The Golden and Ghoulish Age of the Gibbet in Britain

163 Pages·2017·3.448 MB·English

by  Sarah Tarlow (auth.)

PALGRAVE HISTORICAL STUDIES IN THE
CRIMINAL CORPSE AND ITS AFTERLIFE
Series Editors: Owen Davies · Elizabeth T. Hurren
Sarah Tarlow
THE GOLDEN
AND GHOULISH
AGE OF THE
GIBBET IN BRITAIN
Sarah Tarlow
Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse
and its Afterlife
Series Editors
Owen Davies
School of Humanities
University of Hertfordshire
Hatfield, UK
Elizabeth T. Hurren
School of Historical Studies
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK
Sarah Tarlow
History and Archaeology
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK
This limited, finite series is based on the substantive outputs from a
major, multi-disciplinary research project funded by the Wellcome Trust,
investigating the meanings, treatment, and uses of the criminal corpse
in Britain. It is a vehicle for methodological and substantive advances in
approaches to the wider history of the body. Focussing on the period
between the late seventeenth and the mid-nineteenth centuries as a cru-
cial period in the formation and transformation of beliefs about the body,
the series explores how the criminal body had a prominent presence in
popular culture as well as science, civic life and medico-legal activity. It is
historically significant as the site of overlapping and sometimes contradic-
tory understandings between scientific anatomy, criminal justice, popular
medicine, and social geography.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14694
Sarah Tarlow
The Golden
and Ghoulish Age
of the Gibbet
in Britain
Sarah Tarlow
University of Leicester
Leicester, UK
Palgrave Historical Studies in the Criminal Corpse and its Afterlife
ISBN 978-1-137-60088-2 ISBN 978-1-137-60089-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60089-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017951552
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A
cknowledgements
The book is based on research carried out as part of the research pro-
gramme “Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse”, funded by
the Wellcome Trust (grant WT095904AIA). I am very grateful to the
Wellcome Trust for their support and assistance—financial and practical.
I also thank the other participants in the programme: Elizabeth Hurren,
Peter King, Richard Ward, Zoë Dyndor, Shane McCorristine, Owen
Davies, Francesca Matteoni, Floris Tomasini, Rachel Bennett and Emma
Battell Lowman. Many thanks to Emily Russell and Rowan Milligan at
Palgrave and to Steve Poole for his extremely helpful comments on the
first version of this book. Thanks to Adam Barker for invaluable assistance
with the index. Most images are my own‚ unless otherwise specified.
v
c
ontents
1 Some Further Terror and Peculiar Mark of Infamy 1
2 How to Hang in Chains: How, Where and When
Eighteenth-Century Sheriffs Organised a Gibbeting 33
3 The Afterlife of the Gibbet 79
4 Conclusions: Why Gibbet Anyone? 101
Appendix 1: All Cases of Hanging in Chains 119
Appendix 2: Maps, 1752–1834 135
Concept Index 145
Historical Publications Index 147
Name Index 149
Place Index 153
vii
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 1.1 Number of gibbetings per decade in England and Wales,
1700–1832 28
Fig. 2.1 St Peter’s rock, Derbyshire, where Anthony Lingard
was hung in chains in 1815 41
Fig. 2.2 Felton’s obelisk in Portsmouth 42
Fig. 2.3 Road sign, Gibbet Hill Lane, Scrooby 47
Fig. 2.4 Interval in days between the first day of the assizes
during which a criminal was convicted and the date
of his execution 63
Fig. 2.5 A Thames pirate 65
Fig. 2.6 Tull or Hawkins’s leg iron, courtesy of Reading Museums 66
Fig. 2.7 Some different styles of gibbet: a: John Breeds
(Rye, 1743, now in Rye town hall); b: John Keal
(Louth, 1731, now in Louth Museum); c: possibly
‘Jack the Painter’ (Portsmouth, 1777, now
in Winchester Museum); James Cook
(Leicester, 1832, replica now in Leicester Guildhall) 70
Fig. 2.8 Multiple punches holes on John Keal’s gibbet 71
Fig. 2.9 Headpiece of John Breeds’s gibbet with large skull
fragment remaining 71
Fig. 2.10 Artistic representation of a gibbet with carrion birds.
Vignette from Thomas Bewick’s British Birds (1804) 72
Fig. 3.1 ‘Willow biter’ and rhyme, drawn and recorded
in the commonplace book of Edwin Jarvis
of Doddington Hall, Lincs., courtesy of Claire Birch 88
ix
x LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 3.2 ‘Noose and Gibbet’ pub, Sheffield 90
Fig. 3.3 Eugene Aram’s skull 96
Fig. 3.4 Gustave Doré’s engraving of Eugene Aram 98
l m
ist of Aps
Map 1a 1752–1760 136
Map 1b 1761–1770 137
Map 1c 1771–1780 138
Map 1d 1781–1790 139
Map 1e 1791–1800 140
Map 1f 1801–1810 141
Map 1g 1811–1820 142
Map 1h 1821–1830 143
Map 1i 1831–1834 144
xi