Part 20 (1/2)

His first official act was to hang a man named Francis Horry, at Lincoln, who murdered his wife at Boston, in 1872; his last was to hang a man, James Burton, at Durham, who murdered his young wife, aged only 18, from jealousy. On this occasion the man fainted on the scaffold, and got entangled with the rope under his arm, and Marwood had to lift him in his arms to get him disentangled, and then drop the unconscious man down-a painful scene. {155} This was only about a fortnight before his own death. Among his last executions was that of Charles Peace, a notorious burglar, who shot a man at Banner Cross, near Sheffield. In May, 1882, he went to Dublin to execute the perpetrators of the Phnix Park murders, three Fenians, who shot Lord E. Cavendish, and his secretary, Mr. Burke.

In his last illness, which was short, it was suspected that his health had been in some way injured through Fenian agency, and a post mortem examination was held by order of the Home Secretary, but a verdict was returned of ”natural death.” Mr. Henry Sharp, Saddler, of the Bull Ring, was one of the jury on this occasion.

Marwood's wife was, for some years, ignorant of her husband's official occupation, as he generally accounted for his absence by saying that he had to go away to settle some legal question. Visiting the slaughter-house of a neighbouring butcher, he observed to him that he could ”do” for men as the butcher did for cattle, because the men whom he had to deal with were themselves ”beasts.”

Some of Marwood's official paraphernalia are still preserved at the Portland Arms Inn, Portland Street, Lincoln, where he generally stayed at an execution. The late Mr. Charles Chicken, who resided in Foundry Street, Horncastle, had a rope 1-in. thick, given him by Marwood, with which he had hanged six or seven criminals. Other ropes used by him are in Madam Tussaud's exhibition, in Baker Street, London, where there is also a bust of himself. He used to exhibit his ropes to foreign horse-dealers, who attended the great August Fair at Horncastle, at a charge of 6d. each. There was recently a portrait of Marwood, in crayons, in a barber's shop, 29, Bridge Street, drawn by J. S. Lill, postman, but this has now disappeared. Marwood's favourite dog, Nero, and other effects were sold by auction, after his death in 1883, by Mr.

W. B. Parish.

Other Horncastrians whose lives, or circ.u.mstances, were more or less exceptional, may be here also briefly noticed.

HENRY TURNER.

Mr. Henry Turner, about the middle of the 19th century, was a corn and coal merchant, and also land agent for Sir Henry Dymoke, Bart., of Scrivelsby Court. He occupied the house at the corner of South Street, next the water side, then a private residence, but now the shop of Mr. F.

Stuchbery, Ironmonger. He married the widow of Arthur Thistlewood, a native of Horsington, noted, in his later years, as the leader of the ”Cato Street Conspiracy,” which proposed to a.s.sa.s.sinate the ministers of the government, in London, when attending a dinner at Lord Harrowby's residence, in February, 1820. The plot was discovered and frustrated, and Thistlewood, with others of his guilty confreres, was executed on May 1st in that year. Mrs. Turner was the daughter of a butcher, named Wilkinson, whose shop was situated in the High Street, where is now the shop of Mr. Uriah Spratt.

MARTIN BROWN.

Mr. Martin Brown, grandfather of Mr. W. H. Brown, Plumber and Glazier, of Church Lane, was in the early part of the 19th century captured by the press gang in Horncastle, and made to serve in H.M.S. Mars, in the war with Napoleon. In one contest his s.h.i.+p was lashed to a French man-of-war, to fight it out, and his captain was killed. He survived to tell the story till 90 years of age, with scarcely a day's illness, until his death, Nov. 9th, 1866. He lies buried in Holy Trinity churchyard, his wife, who predeceased him by several years, being buried in St.

Mary's churchyard, on the south-east side.

CAPTAIN SHEPHERD.

Captain Shepherd, an old naval officer, lived many years, and died, in Union Street, now called Queen Street. He had had many voyages and experiences, which he was fond of recounting to his many friends. He had brought home many trophies and curiosities; among other things he gave an Indian bow, made of sugar cane, and poisoned arrows, to the present writer, when a boy.

MISS FRANKLIN.

In the next house to Captain Shepherd resided Miss Franklin, sister of the great arctic navigator, Sir John Franklin. Much interest was taken in Horncastle in the fate of Sir John, when absent on his last polar voyage, and considerable sums were raised, more than once, among the residents in the town, to a.s.sist Lady Franklin in sending out vessels in search of her husband, under the command of Captain Leopold MacClintock and others. We have mentioned elsewhere that a public dinner was given to Sir John, at the Bull Hotel, just before he sailed for the last time to the north.

In connection with this it may be added that the son of another great arctic explorer, Sir John Ross, used to visit friends in Horncastle, and is still remembered. Sir John Ross sailed in search of Sir John Franklin in 1848, but was unsuccessful.

EDMUND KEANE.

Edmund Keane, the Tragedian visited Horncastle with his company, in the first half of the 19th century, and acted in a large building, which is now the warehouse of Mr. Herbert Carlton, Chemist. The mother of Mr.