There were two interests in the short life of James Burrows, 18 – drinking and fighting. Strapped for cash to indulge the first, he asked one of his father’s employees, Irish farm labourer John Brennan, 45, for a loan. Brennan refused, so Burrows hit him with a crowbar and left his body in a barn.

Burrows denied the murder, but after he was found guilty at Manchester Crown Court he confessed in the death cell. He was hanged on Saturday, August 25th, 1866, outside Salford Prison, Manchester.