Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree (29 page)

Of the various kinds of felon that were executed at Tyburn, highwaymen enjoyed greater popularity than most with the crowds. It is hard to explain why they came to be surrounded by such an aura of glamour and popular acclamation. Most of them, after all, were prepared to use violence and even murder in the commission of their crimes and in evading capture. Few were handsome and gallant. Maybe the fact that they rode horses gave them style and an air of derring-do. Perhaps the reality that their victims were frequently the well-heeled made them the darlings of the crowds, although few emulated the reputed actions of Robin Hood in disbursing some of the proceeds from their robberies to the poor and needy. The appearance of a notorious highwayman at Tyburn inevitably attracted a capacity audience. They were the elite of the criminal world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Few, however, lived long enough to regale their grandchildren with tales of the old days.

I
t is still possible to follow the historic route between Newgate and Tyburn, said to be approximately three miles. Some of the buildings to be seen and a selection of the historical associations with which the route is so richly endowed will be described. What cannot be re-created of course are the sights and sounds of the eighteenth century. However, the historian is engaged in a dialogue between the present and the past and there are places along the route where the atmosphere and a dash of imagination can give us some sense of what our ancestors may have experienced. This walk, which can easily be completed in three to four hours, is best done early on a Sunday morning.

The walk starts outside the Central Criminal Court commonly known as the Old Bailey. This building stands at the junction of Old Bailey, Giltspur Street and Newgate Street. A City of London plaque rather misleadingly states, ‘Site of Newgate. Demolished 1777’. In fact this refers to the final pulling down of the last of the jumble of ancient buildings which constituted the old prison before reconstruction work started in 1770. The work had hardly been completed when, during the Gordon Riots of 1780, large parts of Newgate were torn down by ravening, drunken mobs. Very quickly it was completely rebuilt by the architect George Dance the Younger. Despite its grand exterior, the conditions experienced by the prisoners and the general corruption of the regime under which it was run soon meant that the reborn Newgate had an even more fearsome reputation than its predecessor. Its notoriety led to a parliamentary inquiry in 1814 and it was one of the first prisons to which the reformer Elizabeth Fry turned her attention. Improvements were slow in coming. Its overcrowding was partly relieved by the opening of Holloway Prison in 1852. In its last years it was used mainly for prisoners committed to trial at the Old Bailey and for those awaiting execution. It closed as a prison in 1881.

When hangings ceased at Tyburn, they were transferred to a spot close to Newgate in Old Bailey. The first public executions on this new site were on 9 December 1783 when ten felons were hanged. In 1789 a woman was burned, having been strangled first, for the crime of coining. To her fell the dubious honour of being the last person in Britain to die in this horrible fashion. In 1864 Franz Muller was hanged outside Newgate, the occasion attracting a densely packed crowd estimated at more than 50,000. Muller had been found guilty of robbing and murdering a senior bank clerk. This act had taken place on the North London Railway and it attracted huge interest because it was the first murder perpetrated on a railway train. Additionally, Muller was of German extraction and the case unleashed an unpleasant wave of xenophobia. He tried to escape by sailing to the United States but his ship was overtaken by a steamship carrying officers of the Metropolitan Police, who arrested him at New York and brought him back to Britain for trial. Interestingly, one of the exhibits for the prosecution was the hat which had been owned by the murdered man. Muller stole it, cut it down in size and wore it himself. Hats of this truncated sort became popular for some years and were known as ‘Muller cut-downs’. Another outcome of the Muller case was the development of the communication cord which allowed a passenger in distress to alert the engine driver to stop the train at the first practical opportunity. The last public execution outside Newgate took place on 26 May 1868 when a young Fenian, Michael Barrett, was hanged by the famous executioner William Calcraft. Barrett had tried to blow up the Middlesex House of Correction in Clerkenwell in which some of his compatriots were imprisoned. He achieved a spectacular explosion, failed to extricate his fellows but managed to demolish a row of houses opposite and kill some of their occupants. Charles Dickens, who mentions Newgate in some of his writings and, despite himself, witnessed at least two executions there, campaigned for the abolition of public hangings.

A near neighbour of the Central Criminal Court is the Magpie and Stump in Old Bailey. This ancient although totally rebuilt hostelry used to rent rooms out expensively to those who wished to enjoy a grandstand view of the hangings outside Newgate. The gentry would lounge in the window seats and nonchalantly play cards, dine and drink until the entertainment started. The price for this self-indulgent voyeurism was as much as £50 in the case of a celebrated criminal but a sumptuous breakfast was included. On Sunday lunchtimes ‘execution breakfasts’ are still available.

The Central Criminal Court was opened in 1834 and the complex of buildings of which it is composed has been added to constantly since that time. It has witnessed innumerable famous trials, among the most celebrated being those of Oscar Wilde in 1895; Hawley Harvey Crippen (1910); George Joseph Smith, the ‘Brides-in-the-Bath’ murderer (1915); William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) in 1945; John Reginald Christie (1953) and the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, Peter Sutcliffe, in 1981. The Old Bailey was severely damaged by German bombs in 1941 and suffered a number of IRA bomb attacks in 1973. One curious tradition still observed on certain occasions at the Old Bailey is that of the judges carrying posies of sweet-smelling flowers. This recalls the use of nosegays in earlier days as a way of warding off what were thought of as the lethal miasmas that prisoners who had been incarcerated in Newgate brought with them into court. Atop the Old Bailey is a massive bronze statue portraying Justice.

At the junction of Newgate Street and Giltspur Street stands the Viaduct Tavern, the name of which refers to Holborn Viaduct, close by. This is typical of the large drinking houses built by the big brewers in London in the nineteenth century which were designed to maximise their trade by having frontages on two streets. The pub has thankfully escaped major revamping in recent years and still possesses high-quality carved wooden screens and other mahogany fittings, fine engraved glass, a Lincrusta ceiling and three painted mirrors depicting Greek myths which can perhaps best be described as Victorian soft porn. In Giltspur Street there is a plaque indicating the site of Giltspur Street Compter built in 1791 and demolished in 1854. The compters were the prisons administered by London’s two sheriffs, evidence of the great importance once attached to their office. At the junction of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane stands a decidedly plump gilded cherub known as ‘the Golden Boy’. It is said that this spot marks Pie Corner where the Great Fire died out in 1666. For many years there was an alehouse on the site called the Fortunes of War which was much frequented by the ‘Resurrectionists’, refreshing themselves before and after their nefarious visits to local burial grounds in order to obtain specimens for the teachers of surgery at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. At 106 Newgate Street a City of London plaque indicates the site of the former Greyfriars Monastery. Later on, the entrance to Christ’s Hospital was on this site. This school was founded in 1553 by Edward VI as a hospital for orphans and was known as the Bluecoat School because of the costumes worn by the pupils. Christ’s Hospital School moved to a rural location near Horsham in Sussex in 1902. In April 1578 an earthquake occurred in London and in the prevailing climate of religious hatred, many averred that this was the work of the Pope. Only one fatality occurred. This was the unfortunate Thomas Grey who was killed by masonry dislodged from Christ’s Hospital. Roman remains have been unearthed in Newgate Street. One of these relics is a tile on which a workman scratched the peevish graffito: ‘Austalis has been going off on his own every day for thirteen days.’ This tile is now in the Museum of London.

On the other side of Giltspur Street from the Viaduct Tavern stands St Sepulchre’s Church, first mentioned in 1137, which is the church referred to in the nursery rhyme at ‘When will you pay me, say the bells of Old Bailey’. Just inside Giltspur Street and tucked away at the east end of St Sepulchre’s Church is a curious little watch house dated 1791 which was probably erected to guard recent burials against the activities of the ‘Resurrectionists’. Extensive rebuilding of St Sepulchre’s was carried out in the middle of the fifteenth century by Sir John Popham who was Treasurer to King Henry VI. Much of the fabric was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt in a somewhat haphazard fashion with various subsequent restorations making up a building of rather eclectic character. Among St Sepulchre’s many historical associations is that of one of its sixteenth-century incumbents, John Rogers, who was unlucky enough to be the very first Protestant martyr to be burnt for his beliefs at Smithfield, in 1555. Robert Ascham, who had been personal tutor to the tragic Lady Jane Grey and later to Queen Elizabeth I, was buried in the church in 1568. Sir Henry Wood (1869–1944), the conductor who established the Promenade Concerts in 1895, learned to play the organ here and became assistant organist at the age of just fourteen. His ashes were buried in St Sepulchre’s in 1944. There are many other associations with the world of music. Sir Henry is shown in a stained glass window as is Dame Nellie Melba, among others. Buried inside the church is Captain John Smith, notable for being rescued from imminent death at the hands of some Native Americans by the famed Princess Pocahontas. The Royal Fusiliers have their Regimental Chapel in St Sepulchre’s and they also have a memorial garden in the churchyard. The church contains visual evidence of the famous ritual involving the ringing of the bell and the solemn exhortations on the eve of an execution in the bricked-up entrance to the tunnel which led from St Sepulchre’s under the road and to the condemned cell in Newgate. The bell is displayed in a glass case. At the south-eastern corner of the churchyard can be found the surviving portion of the earliest drinking fountain erected by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain Association in 1859. This is unusual in retaining its original bronze cup and chain.

One of many fascinating ‘might-have-beens’ of London’s history concerns the constant flow of proposals from the 1830s onwards to build a central railway terminus station in London on which all the major lines from the provinces would converge. Perhaps the earliest of these schemes was thought up by George Remington Junior and it was to be called the London Grand Junction Railway. It would have run from Camden Town where it was intended to link with long-distance lines from the West Country, the West Midlands and the north-west via Clerkenwell to Snow Hill and then to the Thames at Blackfriars. A two-level viaduct was envisaged for road-users and pedestrians above with trains running below. A modified scheme eliminated the two tiers and replaced them with one level for the railway. This line would have followed the valley of the Fleet River to terminate just to the west of St Sepulchre’s Church. Despite an announcement in
The Times
of 22 February 1837 that work was about to start, this scheme did not go ahead.

We continue to Holborn Viaduct, once wryly described as ‘the world’s first flyover’. This was completed in 1869, cost over £2 million and was built to bridge the valley of the Fleet River. It was opened with great pomp by Queen Victoria on the same day as the new Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames. Victoria’s eight years as a reclusive widow had seriously damaged her popularity and it was good for her public image that she now began to resume public duties. The building of Holborn Viaduct involved many associated roadworks including Holborn Circus, Charterhouse Street and St Andrew’s Street and provided a much better route for the growing amount of commercial and other traffic going to the West End from the City and vice versa. The viaduct crosses Farringdon Street and epitomises Victorian civic pride with its allegorical bronze statues. On the north side the statues represent Commerce and Agriculture while those on the south portray Science and Fine Arts. Curiously, there were four rather Italianate yet semi-Gothic houses erected at the corners of the viaduct. These were also decorated with statues and those that can be viewed today depict Henry Fitzeylwin (d. 1212), the first Mayor of the City, and Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–79), immortalised as the founder of the Royal Exchange and Gresham College. The others are of Sir William Walworth, the perfidious Lord Mayor of London who stabbed Wat Tyler while engaged in negotiations during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1389 and Sir Hugh Myddleton, who was responsible for the New River which brought the City an excellent water supply from Hertfordshire in the early seventeenth century. On the first floor of Gresham House next to Holborn Viaduct stands a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham that was put on display in 1868.

On the south side we pass the City Temple. This is the only Nonconformist church in the City and its origins can be traced back to 1640. However, the present building dates only from 1874 and replaced an earlier chapel located in Poultry. It was designed by Messrs Lockwood and Mawson in a vaguely Italianate style and was opened with considerable ceremony. After sustaining bomb damage in the Second World War, it was rebuilt and enlarged in 1955–8.

Close by is the church of St Andrew’s, Holborn. This church has pre-Conquest origins, was rebuilt by the Normans and evolved through various medieval architectural fashions. In spite of rich financial support from the neighbouring Inns of Chancery, the fabric was considerably decayed by the time of the Great Fire. St Andrew’s avoided being engulfed in the fire thanks to the natural barrier provided by the Fleet Valley but it was already in such a state that it was rebuilt by Wren. The rebuilding was on a generous scale and a very large church resulted. During the Civil War, the incumbent, John Hacket, defiantly continued to use the old prayer book. On one occasion some Parliamentary soldiers burst into the church and held a pistol to his head but with remarkable sangfroid, Hacket is reputed to have said, ‘I am doing my duty. Now you do yours’. The soldiers immediately left without demur. Various restorations were made but the church was largely obliterated in the Blitz, only the tower and walls being left standing. Rebuilding and restoration were completed in 1961. Many of St Andrew’s furnishings have been brought from elsewhere to replace those lost by enemy action and the result is something of a pastiche but quite an attractive one. The tomb of Thomas Coram (
c.
1668–1751) can be seen. A shipwright born in Dorset who spent much of his life in the North American colonies promoting the Anglican Church, his fame lies in the fact that he planned and established the Foundling Hospital for abandoned children in 1741. Among those associated with St Andrew’s is Henry Sacheverell (
c.
1674–1724). He was a High Tory, an ordained minister who in 1709 used the pulpit of St Paul’s to deliver a vitriolic sermon attacking the Whig minister, Godolphin. His point was that Dissenters were threatening the Church of England and that the Whigs and moderate Tories were reprehensibly failing to defend it. He was impeached by the House of Lords but he had much popular support and riots took place in which the meeting houses of Dissenters were attacked. A wooden tablet commemorates this volatile man who was rector of St Andrew’s from 1714 to 1724. Other associations are with Samuel Wesley, the father of the more famous John and Charles Wesley, who was ordained here in 1689 and with Marc Isambard Brunel, the somewhat understated father of the better-known Isambard Kingdom Brunel but a first class engineer and inventive genius in his own right. He married Sophia Kingdom in St Andrew’s in 1799. William Hazlitt the essayist and literary critic married here in 1808 and Benjamin Disraeli, the future Prime Minister, was christened here at the age of twelve on 31 July 1817. On the west front of St Andrew’s can be seen statues of schoolchildren from the parish school which was in nearby Hatton Garden.