One of the largest crowds ever for a hanging assembled to watch Charles Daines, 50, hanged outside Norwich Prison on Saturday, April 27th, 1839. The drop fell at noon, and Daines, a Methodist lay preacher and farm labourer, died hard, his body convulsing in agony.
He had been found guilty of attempting to murder his wife Hannah with arsenic attempted murder was a capital crime. His motive, the court learned, was that he was having an affair with a widow named Ann Lloyd, in another village, and wanted to be rid of the unfortunate Hannah. It was noted that most of the spectators in the huge hanging crowd were women.