Part 11 (1/2)
Perhaps the most interesting case of a local character of capital punishment for highway robbery with violence and sheep-stealing combined, was one which occurred to a Royston gentleman, for which it is necessary to travel a dozen years beyond the reign of George III.
At the Cambridge Summer a.s.sizes in 1832 was tried a case of highway robbery and sheep-stealing, which was one of the last cases of sentence of death being inflicted for these offences. The accused were John Nunn, Simeon Nunn, the younger, and Ephraim Litchfield, labourers, of Whittlesford. The facts as deposed to at the a.s.sizes were briefly these:--The late Mr. Henry Thurnall, of Royston, was in that year an articled clerk to Messrs. Nash and Wedd, solicitors, Royston, and was frequently in the habit of going from Royston to his then home at Whittlesford, to spend the Sunday. On this occasion business in the office had detained him later than usual, and he started from Royston to drive home in a gig about 11 p.m. on the Sat.u.r.day night. Near the plantation between Thriplow and Whittlesford parish two men rushed out, seized the reins and said, ”We want all you have,” and just as he jumped out of the gig to defend himself a third man struck him and knocked him down and stunned him. A further struggle, however, and more blows ensued, and he was able in the struggle to identify the three men, who did not leave him till they had made him stand up with his arms extended, rifled his pockets, and then, left him covered with blood and fainting on the road, not knowing who it was that they had been robbing. Mr. Thurnall was able to walk home, though bleeding very much, and after dressing his wounds, he, his father and others, watched for the accused, and seeing them returning at dawn to their homes, the men dropped sacks they were carrying, and these sacks were found to contain each a fresh-killed sheep from the fold of Mr. Faircloth. At the next Cambs. a.s.sizes, as stated above, all three were found guilty and sentenced to be hung. Mr. Thurnall pleaded for the lives of the men, who belonged to his own parish, but the Home Secretary, Lord Melbourne, wrote that their case was too bad to admit of any mitigation of the punishment, and the day was appointed for their execution. The poor fellows were desirous {91} of seeing Mr. Thurnall, and he went to Cambridge gaol to take leave of them, and they thanked him for his exertions on their behalf, and a.s.sured him that had they known him on the night of the robbery nothing would have induced them to attack him!
Shortly afterwards their sentence was commuted to that of penal servitude for life. The counsel for the prosecution in this painful case was Mr. Gunning, a well-known name in Cambridges.h.i.+re, and it may be of interest to add that I have gleaned the above facts from the brief used by counsel on that occasion, which has been kindly placed at my disposal by Mr. H. J. Thurnall.
One of the most painful cases of capital punishment for small offences occurred in Royston about 1812-14, when quite a young girl from Therfield, living in service in a house now let as an office in the High Street, Royston, robbed her employer of some articles in the house, and was sentenced to death at Hertford, and hung. This case created a profound impression in the town, and for many years afterwards the case ”of the poor girl who was hung” was remembered as an instance of the severity of the law.
The time came when this wholesale sentence of death for various offences became more a question of the letter of the law than a satisfaction of the public sense of justice, and out of a batch of prisoners receiving sentence of death the Judge often reprieved the majority, and some of them before leaving the a.s.size town. The result was that though in many cases there was hope when under sentence of death, there was a large number of persons, often young people, placed under dreadful suspense. The most striking case of the kind in this district was that of the fate of a Melbourn gang of lawless young men.
About 1820, several desperate young fellows linked themselves together and became so bold in terrorising the inhabitants as to openly express their intention to provide themselves with fire-arms and use them rather than be taken. Eventually their time came, when they broke into the house of a man named Tom Thurley, a higgler, living near the mill stream. The properly they stole was nothing of great value--chiefly some articles of clothing, &c.--and they were disturbed at their game and had to bolt. In order to get rid of the evidence against them they hid the stolen things in the spinney which then grew where the gas-house now stands, just by the mill stream bridge. They were arrested, and at the Cambridge a.s.sizes five or six of them were sentenced to death! The result of the trial produced a deep impression in the village. The sentence was afterwards respited and they were transported for life; their last appearance in the village being when they rode through on the coach bound for London, and thence to the convict settlement. One or two others were transported for other offences soon after, and the gang was completely broken up. {92} Of the convicts, two sons were out of one house--one of the old parish houses which then stood in the churchyard.
Forgery was an offence punished with death, and one of the latest cases was that of a young man from Meldreth parish, who went up in 1824 as clerk in Mr. Mortlock's warehouse in Oxford Street, forged his master's signature to a cheque, was sentenced to death and hung at Newgate, despite the exertions of his employer to save his life.
We sometimes hear, in these days of advanced education, that we are educating young people beyond the station they can possibly attain, and that we may find the cleverness expend itself in forging other people's names and signatures to obtain money without that honest labour by which their parents were content to earn a livelihood. The evidence, however, is altogether the other way. The number of forgeries committed before national education began, notwithstanding the fear of being hung for the offence, was incalculably greater than it has ever been since. In the matter of bank notes alone, the number of forged motes presented at the Bank of England in 1817 was no less than 31,180.
By 1836, the number of forged notes presented had dwindled down to 267.
The number of executions for the whole country for the three years, ending 1820, were 312; for the same period, ending 1830, only 176; and by 1840 they had decreased to 62. Many of these sentences were the results of crimes committed in the revolt against the introduction of machinery.
CHAPTER IX.
OLD MANNERS AND CUSTOMS--SOLDIERS, ELECTIONS AND VOTERS--”STATTIES,”
MAGIC AND SPELLS.
In glancing at the manners and customs which prevailed during the later Georgian era, I find several matters arising out of what has gone before, waiting for notice.
Prison discipline was evidently very different from our notion of it, for in 1803 we find prisoners in the Cambridge County Gaol stating that they ”beg leave to express their grat.i.tude to the Right Hon. Charles Yorke for a donation of five guineas.”
If these little indulgences could be obtained in a county gaol it may be imagined that the parochial cage sometimes lent itself to stratagems for the benefit of the prisoner. At the old cage on the west side of the present Parish-room in Royston, Herts., many persons living remember some curious expedients of this kind. While the prisoner was waiting {93} for removal to the Buntingford Bridewell (situate in the Wyddial Lane not far from the river bridge) to undergo his fortnight of such hard labour as the rules of that curious establishment exacted--while waiting in the Cage the prisoner's friends would help him in this way. Above the door of the Cage were some narrow upright openings, and through this a saucer was inserted edgewise, the prisoner took it and held it, while, by means of a teapot and the thrusting the spout through the openings, a good ”drink” could be administered, according to the appet.i.te of the prisoner!
In a former chapter, reference was made to the penal side of obtaining men for the Army, and I may here mention that an instance of the all-powerful operations of the Press-gang was actually brought home to an old Roystonian, who, while crossing London Bridge, was seized and made to serve his seven years! Though the regular mode of enlistment had less of this arbitrary character it was, nevertheless, often very burdensome in our rural districts and led to some curious expedients for meeting its demands. The Chief Constable of the hundred served a notice upon the Overseers, and sometimes the number required was not one for each parish, but a demand was made upon two parishes. As in 1796 the Chief Constable served an order upon Barkway and Little Hormead acquainting them that one man was to be raised between them, and that the Overseers were to call a meeting of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants to consider ”the most speedy and effectual means of raising the said man.”
This system of allowing discretion as to how the said man, or men, were to be provided, sometimes did not answer, for in 1796 the parishes of Little Hormead and Barkway are jointly credited with paying ”the sum of L31 0s. 0d., being the average bounty and fine for their default in not providing their quota of men for His Majesty's Army.”
The following, under date 1796, will show how the parish generally set about raising the said ”man.”
”TWENTY-FIVE GUINEAS BOUNTY.
Wanted immediately, one man for the parish of W----, Cambridges.h.i.+re, to serve either in the Army or the Navy. Apply to the Overseers of the parish.”
In some cases twenty-five pounds and a silver watch were offered.
Under more urgent circ.u.mstances when men had to be drawn by lot, the hards.h.i.+p which must often be occasioned was got over by men joining a sort of insurance society against compulsory service. With head-quarters in London and agents in the provinces, this society, upon the payment of 5s. 6d., gave a receipt guaranteeing to provide the requisite bounty to purchase a subst.i.tute in case the men so insuring should be drawn for the Army or Navy, and a large number paid into it.
{94}
In 1812 a Ware notice reads: ”A bounty of 16 guineas for men and L12 1s. 6d. for boys, offered for completing His Majesty's Royal marines.”
Two entries in the Royston parish books show that in 1795 the sum of L43 18s. 1d. was paid to defray expenses in providing two men for the Navy; and in 1806, a further sum of L18 ”for not providing a man for the Army.”
Sometimes cavalry were drawn for, but the system of drawing for men by lot chiefly applied to the Militia, for which purpose the parish constable was to present to the justices ”a true list in writing of all men between the ages of 18 and 45 years, distinguis.h.i.+ng their ranks and occupations, and such as laboured under any infirmities, in order that the truth of such infirmity might be inquired into [for they frequently did feign infirmities!] and the list amended.” The drawing took place at Arrington (at the ”Tiger”), and at Buntingford, and the old constable's accounts show frequent entries of ”caring the list of the milshe” (militia) to Buntingford or Arrington.