Tyburn was a manor (estate) in the county of Middlesex, England, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. Tyburn took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne.[lower-alpha 1] The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne, means 'boundary stream'.[1]
The parish, and probably therefore also the manor, was bounded by Roman roads to the west (modern Edgware Road) and south (modern Oxford Street). The junction of these was the site of the famous Tyburn Gallows (known colloquially as the "Tyburn Tree"), now occupied by Marble Arch. So, for many centuries the name Tyburn was synonymous with capital punishment: it was the principal place for execution for London and Middlesex criminals and convicted traitors, including many religious martyrs. In the 18th century it was also known as "God's Tribunal".[2] Hangings at Tyburn often included a sometimes raucous procession of the condemned from Newgate Gaol in the City -- at the end of the 18th century, the hangings were moved to Newgate.
Location of Tyburn on a map of the modern City of Westminster, west-central London
The manor of Tyburn, and the neighbouring Lisson, were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and were together served by the parish of Marylebone, itself named after the stream. The original name of the parish was simply Marybourne, the stream of St Mary; the French "le" appeared in the 17th century, under the influence of names like Mary-le-Bow.[3] Domesday showed that the manor was held, both before and after the Norman Conquest, by the Barking Abbey nunnery. The Domesday survey records it as having eight households, suggesting a population of around 40.[4] In the 1230s and 1240s, the manor was held by Gilbert de Sandford, the son of John de Sandford, who had been the chamberlain to Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1236, the City of London contracted with Sir Gilbert to draw water from Tyburn Springs, which he held, to serve as the source of the first piped water supply for the city. The water was supplied in lead pipes that ran from where Bond Street station stands today, 800 m east of Hyde Park, down to the hamlet of Charing (Charing Cross), along Fleet Street and over the Fleet Bridge, climbing Ludgate Hill (by gravitational pressure) to a public conduit at Cheapside. Water was supplied free to all comers.[5]
The junction of the two Roman roads had significance from ancient times, and was marked by a monument known as Oswulf's Stone, which gave its name to the OssulstoneHundred of Middlesex. The stone was covered over in 1851 when Marble Arch was moved to the area, but it was shortly afterwards unearthed and propped up against the Arch. It has not been seen since it was stolen in 1869.[6]
Although executions took place elsewhere (notably on Tower Hill, generally related to treason by gentlemen), the Roman road junction at Tyburn became associated with the place of criminal execution for the City of London and Middlesex after most were moved here from Smithfield in the 1400s.[7] In the 12th century, the Sheriff of London had been given the jurisdiction in Middlesex, as well as in the City of London.[8] Prisoners were taken in public procession from Newgate Prison in the City, via St Giles in the Fields and Oxford Street (then known as Tyburn Road). From the late 18th century, when public executions were no longer carried out at Tyburn, they occurred at Newgate Prison itself and at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Southwark.[9]
The first recorded execution took place at a site next to the stream in 1196. William Fitz Osbert, a populist leader who played a major role in an 1196 popular revolt in London, was cornered in the church of St Mary-le-Bow.[10] He was dragged naked behind a horse to Tyburn, where he was hanged.[citation needed]
In 1537, Henry VIII used Tyburn to execute the ringleaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace, including Sir Nicholas Tempest, one of the northern leaders of the Pilgrimage and the King's own Bowbearer of the Forest of Bowland.[11]
In 1571, the Tyburn Tree was erected near the junction of today's Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Oxford Street, 200 m west of Marble Arch. The "Tree" or "Triple Tree" was a form of gallows, consisting of a horizontal wooden triangle supported by three legs (an arrangement known as a "three-legged mare" or "three-legged stool"). Multiple criminals could be hanged at once, and so the gallows were used for mass executions, such as that on 23 June 1649 when 24 prisoners (23 men and 1 woman) were hanged simultaneously, having been conveyed there in eight carts.[12]
After executions, the bodies would be buried nearby or in later times removed for dissection by anatomists.[13] The crowd would sometimes fight over a body with surgeons, for fear that dismemberment could prevent the resurrection of the body on Judgement Day (see Jack Sheppard, Dick Turpin or William Spiggot).[14]
The first victim of the "Tyburn Tree" was John Story, a Roman Catholic who was tried for and convicted of treason.[15] There is a plaque to the "Catholic martyrs" executed at Tyburn in the period 1535–1681 at 8 Hyde Park Place, the site of Tyburn convent.[16][17] Among the more notable individuals suspended from the "Tree" in the following centuries were John Bradshaw, Henry Ireton and Oliver Cromwell, who were already dead but were disinterred and hanged at Tyburn in January 1661 on the orders of the Cavalier Parliament in an act of posthumous revenge for their part in the beheading of King Charles I.[18]
The gallows seem to have been replaced several times, probably because of wear, but in general, the entire structure stood all the time in Tyburn. After some acts of vandalism, in October 1759 it was decided to replace the permanent structure with new moving gallows. These remained until the last execution in Tyburn, probably carried out in November 1783.[15] On the night of Wednesday, 28 March 1759, part of the gallows was blown down.[19] Further evidence of the fixed gallows disrepair was noted on Friday, 22 June 1759 with the execution of Katharine Knowland, "When she came to Tyburn, all the crossbeams were pulled down; so she was tied up on the top of one of the upright posts, and hung with her back to it."[20] One of the first mentions of the gallows being used again was on 7 October 1759, when four people were executed on the "new moving gallows" which afterwards was "carried off in a cart".[21]
The executions were public spectacles which attracted crowds of thousands. Spectator stands provided deluxe views for a fee. On one occasion, the stands collapsed, reportedly killing and injuring hundreds of people. One such event was depicted by William Hogarth in his satirical print The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn (1747).
Tyburn was commonly invoked in euphemisms for capital punishment: for instance, to "take a ride to Tyburn" (or simply "go west") was to go to one's hanging, "Lord of the Manor of Tyburn" was the public hangman, "dancing the Tyburn jig" was the act of being hanged.[22] Convicts would be transported to the site in an open ox-cart from Newgate Prison. They were expected to put on a good show, wearing their finest clothes and going to their deaths with insouciance.
On 19 April 1779, clergyman James Hackman was hanged there following his 7 April murder of courtesan and socialiteMartha Ray, the mistress of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich. The Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783, when John Austin, a highwayman, was hanged;[23] for the next eighty-five years, hangings were staged outside Newgate prison. Then, in 1868, due to public disorder during these public executions, it was decided to execute the convicts inside the prison.[24]
The site of the gallows is now marked by three young oak trees that were planted in 2014 on a traffic island in the middle of Edgware Road at its junction with Bayswater Road. Between the trees is a roundel with the inscription "The site of Tyburn Tree".[25] It is also commemorated by the Tyburn Convent,[26] a Catholic convent dedicated to the memory of martyrs executed there and in other locations for the Catholic faith.
Although most historical records and modern science agree that the Tyburn gallows were situated where Oxford Street meets Edgware Road and Bayswater Road, in the January 1850 issue of Notes and Queries, the book collector and musicologist Edward Francis Rimbault published a list of faults he had found in Peter Cunningham's 1849 Handbook of London, in which he claimed that the correct site of the gallows is where 49 Connaught Square was later built, stating that "in the lease granted by the Bishop of London, this is particularly mentioned".[27][28]
Process of executions
Tyburn was primarily known for its gallows, which functioned as the main execution site for London-area prisoners from the 16th through to the 18th centuries. For those found guilty of capital crimes who could not obtain a pardon, which accounted for about 40%, a probable destiny was to be hanged at Tyburn. Other contemporary methods of punishment that may have been used as alternatives to Tyburn included execution, followed by being hung in chains at the place where the crime was committed; or burning at the stake; and being drawn and quartered, of which the latter two were common in cases of treason.
The last days of the condemned were marked by religious events. On the Sunday before every execution, a sermon was preached in Newgate's chapel, which those unaffiliated with the execution could pay to attend. Furthermore, the night before the execution, around midnight, the sexton of St Sepulchre's church, adjacent to Newgate, recited verses outside the wall of the condemned. The following morning, the convicts heard prayers, and those who wished to do so received the sacrament.
On the day of execution, the condemned were transported to the Tyburn gallows from Newgate in a horse-drawn open cart. It was about three miles (5km) from Newgate to Tyburn, but as the streets were often crowded with onlookers, the journey could last up to three hours. The cart usually stopped at the "Bowl Inn" public house in St Giles High Street. This was the "halfway house". Here the condemned were allowed to drink strong liquors, wine or strong ale.[29]
"Here Jack Ketch and the criminal who was about to expiate his offence on the scaffold were wont to stop on their way to the gallows for a 'last glass'. Mr. W. T. Purkiss, the proprietor, however, was prevailed upon to stay the work of demolition for a time".[30]
The draught itself was described in a 19th century ballad as being of a "nutty brown ale drunk from a 'broad wooden bowl'".[31] At various times the St Giles Bowl appears to have been administered at a number of inns (or perhaps one inn under a number of names) in St Giles, each successively being referred to as "The Bowl".[32] According to Walter Thornbury in his classic London Old and New, "The Bowl" would appear to have become associated with the "Angel Inn" on St Giles High Street. In 1873, the City Press feared that the Angel Inn, another memorial of ancient London, was about to pass away. The Angel was remodelled in 1898 and stands to this day.[33]
Having arrived at Tyburn, the condemned found themselves in front of a crowded and noisy square; the wealthy paid to sit on the stands erected for the occasion, in order to have an unobstructed view. Before the execution, the condemned were allowed to say a few words; the authorities expected that most of the condemned, before commending their own souls to God, would admit their guilt. It is reported that the majority of the condemned did so. A noose was then placed around their neck and the cart pulled away, leaving them hanging.
Instances of pickpocketing have been reported in the crowds of executions, a mockery of the deterrent effect of capital punishment, which at the time was considered proper punishment for theft.[24][34][35]
Social aspects
Sites of public executions were significant gathering places and executions were public spectacles. Scholars have described the executions at Tyburn as "carnivalesque occasion[s] in which the normative message intended by the authorities is reappropriated and inverted by an irreverent crowd" that found them a source of "entertainment as well as conflict." This analysis is supported by the presence of shouting street traders and food vendors and the erection of seating for wealthier onlookers.[36][37] Additionally, a popular belief held that the hand of an executed criminal could cure cancers, and it was not uncommon to see mothers brushing their child's cheek with the hand of the condemned.[38] The gallows at Tyburn were sources of cadavers for surgeons and anatomists.[when?][38]
Executioners
"The hangman of London", Cratwell, c.1534[39] – 1 September 1538[40][41][42]
Rebel who renounced his allegiance to Henry VIII. On 3 February 1537, the Earl, after being imprisoned for sixteen months, along with five of his uncles, were all executed as traitors at Tyburn, by being hanged, drawn and quartered. The Irish Government, not satisfied with the arrest of the Earl, had written to Thomas Cromwell and it was determined that the five uncles (James, Oliver, Richard, John and Walter) should be arrested also.[51]
The sole male representative to the Kildare Geraldines was then smuggled to safety by his tutor at the age of twelve. Gerald FitzGerald, 11th Earl of Kildare (1525–1585), also known as the "Wizard Earl".
Leader of Bigod's Rebellion. Between June and August 1537, the rebellion's ringleaders and many participants were executed at Tyburn, Tower Hill and many other locations. They included Sir John Bigod, Sir Thomas Percy, Sir Henry Percy, Sir John Bulmer,[52] Sir Stephan Hamilton, Sir Nicholas Tempast, Sir William Lumley, Sir Edward Neville, Sir Robert Constable, the abbots of Barlings, Sawley, Fountains and Jervaulx Abbeys, and the prior of Bridlington. In all, 216 were put to death in various places; lords and knights, half a dozen abbots, 38 monks, and 16 parish priests.[53]
Lord Dacre was convicted of murder after being involved in the death of a gamekeeper whilst taking part in a poaching expedition on the lands of Sir Nicholas Pelham of Laughton.[54]
Courtiers of King Henry VIII who were sexually involved with his fifth wife, Queen Catherine Howard. Culpeper and Dereham were both sentenced to be 'hanged, drawn and quartered' but Culpeper's sentence was commuted to beheading at Tyburn on account of his previously good relationship with Henry. (Beheading, reserved for nobility, was normally carried out at Tower Hill.) Dereham suffered the full sentence.
A ringleader of the rebellion called the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, Leech escaped to Scotland. He murdered the Somerset Herald, Thomas Trahern, at Dunbar on 25 November 1542, causing an international incident, and was delivered for hanging in London.[55]
Irish lord, harboured and aided the escape of Spanish Armada shipwreck survivors in the winter of 1588. Following a short rebellion he fled to Scotland in 1591, but became the first man extradited within Britain on allegations of crimes committed in Ireland and was sentenced to death for treason.
One of the leaders of the notorious Hawkhurst Gang, a criminal organisation involved in smuggling throughout southeast England from 1735 until 1749.[67]
↑ Tyburn Brook should not be confused with much larger River Tyburn, which is the next tributary of the River Thames to the east of the Westbourne.
Related Research Articles
Newgate Prison was a prison at the corner of Newgate Street and Old Bailey Street just inside the City of London, England, originally at the site of Newgate, a gate in the Roman London Wall. Built in the 12th century and demolished in 1904, the prison was extended and rebuilt many times, and remained in use for over 700 years, from 1188 to 1902.
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a method of suicide.
Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of criminals were hanged on public display to deter other existing or potential criminals. Occasionally, the gibbet was also used as a method of public execution, with the criminal being left to die of exposure, thirst and/or starvation. The practice of placing a criminal on display within a gibbet is also called "hanging in chains".
A gallows is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks of grain or minerals, usually positioned in markets or toll gates. The term was also used for a projecting framework from which a ship's anchor might be raised so it is no longer sitting on the seabed, riverbed or dock; "weighing [the] anchor" meant raising it using this apparatus while avoiding striking the ship's hull.
John "Jack" Sheppard, or "Honest Jack", was a notorious English thief and prison escapee of early 18th-century London.
The Knavesmire is one of a number of large, marshy undeveloped areas within the city of York in North Yorkshire, England, which are collectively known as Strays. Knavesmire, together with Hob Moor, comprises Micklegate Stray. This place includes an area of execution known as York Tyburn.
Connaught Square in London, England, was the first square of city houses to be built in Bayswater. It is named after a royal, the Earl of Connaught who was from 1805 until death in 1834 the second and last Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, and who maintained his fringe-of-London house and grounds on the land of this square and Gloucester Square. Its appearance is essentially the same as in the 1820s. Its south-east is 115 metres north of Hyde Park and the same west of Edgware Road. This point is 302 m (991 ft) WNW of Marble Arch, which sits on a very large green roundabout marking the western end of Oxford Street. Connaught Street runs along is northern end.
Execution Dock was a grisly place in the River Thames near the shoreline at Wapping, London, that was used for more than 400 years to execute pirates, smugglers and mutineers who had been sentenced to death by Admiralty courts. The "dock" consisted of a scaffold for hanging. Its last executions were in 1830.
William Wynne Ryland was an English engraver, who pioneered stipple engraving and was executed for forgery.
Roger Filcock was an English Jesuit priest. He was beatified as a Catholic martyr by Pope John Paul II on 22 November 1987.
The Carthusian Martyrs of London were the monks of the London Charterhouse, the monastery of the Carthusian Order in the City of London who were put to death by the English state in a period lasting from the 4 May 1535 until the 20 September 1537. The method of execution was hanging, disembowelling while still alive and then quartering. Others were imprisoned and left to starve to death. The group also includes two monks who were brought to that house from the Charterhouses of Beauvale and Axholme and similarly dealt with. The total was 18 men, all of whom have been formally recognized by the Catholic Church as martyrs.
William Calcraft was a 19th-century English hangman, one of the most prolific of British executioners. It is estimated in his 45-year career he carried out 450 executions. A cobbler by trade, Calcraft was initially recruited to flog juvenile offenders held in Newgate Prison. While selling meat pies on streets around the prison, Calcraft met the City of London's hangman, John Foxton.
To be hanged, drawn and quartered became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352 under King Edward III (1327–1377), although similar rituals are recorded during the reign of King Henry III (1216–1272). The convicted traitor was fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution, where he was then hanged, emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered. His remains would then often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. For reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.
Thomas Holford (1541–1588) was an English Protestant schoolteacher who became a Catholic priest during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He was martyred at Clerkenwell in London, and is recognised by the Catholic Church as having the status of Blessed.
John Austin was an English footpad who became the last person to be hanged at the Tyburn gallows just outside London. He was sentenced to death for the murder of a labourer called John Spicer from Kent. The Recorder of London, James Adair, described it as a "robbery with violence" that involved "cutting and wounding [...] in a cruel manner." This hanging would mark the end of Tyburn, a village in Middlesex, being a place of executions for almost 600 years.
Richard Martin was an English martyr. A layman, Martin was charged with being a "receiver and maintainer of priests" for having bought supper for Robert Morton, a priest.
The Ordinary of Newgate's Account was a sister publication of the Old Bailey's Proceedings, regularly published from 1676 to 1772 and containing biographies and last dying speeches of the prisoners executed at Tyburn during that period. The Accounts were written by the chaplain of Newgate Prison, recounting the statements made by the condemned during confession. Over 400 editions were published, containing biographies of some 2,500 executed criminals.
Hannah Dagoe was an Irish basket-woman, sentenced to death for burglary. On the day of her execution, 4 May 1763, in what The Newgate Calendar described as an "extraordinary and unprecedented scene" she struggled violently with the executioner, and with the noose about her neck, flung herself from the cart before the signal was given, dying instantly.
Thomas Cox, known as "The Handsome Highwayman", was an English highwayman, sentenced to death and hanged at Tyburn. He had a reputation for a spirited nature and it is reported that when asked if he wished to say a prayer before being hanged, he kicked the ordinary and the hangman out of the cart taking him there.
The Angel is a historic public house and former coaching inn on St Giles High Street, in the St Giles district of the West End of London.
References
↑ Gover, J. E. B., Allen Mawer and F. M. Stenton The Place-Names of Middlesex. Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, The, 1942: 6.
↑ Andrea McKenzie, Tyburn's martyres, preface pp. XV–XX.
↑ Mills, David (2010). A Dictionary of London Place-Names (2nded.). Oxford: The University Press. ISBN978-0-199-56678-5.
↑ Stephen Inwood, A History of London (New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1998), p. 125. Also see D. P. Johnson (ed.), English Episcopal Acta, Vol. 26: London, 1189–1228 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press for the British Academy, 2003), Doc. 88, pp. 85–86.
↑ London (England) Grey friars (Monastery); Nichols, John Gough (1852). Chronicle of the Grey friars of London. University of California Libraries. London: Camden Society. p.1. ...the yere of our lorde God Mlclxxxxvj. In this yere was one William with the long berde taken out of Bowe churche and put to dethe for herysey.
↑ Hoyle, R. W. (2001). The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
↑ Tales from the Hanging Court, Tim Hitchcock & Robert Shoemaker, Bloomsbury, pp. 305, 306;
↑ McKenzie, Andrea (2007). Tyburn's Martyrs, Executions in England 1675–1775. London, England: Hambledon Continuum, Continuum Books. pp. 21, 24. ISBN978-1847251718.
1 2 Tales from the Hanging Court, Tim Hitchcock & Robert Shoemaker, Bloomsbury, pp. 309, 316;
And the Sonday after Bartelemew daye, was one Cratwell, hangman of London, and two persones more hanged at the wrestlying place on the backesyde of Clarkenwell besyde London
Hall. Hen. VIII an. 30, cited in A New Dictionary of the English Language, Charles Richardson (1836) William Pickering, London. Vol 1 p. 962, col 1
↑ Thomas Percy, Sir Knight at geni.com (citing as source Adams, Arthur, and Howard Horace Angerville. Living Descendants of Blood Royal London: World Nobility and Peerage, 1959. Vol. 4, p. 417.
↑ Bishop Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests and other Catholics of both sexes that have Suffered Death in England on Religious Accounts from 1577 to 1684 (Manchester, 1803) vol. I, pp. 175ff
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
