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n There were countless gallows, gibbets and hangingnpoles throughout England but of them all Tyburn Tree must be the most infamous.nThe first recorded mention of Tyburn being used as a place of execution datesnfrom 1196, when William FitzOsbert, known as Longbeard, was drawn and hanged onnApril 6th, so it seems reasonable to assume that it was being usednat some time a little prior to that date.
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| The Triangular Tyburn Tree |
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nKing William I (the Conqueror or thenBastard, depending on your point of view), stopped the practice of capital punishment,nwhich may sound, at first, like a strangely humanitarian act for this viciousnbastard (well, there goes my stance on the matter), but actually William’s ideanwas that instead of killing a criminal, he should be disfigured instead, bynhaving his eyes put out or a limb chopped off, so as to be a living, breathingnreminder to all of the King’s vengeance,
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n“…so that the trunk may remainnalive as a sign of its crimes,”n
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nas William’s law says. Henry I, in 1108,nre-instituted the death penalty, and it is probably from about this time thatnTyburn began to be used – Tyburn means ‘place of the elms’, and the elmnwas a Norman symbol of justice.
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| Hanging at Tyburn |
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nWe have no way of knowing what form thenoriginal gallows at Tyburn took but we do know that in 1220, Henry III ordered thenbuilding of a pair of replacement gallows, and we know that in 1571, thenfamiliar triangular frame was erected, which Shakespeare alludes to in Love’snLabour’s Lost,
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n“Thou mak’st the triumviry, the corner-cap of society,n
nThe shape of Love’s Tyburn, that hangs up simplicity.”n
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nThis triangularntricorn hanged twenty-four men at a time (but could probably accommodate more),nand was first marked on a map of 1607, where, marked ‘Tyborne’, its shape cannbe seen.
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| 1607 Map – Tyborne underlined in red |
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nThere would also have been gibbets at the same place, where the bodiesnof the executed would be hanged in chains and displayed to the public untilncarrion eaters and the weather broke them into pieces. So, just how many peoplenmet their ends at Tyburn? We have a problem with the early years as only ‘special’ncases were noted in the assorted chronicles and annals that remain. Ordinaryncriminals were not interesting enough to rate a mention so the information hasnnot been recorded.
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| Site of Tyburn on 1895 Ordnance Survey map |
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nIn the first hundred years, from 1177 to 1273, there arenonly eight executions at Tyburn that were interesting or unusual enough tonfeature in the written record. These records come from the pens of monks andnfavour the doings of the great and good and what effect they might have had onnthe monastic house, so feature the treasons committed by nobles and so forth.nIt is not until 1427 when a ‘common’ criminal is mentioned, in the secularnGregory’s Chronicle, written by William Gregory, a skinner and Mayor of London,
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n“Ande that same yere a theffe that was i-callyd Wille Wawe was hangyd atnTyborne.”n
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| Execution at Tyburn |
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nIn later years we have some records from the four streams thatnfed Tyburn; the courts of Westminster and the Guildhall, and the Middlesex andnOld Bailey sessions. The records from the Middlesex sessions of the 1570s,nreveal that 704 felons were sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn, which averagesnout at seventy per year. Assuming that the other three courts were sentencingnat the same rate, we come to a figure of just over 280 per year. However, thisnis pure speculation, as the number must necessarily have changed from year tonyear, not least because of which crimes were deemed serious enough to merit ancapital sentence.
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| Execution at Tyburn (after Hogarth) |
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nOver the years, Act was piled on Act and crime upon crimenuntil, for example, an Act of 1786 made the avoidance of duty a crimenpunishable by death and so, in theory at least, the forgery of a penny stampncould result in a death sentence for the forger. Legal reformers saw thenmadness of this and sought to instil a sense of perspective into the system –nSir Thomas More, for example, wrote,
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n“… it is too extreame and cruel anpunishment for thefte, and yet not sufficient to refrayne and withold men fromnthefte. For simple thefte is not so great an offense, that it owght to benpunished with death.”n
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nOf all the people hanged at Tyburn, perhaps thenoddest case occurred in December 1660, when both Houses of Parliament resolvednthat the dead bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton, and John Bradshaw werento be punished for the regicide of Charles I. On January 30th 1661,nthis punishment was carried out. Here is a contemporary account,
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n“The odiousncarcasses of O Cromwell, H Ireton, and J Bradshaw drawn upon sledges to Tyburn,nand being pull’d out of their Coffins, there hang’d at the severall Angles ofnthat Triple-tree till Sun-set. Then taken down, beheaded, and their loathesomenTruncks thrown into a deep hole under the Gallowes. Their heads werenafter-wards set upon Poles on the top of Westminster Hall.”n
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nThe permanentnTyburn Tree remained in place for six hundred and fifty years, until 1759, whennit was replaced by a temporary structure that was erected when required thenndismantled and taken away until the next time.
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| The new gallows at Newgate |
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nTyburn was the place of publicnexecution until 1783, the last execution took place on November 7th,nwhen John Austin was hanged for ‘cutting in a great manner’ and robbingnJohn Spicer. By then, the extents of city of London had extended to includenTyburn and beyond, and the place of public execution was transferred to Newgatenprison, where a new gallows with a ‘drop’ was built and was first used onnDecember 9th 1783.
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