Victorian Hangings

Augustus Hilton

Charlotte Hilton, daughter of a wealthy landowner and railway builder in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, made a disastrous marriage when she was only 20. After only two years she was fed up with her farmer husband Augustus’s ceaseless demands to borrow money from her. When he came home from a local market in March 1861, demanding still

Daniel Ward

The crowd of 9,000 who came to watch the last public execution in Belfast, on Wednesday, April 8th, 1863, remained deadly silent until the trap-door opened. Then, as one, they emitted a terrible scream, after which silence returned. The victim was Daniel Ward, 30, a carpenter, hanged for the murder the previous year of his

Frederick Prentice

I don’t want to go out with you any more,” 17-year-old Emma Coppins pleaded with her farm labourer suitor, Frederick Prentice, 20. “I’m much too young to think about marrying. And you’re too much for me with your pushy ways.” Emma, truth to tell, was at her wits’ end with his bothering. When he refused

Richard Rowlands

Everyone was a bit puzzled when 45-year-old Richard Rowlands married a widow but continued to sleep alone at his parents’ home. What was the purpose of that, they asked? It was soon clear. In November 1861, four months after the probably unconsummated marriage, Rowlands waylaid his 70-year-old father-in-law, farmer Richard Williams, as the old man

Patrick Power

There was always bad blood between hillside farmer Timothy Power and his son Patrick, 21. There were quarrels, arguments, threats and sometimes even blows. The feud of the Powers came to a dramatic end one night in October 1861, when Patrick woke his mother to tell her that his father still hadn’t returned from a

Rebecca Smith

“My little baby is wasting away,” Rebecca Smith, 44, told her friends in Westbury, Wiltshire. That seemed strange to them, because the baby appeared quite normal and healthy. At the same time she was asking people to help her buy arsenic at the town’s chemist shop. When the baby, one-month-old Richard, died, the police were

Israel Lipski

Something told Mrs. Angel, a Polish ?migr? living in Whitechapel, east London, that all was not well with her daughter Miriam, so she set out on June 29th, 1887, to visit her at her home in Batty Street, Commercial Road East. Her intuition proved to be right – Miriam, 22, lay dead in her bedroom,

Steven McKeown

Mary McShane, 18, was so annoyed with Steven McKeown’s persistent wooing, coupled with dark threats if she did not respond to him, that she took out a summons against him. As a result McKeown, 30, was bound over to keep the peace and ordered to stay away from her. Weeks later he followed her into

George Edwards

A furious row broke out in the Edwards family home in Bedford Row, Maidstone, on March 16th, 1857, when younger brother George, 18, refused to go to work with his father. Thomas, the older brother, told George that if he didn’t do as he was told he would be thrown out of the house. Two

Stephen Fox

“The engagement is off!” Mary Hadley, 25, stormed at her fianc? Stephen Fox. “Here, take your ring back!” She had just heard that Fox had made another girl pregnant and understandably, perhaps, she no longer wanted to marry him. Fox, 23, nursed his wounded pride for a couple of days, then told a neighbour in

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