up, for my coming down I can shift for myself.’ Other notables who died there included the Earl of Strafford in 1641 and Archbishop Laud in 1645. So hated was Strafford that an estimated 100,000 people are said to have watched his execution. Lord Lovat was executed in 1747. His execution was notable because it was the last by beheading in England. Huge crowds gathered to watch and a temporary grandstand collapsed, killing twenty onlookers. This happened before Lovat had ascended the scaffold and he is said to have found the sight hig
hly amusing.
Westminster Old Palace Yard witnessed the death of Guy Fawkes and two other Gunpowder Plot conspirators and later that of Sir Walter Raleigh. Charles I met his end outside the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall on 30 January 1649. Other sites of execution have also been identified but Tyburn is the one above all that remains synonymous in the popular mind with the pageantry in reverse that was public execution in London.
ELEVEN
The Lore of the Tyburn Crowd
From the very end of the twelfth century until 1783 large numbers of condemned prisoners were dragged or conveyed from Newgate to be put to death at Tyburn. No accurate figure exists for the total number of criminals for whom this was the last journey but estimates put the figure at around 60,000. What would an observer of Tyburn Fair have seen? What ceremonies were enacted? How did the felons comport themselves and how did the crowd react and respond?
An elaborate ritual evolved and was acted out by the authorities before and during the journey to Tyburn. The commonalty responded with rites of its own. By the eighteenth century at least, it had become obvious that those who turned out with such relish to watch the processions to Tyburn, the activities around the scaffold and the death agonies of the felons, had their own individual and collective reasons for being there. These had little to do with any sense that they were being browbeaten by the law and the frightful penalties that it could impose. Much the reverse. Tyburn had become associated with mockery, irreverence and the defiance of authority. The activities there encapsulated rough-and-ready humour, elements of carnival and, on occasion, very public displays of approval or sympathy for the condemned miscreants. For their part, the latter sometimes seem to have relished their brief moment of glory and to have drawn succour from it.