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Beatrice Parvin on Women and the Gallows

8 March 2018Naomi Clifford

Naomi Clifford’s accomplished account of the fate of 131 women sentenced to death by public execution between 1797 and 1837 is a grim, tragic and compulsive read. We enter the seamy back rooms of regency Soho where forgers lurked, the lives of con-women exploiting the superstitions of country folk and public executions that sated the blood-rush of a pagan past, occasionally resulting in the crushing to death of the spectators.

The writer describes with skilled brevity the story of 20 of these women, dividing the book in to two parts: crimes against a person and crimes against property. The result is a devastating slice of women’s history told without sentimentality and by the chilling facts alone. And the facts are that the majority of these women were pushed in to either murder, fraud or arson through desperation, madness or manipulation from a male accomplice – that desperation arguably encouraged by living under laws firmly biased towards the male advantage.

1797 was a bloody time to live, just 3 years after the reign of terror in revolutionary France and the most remembered public execution of a woman, Marie Antoinette. The book highlights the way in which women were treated as the property of their husband – who was seen in the eyes of the law as a ‘petty’ king of his household, ruling over his property which included his house, land, children, wife and servants. If you were found guilty of the murder of such a ruler you were charged with ‘petty treason’. For women, the punishment was different from murder: you would be dragged by a horse or sledge through the streets to be finally burnt at the stake. In 1793 the burning was abolished, but the dragging towards your place of execution continued until 1828.

Due to the basic forms of forensic research, mistakes were inevitable. In 1815, 21-year-old Eliza Fenning was publicly hung for the attempted murder of her employers with arsenic poisoning. The evidence was sketchy to say the least and efforts for a reprieve, [these were often given] failed. Employers had an inbuilt suspicion towards their servants, bordering on paranoia, and they were the first to be blamed of any wrong doing that took place. After Eliza’s execution, and her innocence became more apparent, public anger rose. This disapproval forced the establishment to act with more care over any future destruction of young women in their prime.

The most heart-breaking accounts are those stories of young women, often teenagers, hung for the murder of their illegitimate babies. We are told that 35 of the 91 women hung for murder in this period were accused of infanticide. Because of the prevailing moral climate, the law often waived the death sentence, aware of the impossible circumstances that surrounded unmarried mothers. One such mother, servant Mary Morgan, had no such luck and was used as an example to others. It was expected that the judge would take pity – instead Judge Hardinge, aptly named, ordered her execution. His attitude to her was deeply sadistic. It is recorded that he described her in admirable terms: ‘her carriage was respectful…and she was born with every disposition to virtue’. Hardinge was then later eulogized on her headstone as a ‘benevolent judge’! Thankfully, local opinion differed and they erected a stone inferring that the 17-year-old had been cruelly mistreated.

This book is an important record, bringing to the surface the injustices of female victims killed by a world with little compassion. It is also an invaluable source for historical fiction writers. Naomi Clifford has given these voiceless forgotten victims a place in history, beginning with the Bank Restriction Act and ending with the ascension of Victoria. This period also brought about the end of public executions and a transformation in our capital punishment laws. It is easy though to be complacent – in exposing the legal injustices to women in the past we can be reminded of those in the present. Worldwide legal injustices against women still rage – and in our own country the present situation at Yarls Wood detention centre is unacceptable. A brilliantly researched document for our times.

Beatrice Parvin, author of Captain Swing and the Blacksmith

READ ABOUT THE BOOK

diagram of childbirth (cross-section), 1821.

“Is she or isn’t she?” How an age-old plea of pregnancy saved women from execution

Women and the Gallows review: Ripperologist

Beatrice Parvin on Women and the Gallows

My guest blog for Geri Walton: Women on trial for infanticide

Basic Instincts: The art of Joseph Highmore at the Foundling Museum

1814: Murder or manslaughter? The trial of Mary Ann Adlam

Horace Cotton: The extraordinary Ordinary of Newgate

Three women hanged for poisoning their husbands in 1836: Sophia Edney

Three women hanged for poisoning their husbands in 1836: Betty Rowland

Recipe for rice pudding (19th century)

Three women hanged for poisoning their husbands in 1836: Harriet Tarver

black and white etching (?) of an 18th century in a mob cap.

The bloody career of Maria Theresa Phipoe

Monochrome (sepia) photograph of the writer George Eliot - middle-aged Victorian woman with bad teeth, hair centre parted

The confession of Mary Voce, who inspired George Eliot

Gangs of Market Drayton: Ann Harris (1828)

Charlotte Newman and Mary Ann James

The end of Frances Thompson, a dealer in false banknotes

The Coffee Grinder Bernard de Hoog (1867–1943) McLean Museum and Art Gallery

Susannah Holroyd: Serial killer

Ann Hurle’s story: The execution of “a young woman of education”

The birth of the pound note and the fate of Sarah Bailey

The hazards of hiring: Melinda Mapson

‘Frenzied despair’: Sarah Pugh murders her daughter

Ann Mead: The life and death of a nursemaid

Pregnant and condemned: Pleading the belly and the jury of matrons

William Hone on the case against Elizabeth Miller, who mistook arsenic for oatmeal

The Norfolk Murders, Part 2: Catherine Frarey and Frances Billing

The Norfolk Murders, Part 1: Mary Wright

Sarah Chandler: The one that got away (1814)

Ann Baker, hanged for stealing sheep (1801)

Mary Thorpe: First woman to be executed in the 19th century

Mary Morgan: “A Provincial Tragedy” (1805)

1802: Maria Davis and Charlotte Bobbett, who dropped a baby on Brandon Hill, Bristol

Ann Heytrey: hanged at Warwick for murdering her mistress

Charlotte Long, hanged in 1833, for setting fire to haystacks

Hannah Palmer: Executed with her brother for the murder of his wife (1801)

illustration of hanging outside newgate prison

Mother of 8 Ann Woodman, condemned to death for uttering forged banknotes

old print of elizabeth fry reading to prisoners in newgate

Harriet Skelton’s letter to the Bank of England

courting couple 1802

“A Warning to Thousands”: Sarah Lloyd

old print of elizabeth fry reading to prisoners in newgate

Harriet Skelton – “Chosen for death”

Child-stripping and child stealing in the Regency

47 cases of infanticide at the Old Bailey

inquest on margaret hawse

The death of Frances Colpitts – Part 2

sir richard birnie

The death of Frances Colpitts

keelmans hospital newcastle

1829: The cost of executing Jane Jameson

eliza fenning broadside detail

Eliza Fenning: Guest post at All Things Georgian

murder of mr steele from newgate calendar

1807: The execution of Holloway and Haggerty: tragedy upon tragedy

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