Let Him Have It

Last Public Hanging

Newgate Gaol in London

The last man to be publicly hanged in Great Britain was 29 year old Michael Barrett, who was a member of the Fenians (the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood.) His crime? The Clerkenwell bombing in 1867 which killed 12 people and severely wounded many more.

Barret delivered a passionate speech in court before sentence was passed:

"I am far from denying, nor will the force of circumstances compel me to deny my love of my native land. I love my country and if it is murderous to love Ireland dearer than I love my life, then it is true, I am a murderer. If my life were ten times dearer than it is and if I could by any means, redress the wrongs of that persecuted land by the sacrifice of my life, I would willingly and gladly do so."

On 26th May, 1868 in front of thousands who were jeering and singing "Rule Britannia", Michael Barrett was hanged outside the walls of Newgate Prison. The hangman was William Calcraft.

Execution @ Tyburn

Gallows Ticket

Jonathan Wild was 'thief taker General' and ironically the most infamous criminal in London in th 18th century. He was hnged at Tyburn in 1725. As sentence was passed he felt terrified and asked for a reprieve but was refused. He could not eat or go to church, and suffered from insanity and gout. On the morning of his execution, in fear of death, he attempted suicide by drinking a large dose of laudanum, but because he was weakened by fasting, he vomited violently and sank into a coma that he would not awaken from.
When Wild was taken to the gallows at Tyburn on 24 May 1725, Daniel Defoe said that the crowd was far larger than any they had seen before and that, instead of any celebration or commiseration with the condemned;

"wherever he came, there was nothing but hollowing and huzzas,
as if it had been upon a triumph."

Wild's hanging was a great event, and tickets were sold in advance for the best vantage points (see the reproduction of the gallows ticket above). Even in a year with a great many macabre spectacles, Wild drew an especially large and boisterous crowd. Eighteen-year-old Henry Fielding was in attendance. Wild was accompanied by William Sperry and the two Roberts Sanford and Harpham, three of the four prisoners who had been condemned to die with Wild a few days before.[34] Because he was heavily drugged, he was the last to die after the three of them. The hangman, Richard Arnet, had been a guest at Wild's wedding.

Rise of Gallows

"I was maybe thinking maybe people might take a second and think twice about people killing people."

The second I took told me I was right. When I see a murderer thats all I can see in his/her background is a gallows. It appears in a shadow behind the killer kinda like the crucifix above the deers head on a bottle of Jagermeister. But alas the message is differnet to me.
Like Marley in Dickens' book, the gallows are forged by the persons sins. Break that most dear of trusts, smash that most precious of things (life) and the only thing left is for you to perish for your diabolically selfish crime. Be as dust, be still and gone.