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From 1837 to 1901 Queen Victoria presided over the world’s biggest empire – and during her 64-year reign approximately 1,100 judicial hangings were carried out in Great Britain and Ireland. Here we present a month-by-month calendar of the fascinating stories behind some of them, set frequently against a background of dire poverty, short trials and public executions... Victorian Hangings: September September 1st 1/9/1862 James Walsh – Limerick Irish loyalist magistrate Francis Fitzgerald, of Kilmallock, County Limerick, signed his own death warrant when he authorised a court order for the eviction of farmer Dennis Dillane, 60, from his farm... more » September 1st 1/9/1866 Thomas Grime – Haigh, near Wigan A miner searching for a missing colleague at dawn before the start of the day shift noticed what appeared to be blood on the door of the colliery furnace. It looked like “syrup that had run out of a p... more » September 2nd 2/9/1843 James Ratcliffe – Stockport After years of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her alcoholic husband, who often beat her unconscious, Elizabeth Ratcliffe, 47, at last found a refuge when her eldest son bought a house in St... more » September 3rd 3/9/1842 Francis Bradley – Manchester Mrs. Alice Bradley was violently sick during the night of March 19th, 1842, and when next day the landlord of her lodgings in Golden Street, Manchester, offered some medical advice, her husband Franci... more » September 4th 4/9/1839 Charles Wakeley – Weston-super-Mare The judge was so overcome with emotion at Bridgwater Assizes when a prisoner pleaded guilty to murder that he burst into tears and left the courtroom. Several minutes later Mr. Justice Coleridge retur... more » September 4th 4/9/1841 James and John Power – Clonmel Two Irish brothers were furious when John Peters and his family moved on to half an acre of land at Raheen in County Tipperary, because they were coveting the half-acre for themselves. On the night of... more » September 4th 4/9/1844 Joel Fisher – Weston-super-Mare Things started going violently downhill for Joel Fisher, 52, landlord of the Devonshire Inn, Weston-super-Mare, when he re-married after the death of his first wife. The new woman in his life was Mary... more » September 5th 5/9/1843 James Downey and Michael Mullins – County Kilkenny Laurence Hoyne was yet another Irish landowner targeted by a disaffected tenant. He was shot dead by two men on April 7th, 1843, while enjoying the spring sunshine in his garden at Rathcubbin, County ... more » September 6th 6/9/1838 George Maslen – Lyneham, Wiltshire The Wiltshire village of Lyneham was hit by a one-man crime wave in the 1830s. The solo ringleader was George Maslen, 34, a hard-drinking man and a notorious poacher. On January 17th, 1838, he lay in... more » September 6th 6/9/1865 Laurence King – King’s County – now Offaly For Lieutenant James Clutterbuck, 27, of the 5th Fusiliers stationed at Birr Barracks, County Offaly, Laurence King, a local man, was no more than a passing acquaintance with whom he could enjoy a bit... more » September 6th 6/9/1869 William Dixon – Aldershot “Insanity, alcoholism, and a neglect of God,” were the reasons put forward at the trial of Private William Dixon, 28, for shooting Corporal William Brett, 30. Dixon had been reported for insubordinati... more » September 6th 6/9/1875 William Baker – Liverpool What did pub landlords do in their spare time in Queen Victoria’s reign? William Baker, 35, landlord of The Railway Vaults pub in Liverpool, used to go drinking at other pubs. That’s what he was doing... more » September 8th 8/9/1860 Thomas Gallagher – Liverpool There is nothing new in stalking. Mary Gallagher was stalked by her estranged husband Thomas for many weeks during the summer of 1860. Gallagher knew Mary called frequently at a factory where friends ... more » September 8th 8/9/1868 Alexander Mackay – Shoreditch, London Screams of “Oh, John, don’t! You’ll kill me!” brought a neighbour running into a café at Norton Folgate, Shoreditch, London. There was little he could do. The café owner’s wife, Emma Grossmith, 45, wa... more » September 8th 8/9/1873 James O’Connor – Liverpool “Come on, lass, let’s go and have a drink together.” That’s how James O’Connor propositioned Mrs. Mary Shears, who he had never met before, as she left a music hall in Toxteth, Liverpool. Not many pe... more » September 10th 10/9/1864 Joseph Myers – Sheffield Alice Myers was one of those wives who are as long-suffering as the Archangel Gabriel. Despite the fact that her husband had beaten her so badly that he was sent to prison for it, Alice lobbied the au... more » September 10th 10/9/1864 James Sargisson – Rotherham When John Cooper, a 26-year-old gardener, heard a fellow-drinker in the pub at Laughton, near Rotherham, asking the landlord the time of day, Cooper obligingly showed the stranger his watch. Then, fin... more » September 11th 11/9/1882 Francis Hynes – Limerick Farm worker John Doloughty, 60, father of seven children, went into Ennis, County Clare, to attend lunchtime mass and as he walked back home he was ambushed and shot in the chest and head. The shots b... more » September 12th 12/9/1857 Henry Rogers – Liverpool When Scottish sailor Andrew Rose, 25, joined the Martha and Jane in Barbados, he could hardly have expected that he would serve under a captain who would make the Bounty’s Bligh seem like a monk. Fro... more » September 12th 12/9/1863 Jose Alvarez, and three others – Liverpool The date Saturday, September 12th, 1863, was unique in Liverpool’s criminal history – a day when four criminals sentenced for four separate crimes were all publicly hanged together outside Kirkdale Pr... more » September 13th 13/9/1862 William Taylor – Manchester A hot water boiler that exploded at a rented Strangeways, Manchester home, killed the eldest daughter of the tenant, William Taylor, and devastated the family. Furious, Taylor and his wife Martha stor... more » September 13th 13/9/1862 John Ward – Stalybridge, Greater Manchester Stalybridge in Greater Manchester was seething with industrial action centred on the local brickfield in the early summer of 1862, and the brick workers were in destructive mood. Led by John Ward, 30,... more » September 14th 14/9/1867 Henry Farrington – Leigh, Greater Manchester Fed up with her husband’s continual drunken violence towards her, Mary Farrington, 26, left him after 18 months of marriage and went to live with her uncle in Leigh, Manchester, taking their newborn b... more » September 15th 15/9/1849 John Gleeson Wilson – Liverpool Ann Hinrichson was a thrifty housewife, and although she was well provided for, she decided to take a lodger while her Danish husband, a ship’s captain, was away at sea. The man who answered her adver... more » September 16th 16/9/1848 William Adams – Manchester When Diana Thomas met Irishman William Adams her husband had been transported to Australia and Adams was already married. Nevertheless they began living together – until she, escaping from his physica... more » September 19th 19/9/1861 Peter Masterson – Woolwich, London August 22nd, 1861, at the Old Bailey saw another soldier on trial for murdering an NCO. He was Private Peter Masterson, 22, who was in the guardroom at Woolwich Barracks, London, for being drunk. He p... more » September 22nd 22/9/1856 Charles McCready – Cork Yet another soldier who didn’t like his sergeant was Private Charles McCready, 25, of the Durham Light Infantry. When Sergeant Owen Guinny came into the barrack-room at Fermoy Barracks, County Cork, M... more » September 22nd 22/9/1882 Patrick Walsh – Galway When the Walsh family was evicted from a farmhouse in Letterfrack, County Galway, the new tenants, Martin Lyden and his father John, reckoned without Republican vengeance. On April 24th, 1881, a group... more » September 23rd 23/9/1890 Henry Devlin – Glasgow While his seven children looked on, Henry Devlin, 45, furiously beat his wife Elizabeth to death at their home at Shotts, Lanarkshire, and for that, on September 2nd, 1890, he was sentenced at Glasgow... more »
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