Drowned maidens: Victorian depictions of female suicide

22 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by Lenora in death, England, General, History, Macabre, nineteenth century, Victorian

Tags

anatomist, Elizabeth Siddall, Fallen women, found drowned, gender roles, John Waterhouse, Ludovico Brunetti, nineteenth century, Ophelia, Padua, Paris, Sir John Everett Millais, suicide, The Bridge of Sighs, The punished suicide, Thomas Hood, Victorian

Trigger warnings: this post references some recent cases of suicide that some readers may find distressing.

****

“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.” Edgar Allan Poe

Ruslana Korshunova’s suicide reported on Fox News 2008.

In 2008, Fox News aired a crime scene video showing a twenty-year-old Model, Ruslana Korshunova, lying dead on the street, after apparently committing suicide by throwing herself from the 9th floor of her New York apartment block. Blood could still be seen oozing from her nose. The image was both shocking and intrusive. But, intrusive media coverage of death and disaster has become an accepted part of our appetite for sensation – a malady we like to think of as particularly modern. However, comments from the reporter, and subsequent comments on social media, which focused on the unworldly beauty of the woman’s corpse, revealed attitudes toward female suicide that find their origin in a much earlier nineteenth-century aesthetic. One that both romanticized female suicide for a male gaze, whilst also serving as a warning to women daring to step outside their proscribed gender roles.

Death becomes her

In the eighteenth-century, male suicide was fairly commonly depicted in art and literature, with Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, perhaps the most famous example. The novel created something of a moral panic and ‘Werther Fever’ and the ‘Werther Effect’ were linked to several copy-cat suicides of young men overcome by unrequited love or their own heightened sensibilities [1].

The Werther Effect. Public domain (?)

During the nineteenth century, the depiction of suicide underwent something of a gendered transformation which saw a proliferation in images of female suicide and far fewer images of male suicide [2]. This belied the reality, that in fact, in the nineteenth century, men were (and still are) much more likely to successfully commit suicide than women [3]. Before looking at why this change took place, let’s look at some examples of nineteenth-century images of female suicides.

Firstly, anyone who ever had a Pre-Raphaelite phase at college will be familiar with the poster-girl of drowned maidens, Ophelia. Painted in 1851 by John Everett Millais, this is considered to be artistic ground zero for the huge proliferation of depictions of drowned females in the nineteenth century, particularly in Britain.

Ophelia, 1851, by John Everett Millais. Google Art Project.

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia is pulled this way and that by the men in her life. Used by her father and brother in their court intrigues because of her implied liaison with Hamlet, she is then cast off by Hamlet and ultimately drowns through her own actions. Maybe she was an innocent victim, maybe a fallen woman. Maybe it was an accident, maybe suicide.

Millais’s iconic image presents her watery death in a very eroticized way. Her lips are half-open, singing as she drowned, perhaps, or expelling her dying breath; or just maybe her parted lips are meant to evoke something far more sexual. It is for the viewer to decide. There is a voyeuristic element to the picture, it is even framed in a proscenium-style arch, giving it a theatrical air – even though the actual death of Ophelia was not usually depicted on stage. [4]

L’inconnue_de_la_Seine. Image via Wikimedia.

The Second image will be familiar to anyone who has done CPR Training. L’Inconnue de la Seine is said to be the death mask of an unknown woman found drowned in the Seine in the 1880s (although this has been debated). She was judged to be a suicide. Her corpse was displayed in the Paris Morgue, as was the custom. One of the morticians was supposed to have been so taken with her beauty, that he cast her death mask.

The image caused a sensation, Richard le Gallienne called her a modern Ophelia while Albert Camus described her ‘Mona Lisa Smile’. Her mask became a popular, if morbid, fixture in many private homes. Her image was romanticized and eroticized. It became a ‘look’ to be emulated by the popular actresses of the day [5].

In 1955 Asmund Laerdal made her even more famous by using her image to create Resusci Anne, giving the unknown woman of the Seine the dubious distinction of having ‘the most kissed lips in history’. That’s not creepy in the slightest!

The third image, Found Drowned, by George Frederic Watts, c. 1850, presents the scene following a woman’s apparent suicide by drowning. The title reveals something important about how female suicide was recorded, often there were no witnesses to drowning, so while the assumption might be that it was a suicide, societal taboos around female suicide often led to such deaths being hidden under the ambiguous label of ‘found drowned’. [6].

Found Drowned by George Frederick Watts 1850. Public Domain via Wikimedia.

The picture, which was inspired by the influential poem The Bridge of Sighs by Thomas Hood, assumes that the viewer understands the implicit backstory of this image. The drowned woman is a fallen woman. Seduced, abandoned and pregnant. Rather than descend into shame, poverty, and prostitution, the only route left open to her by society, she has chosen to take her life and thereby redeem herself.

Despite the more sympathetic message of the image, the depiction of the woman is still sensual. The woman’s face appears luminous and her limbs flung wide, displaying the victim’s figure to the viewer.

Hood wrote the poem in 1844 and it helped to raise society’s awareness of the plight of the ‘fallen’ woman – who found the only option left to her was suicide. In one famous passage, he describes how her sin has been washed away by her death:

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful:
Past all dishonour,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.

However, its idea of a fallen-women gaining redemption through drowning, while generating public sympathy, may have also led to an unfortunate increase in life imitating art, as women saw their only option for social redemption, suicide, reinforced [7].

The Punished Suicide. 1863. Photograph by Carlo Vannini and from Ivan Cenzi’s book His Anatomical Majesty

Finally, a lesser-known image of female suicide, this time from Italy. Ivan Cenzi has brought the story of how this extraordinary image was created to an English speaking audience [8][9]. The subject of this human taxidermy project was an unknown 18-year-old seamstress who drowned herself in the river at Padua, sometime in 1863. It was pronounced that she had killed herself over an ‘amorous delusion’.

The nearby University of Padova had a long history of anatomical study, and the girl’s body was handed over to the chair of Anatomy himself, Ludovico Brunetti (1813-1899).

Brunetti had a very unusual plan – this was to be no simple anatomical dissection. He intended to create Great Art out of this girl’s pain. He proceeded to take a cast of the girl’s face and bust, then he skinned her, taking care to keep her hair pristine. He then treated the skin with sulfuric ether and his own special tanning formula, in order to preserve her image for eternity. The resulting bust is truly startling.

Unfortunately, as the girl had been dragged out of the river using hooks, her face had sustained some damage. However, Brunetti used these flaws to his advantage, seeing them as a way to convey a moral message, as well as display his skill at preservation. What emerged from his creative processes was a shocking image known as ‘The Punished Suicide‘. To ram the moral home, that suicide was a mortal sin and suicides would be forever tormented in Hell, he enveloped her face in writhing snakes and used red candle wax to imitate blood gushing from her wounds.

Somewhat perversely, to modern sensibilities at least, her parents loved it. Brunetti and his Punished Suicide, later wowed the audiences at the Universal Exposition in Paris where he won the Grand Prix in the Arts and Professions category, which in itself says a lot about public attitudes to images of female suicide and public entertainment. This image is still on display in Padova University, and, to modern eyes at least, evokes a strong reaction. Personally, I find the use and display of human remains as art, without the informed consent of the subject, to be highly problematic. However, nineteenth-century attitudes were clearly very different.

These are only a few of the many such images in nineteenth-century art, literature, and sculpture. But why were they so popular and what was their purpose?

Women behaving badly

During the nineteenth century, Western Societies underwent a huge demographic shift as the Industrial Revolution lead to mass migrations from the countryside to towns and cities. From living in traditional rural communities, where everyone knew one and other, many people now found themselves amongst strangers. Factory work saw more women working outside the home and competing with men. Poverty and overcrowded housing brought disease and disorderly behavior, drunkenness was a common outlet for the lower classes. Add to this the blatant social inequality of Victorian society, where the poor (and particularly the female poor) were routinely exploited by those higher up the social ladder, and you and you can begin to see the cracks undermining the edifice of respectable Victorian society.

Overcrowding in Victorian London. Gustave Dore. 1872. British Library.

The Victorian establishment did not only fear the working class becoming politicized or organized via trade unions, they feared the traditional gender roles of society were being challenged. Women were supposed to be the ‘Angel in the house’ described in Coventry Patmore’s poem, a sweet and passive homemaker for her husband and family. However the economic reality for many women was very different, and when a woman transgressed society’s norms, particularly if she was considered a ‘fallen’ woman, she could suffer terrible consequences.

The Outcast. Richard Redgrave. 1851. Public domain via Wikimedia.

Influential sociologists writing about suicide, such as Henry Morselli, writing in 1881, and Emile Durkheim, writing in 1897, both linked urbanization and the breakdown of traditional gender roles as a factor in female suicide. While the stats they relied upon showed that male suicide was more common than female suicide, both promoted the view that women were weaker morally and were safer when protected from the struggles of society [10].

In doing so, they used the stats to reinforced traditional Victorian gender roles by concluding that married people and married people with children were less susceptible to suicide, whereas the unmarried, divorced, widowed or childless were more at risk. In short, women should stay at home and look after their husbands and family – or risk the consequences. Of course, as Deacon has pointed out, the stats don’t tell the whole picture [11].

There was an underlying hint that perhaps suicide was one way to rid society of unwanted, ungovernable and surplus women.

Idealized family life – the woman is focused on the private home sphere.

Another popular Victorian preconception was that men tended to commit suicide for more important reasons. Male suicide was viewed as linked to the social and economic well-being of the country, while women were seen as committing suicide for personal and emotional reasons, which were considered less important to society. This had the effect of trivializing female narratives and the reasons for female suicide, often downgrading them by centering them on women’s (failed) relationships with men [12].

As the century progressed, attitudes to suicide also changed, from being considered a sin and a shameful crime, people began to link mental illness to suicide. While this was a good thing, as it led to more understanding of the underlying causes of suicide, it also played into the idea of women as weak, emotional creatures who needed to be protected from themselves or risk the consequences. From Ophelia to the Italian seamstress suffering from ‘Amorous delusions’, women’s suicide was linked to madness and instability in the nineteenth-century mind, further devaluing it by refusing to see it as a final, if desperate, act of autonomy.

From sexual sirens to found drowned

The Mermaid by John Waterhouse, 1900. Via Wikimedia.

The Victorians had a particular fondness for depicting women in water, no doubt because of the long-standing associations between femininity and water. Women were seen as fickle and changeable as the sea, with sexual undercurrents and life-cycles made up of water, blood, and milk [13]. While sexual sirens might be depicted as mermaids or aquatic nymphs, leading men to drown in their transgressive embrace, the fallen woman was often depicted floating serenely, a beatific expression on her face, lovely to behold. Not remotely like a real drowning victim -bloated and muddy.

It has been suggested that this elevated the fallen woman’s suicide to a kind of redemption and washing away of sins – as implied in Hood’s poem. While this sounds romantic and sympathetic, it also created the pernicious cycle of life imitating art, real fallen women, cast out by society and facing a future of shame and prostitution, saw suicide as a way to redeem themselves and avoid becoming a burden on society because it was tacitly reinforced in popular culture.

Conclusion

To sum up, the Victorians fetishized the image of female suicide. While male suicide was often seen as a final, possibly heroic, act of autonomy, for women, it was quite different.

Artistic images of female suicide had multiple purposes and meanings. One of the most obvious was to commodify and pacify the female body by creating an ideal, female beauty for the (male) viewer to appreciate. The threatening unruly female, stripped of all power and autonomy after death, but still possessed of erotic and romantic fascination.

In addition this, in a society undergoing radical change, images of female suicide, bound up as they were with ideas of shame, madness, and sexual transgression were often used as a warning to women to keep to their proscribed roles and not try to compete with men in the public sphere.

In the 20th Century, widespread publication of Robert Wiles photograph of Evelyn McHale’s suicide made her death both public and iconic -which went against her expressed wishes for privacy. More recently, the 21st Century case of Ruslana Korshunova, where the reporter talked of Ruslana’s life and death, as a fairy-tale-gone-wrong, show that in some ways, attitudes to representations of female suicide have not changed much since the nineteenth century.

However, more nuanced readings of these images are possible, readings that provide a deeper understanding of attitudes society held towards women and the public consumption of their bodies, both then and now.

While male suicides still predominate today, as in the Victorian age, the recent tragic suicide of Love Island’s Caroline Flack, in the face of much negative media attention, has made it more important than ever to consider the unrealistic expectations that our society and the media still place on women.

Sources and notes

**Firstly, if you are having a hard time and need to talk to someone, you can contact Samaritans: https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/

Cenzi, Ivan, The Punished Suicide, 24 Oct 2016, <https://deadmaidens.com/2016/10/24/the-punished-suicide/> [8] [9

Deacon, Deborah, Fallen Women: The Popular Image of Female Suicide in Victorian England, c1837-1901, 7 April 2015, <https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/history/assets/docs/Honours%20Thesis%20-%20Deborah%20Deacon%202015%20.pdf> [2][4][6][7][11]-[13]

Durkheim, Emile, 1952, (originally published 1897) Suicide a Study in Sociology [3][10]

Meeson, Valerie, Res.Ma HLCS, Post-Mortems: Representations of Female Suicide by Drowning in Victorian Culture, [date unknown], <https://theses.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/123456789/3754/Meessen%2c_V.P.H._1.pdf?sequence=1> [4]

Mulhall, Brenna, The Romanticization of the the Dead Female Body in Victorian and Contemporary Culture, 2017, Aisthesis Vol 8 [5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sorrows_of_Young_Werther#Cultural_impact [1]

‘Robber’ Snooks: The last highwayman to be hanged in England

11 Tuesday Sep 2018

Posted by Miss_Jessel in eighteenth century, General, Ghosts, History, Legends and Folklore, Supernatural

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Boxmoor, capital punishment, crime and punishment, eighteenth century, footpads, hanging, Hemel Hempstead, highway robbery, highwayman, James Blackman Snooks, last hanging, Last highwayman, newgate, nineteenth century, regency crime, Robber Snooks, robbery, The Old Bailey, theft

A life of crime

James Snooks was born in Hemel Hempstead on the 16^th August 1761, the second of four children to John and Mary Snooks. That is pretty much all that is known of the early life of James Snooks.

The Highwayman. Image from Victorian Toy Theatre.

The next time the name of James Snooks appears is in connection with a case held at the Old Bailey on the 15 January 1800 where he was indicted for stealing a gelding valued at 91 shillings. The horse the property of Thomas Somerset disappeared from his paddock in Preshute near Marlborough on the 1^st November 1799. On the 1^st December 1799, the horse was discovered by one of Somerset’s men being driven along the Bath road on the way to the Cinque Port Fencibles. The investigation carried out determined that the horse had come into the possession of a Mr James Langhorne who had sold it in a private auction to a Mr Bishop who in turn had sold it to a Mr Marsden, a horse dealer. Mr Langhorne testified that the name “Blackman” was entered in his books as the person from whom he had acquired the horse. Langhorne also stated that after receiving a good character reference from a Mr Chancellor for James Blackman Snooks, he gave Snooks the money owed to him from the sale. After it was discovered that the horse had been stolen, Mr Langhorne’s foreman had searched for Snooks and after a game of cat and mouse had finally caught the prisoner. Snooks was acquitted of the charge due to lack of evidence since no-one had ever seen the horse in Snooks’ possession and Mr Somerset couldn’t be 100% sure that the horse had been stolen and not simply got out of its paddock[1].

Painting by George Stubbs via Wikimedia.

Although Snooks escaped from justice this time, he didn’t learn his lesson. At some point either before or after his trial Snooks took to the road and enjoyed for a time at least, a relatively successful career as a highwayman, his preferred area of operation being the road between Bath and Salisbury. That is until he made during one of his heists, a grave error in judgement which led to the hangman’s noose.

One theft too many

Hemel Hempstead in the 19th Century. Image from Herts Genealogy website.

On Sunday 10^th May 1801 at around 10.15pm, John Stevens, a post boy was travelling from Tring to Hemel Hempstead when he was ambushed and robbed at gun point by a single highwayman mounted on a dark coloured grey horse. The man stole six mail bags full of promissory notes and letters. One of the letters contained a large sum of money comprising of £50 and £10 notes. In total the amount stolen was estimated at £500. Once the bags had been emptied of anything of value, he threw away the rest and left them strewn over the moor[2].

The man had chosen an isolated part of Boxmoor near Bourne End to make his attack, probably reasoning that the remoteness as well as being under the cover of darkness would conceal his identity. Unfortunately it was as he was making his get-away that he made a fatal mistake and one which he would live to regret. Along with the empty mail bags and the worthless letters, he also discarded a saddle with a broken strap.

After the highwayman had disappeared, Stevens made his way back and reported the robbery to both the Postmaster and the High Constable John Page (of the King’s Arms of nearby Berkhamsted). The next day they began their investigation.

To catch a highwayman

During the course of his enquiries, Page discovered that several people remembered seeing a man at the King’s Arms fixing a broken girth strap[3]. The man in question was identified as James Snooks. Snooks had previously worked for Page as an ostler a year or so earlier. He was known to have lived in Hemel Hempstead in 1800 and so was perfectly positioned to observe the post boy’s route[4].

The next step was to find Snooks. On top of the ususal £100 reward offered for the capture of highwaymen by Parliament, a further £200 remuneration was promised by the Postmaster General. The high price on Snooks head shows just how serious and determined the officials were to bring Snooks to justice.

The London Chronicle in May 1801 published an article on the crime in which they recounted what took place on the night in question as well as giving a detailed description of Snooks. In most myths, novels and folklore highwaymen tend to be cast into the role of debonair, handsome, roguish adventurers. In the case of Snooks this couldn’t be further from the truth. He was described as in his late 30s/early 40s, 5 feet 10/11 inches tall with short light brown hair and a face left pitted due to smallpox. The Chronicle also states that Snooks was last seen leaving his lodgings at 3 Woodstock Street wearing a blue coat, black velvet collar, Marcella waistcoat with blue and white stripes, velveteen breaches and dark coloured stockings[5].

Snooks had after leaving the King’s Arms headed to Southwark before continuing on to Hungerford. Why he decided to return to his home town where he was well-known seems strange; maybe he was panicking, maybe he was arrogant or maybe he simply trusted in his friends and family to protect him.

London Stage Coach. Via Wikimedia.

Despite his precarious situation it was reported that Snooks could not help bragging about his nefarious deeds and finally his luck ran out. On the 8^th December 1801 whilst driving a post-chaise through Marlborough Forest, the driver William Salt recognised Snooks and with the help of his passengers managed to apprehend him[6]. Salt had gone to the same school as Snooks and so was in no doubt about whom he was capturing. When searched £200 were found on Snooks’ person as well as a brace of pistols. Snooks’ career as a highwayman was over.

The evidence

Although it was pretty much universally accepted that Snooks had been the man behind the highwayman’s mask, proving it was a little harder. Due to the theft having taken place at night Stevens was unable to conclusively identify Snooks as the thief.

Earliest £5 note (18th century). Image copyright Bank of England.

The nail in the coffin turned out in the end to be the money itself. Whilst in Southwark, Snooks had despatched a servant to purchase some cloth for a coat on his behalf and to bring him back the change. accidentally he had given the girl £50 instead of a £5 note[7]. £50 in 1800 would have been worth about £900 in today’s money. This note aroused the trader’s suspicions and he contacted the authorities. On investigation the note was traced back to the Tring mail robbery. Snooks must have been aware of his blunder and this was probably why he fled Southwark in such haste.

Trial and Judgement

The Old Bailey. Image via BBC website.

Hanging in chains. Image via Wikimedia.

Snooks was initially imprisoned in Newgate prison before being transferred to Hertford gaol on the 4^th March 1802. The trial was held at the Hertford Assizes five days later. The verdict was guilty and he was sentenced to be hanged. Transportation was not an option as the crime was considered “of a nature so destructive to society and the commercial interests to the country”[8].

The actual sentence was for Snooks to be hanged in chains, a rather gruesome means of execution. Page, now promoted to the position of High Constable of the Hundred of Dacorum was given the task of deciding where the execution was to take place. Page decreed it would be held at the place where the crime had been committed. This ruling was not unusual and was often used when officials wanted to make an example out of a particular case.

By the start of the 1800s people were starting to lose their taste for grisly public executions and that was probably the reason why the residents of Boxmoor decided to petition the court to commute the sentence to that of a simple hanging.

Execution day

Two days later on the 11^th March 1802, James Snooks was taken from the gaol and transported to his final destination on Boxmoor. As custom dictated the condemned man was allowed to stop for one final drink. It was reported that Snooks when faced with his escorts’ impatience exclaimed “it’s no good hurrying – they can’t start the fun until I get there”[9].

Hogarth’s Idle Apprentice. Via Wikimedia.

A large crowd had been gathering since early that morning to witness justice being served. The day had been declared a local holiday and people were excited and eager to hear the highwayman’s last words. Unfortunately from their point of view Snooks failed to live up to their expectations. His audience made their feelings clear as they stamped and hissed as he spoke about the necessity to observe the Sabbath and the need for children to listen to their parents and follow their advice in order to avoid being drawn into a life of crime[10]. At the end of his monologue he offered his gold watch to anyone who was prepared to assure him of a decent burial. No-one accepted his offer and he was strung up from one group of five horse-chestnut trees[11]

Robert Snooks grave, Boxmoor. Image by Rob Farrow Creative Commons license.

His body was eventually cut down and unceremoniously tossed into a makeshift grave which had been layered with straw. A rather unpleasant scene then ensued with the executioner trying to strip the corpse of its clothes insisting that it was his right. Page had to step in and stop the chaos and prevent any further desecration of the body. He ordered the remaining straw to be thrown in on top of the corpse and the grave to be filled in. The officials then retired to the Swan Public House for a drink.

The next day the villagers obviously had a change of heart as they returned to the execution site, exhumed the body, placed it in a wooden coffin and then reburied it at the same spot.

In 1904 the Box Moor Trust placed a small white headstone on a site which is believed to have been the area where Snooks was hanged. The exact location of the grave is unknown. The inscription on the gravestone is simply “Robert Snooks 11^th March 1802”. James Snooks has gone down in history as Robert Snooks probably due to a corruption of his nickname ‘Robber Snooks’[12]. The headstone and a small footstone placed in 1994 now stand some 20m off the A41 on Boxmoor Common between Bourne End and Boxmoor.

The last highwayman to be hanged in England

Satire 4120. Copyright Trustees of the British Museum.

Snooks himself was a common all garden thief. There was nothing distinctive about him in life but in death he achieved a rather unexpected notoriety, that of the last highwayman to be hanged in England.

The occupation of highwayman was becoming less attractive as a criminal activity and by 1815 it was rare for mounted robberies to take place. There were a number of reasons for this decline. One of which was the expansion of gated and manned toll roads and turnpikes which hampered the highwaymen’s escape. Another reason was the increase in 1800 of horse patrols. This together with the newly formed police service[13] which had started in London in 1805 had resulted in pushing the highwayman’s area of operation away from the city and further into more remote locations[14]. A final obstacle and the one that had been Snooks’ downfall was the introduction and greater use of notes as currency. Notes as Snooks found out were traceable and so harder to get rid of than gold[15]. The golden era of the highwayman was over.

M0012499 Tottenham Court Road Turnpike, about 1800. Wellcome Collection.

Into folklore

As tradition dictates Snooks has become somewhat of a mythical figure and a number of supernatural stories have become associated with him.

Robert Snooks gravestone. Image by Rob Farrow, creative commons license.

It is said that if you run around the four trees where Snooks was hanged you will see his ghost. A slight issue with this particular story but one which seems not to bother this particular restless spirit, is that the trees which now stand near the grave are not the same ones as in 1802 (the original trees were cut down years ago when they became diseased)[16].

One legend states that if you walk around the gravestone three times and call out Snooks name he will materialise[17]. A slight variation on this theme recounts that if you summon Snooks whilst circling the stone twelve times he will appear and join you in a danse macabre!

On a number of occasions it has been reported that the grave site has been disturbed at night by people trying to find Snooks skull and bones to use them in magical rituals[18].

Lastly fresh flowers are often seen at the stone along with children’s drawings. [19]. For me for some reason the idea of children’s sketches being given almost as an offering sends a chill up my spine.

Bibiliography

Robert Snooks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Snooks
Robert Snooks – Highwayman, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-500000-204000/page/2
Last highwayman hung in Hemel Hempstead, http://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/content/herts-history/towns-and-villages/hemel-hempstead/last-highwayman-hung-in-hemel-hempstead
James Snooks, the last highwayman to hang, http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/5759738.James_Snooks___The_last_highwayman_to_hang/
Robert Snooks – Out of Place Graves on Waymarking.com, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3CAW_Robert_Snooks
Snook’s Grave, http://www.thegranthams.co.uk/paul/graves/snooks.html
Highwaymen, http://www.hungerfordvirtualmuseum.co.uk/index.php/14-people/254-highwaymen
Whores and Highwaymen, Crime and Justice in the Eighteenth Century Metropolis by Gregory J. Dunston, 2012
Stand and Deliver: a history of highway robbery, David Brandon, 2014
Beware, the ghost of highwayman Snooks, http://www.hemeltoday.co.uk/news/beware-the-ghost-of-highwayman-snooks-1-6380931
10 Notorious Men from European History, http://listverse.com/2016/04/02/10-notorious-highwaymen-from-european-history/
Haunted Hertfordshire: A ghostly gazetteer, Ruth Stratton and Nicholas Connell, 2002
The proceedings of the Old Bailey, JAMES-BLACKMAN SNOOK, Theft > animal theft, 15th January 1800., https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18000115-45-person434&div=t18000115-45#highlight

Notes

[1] The proceedings of the Old Bailey, JAMES-BLACKMAN SNOOK, Theft > animal theft, 15th January 1800., https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t18000115-45-person434&div=t18000115-45#highlight
[2] Robert Snooks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Snooks
[3] ibid
[4] Robert Snooks – Out of Place Graves on Waymarking.com, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3CAW_Robert_Snooks
[5] Highwaymen, http://www.hungerfordvirtualmuseum.co.uk/index.php/14-people/254-highwaymen
[6] Robert Snooks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Snooks
[7] Robert Snooks – Out of Place Graves on Waymarking.com, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3CAW_Robert_Snooks
[8] Robert Snooks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Snooks
[9] ibid
[10] Stand and Deliver: a history of highway robbery, David Brandon, 2014
[11] Robert Snooks – Out of Place Graves on Waymarking.com, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3CAW_Robert_Snooks
[12] Robert Snooks, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Snooks
[13] Highwaymen, http://www.hungerfordvirtualmuseum.co.uk/index.php/14-people/254-highwaymen
[14] James Snooks, the last highwayman to hang, http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/news/5759738.James_Snooks___The_last_highwayman_to_hang/
[15] Highwaymen, http://www.hungerfordvirtualmuseum.co.uk/index.php/14-people/254-highwaymen
[16] Robert Snooks – Highwayman, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday/dblock/GB-500000-204000/page/2
[17] 10 Notorious Men from European History, http://listverse.com/2016/04/02/10-notorious-highwaymen-from-european-history/
[18] Robert Snooks – Out of Place Graves on Waymarking.com, http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM3CAW_Robert_Snooks
[19] Haunted Hertfordshire: A ghostly gazetteer, Ruth Stratton and Nicholas Connell, 2002

The Bloody Code and the Black Nun of Threadneedle Street

08 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by Miss_Jessel in General, Ghosts, History, Supernatural

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ann hurle, black nun, bloody code, capital punishment, crime and punishment, eighteenth century, forgery, ghost of the bank of england, Ghosts, hanging in England, historical crimes, nineteenth century, philip whitehead, sarah whitehead, the black nun, thomas maynard, threadneedle street, william dodd

“Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

Engraving by William Heath (1794–1840). Image via Durham University 4schools.

Death as a form of punishment has been around for as long as people have existed although the form it has taken has varied with hung, drawn and quartered; boiling in oil; burning at the stake; beheading with a sword and hanging varying in popularity at different times. Hanging for crimes was first introduced by the Anglo-Germanic tribes in the 5^th century but was abolished during the reign of William the Conqueror’s and replaced with the more ‘humane’ punishment of castration and blinding for all but the crime of poaching royal deer. Hanging was reintroduced by Henry I and in the 18^th century was the ‘principle punishment for capital offenses’[1]. Beheading (last used in 1747 in the execution of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat) was only used for those from the high born classes whilst women found guilty of counterfeiting or murdering their husbands were burnt (witches in England were hung rather than burnt as in Scotland). Burning at the stake was abolished in England in 1790[2]. Public executions were ended in 1868 with the curtain finally falling on capital punishment in the United Kingdom in 1969.

The Bloody Code

by Sir Thomas Lawrence,painting,circa 1806-1810

Sir Samuel Romilly, legal reformer. By Sir Thomas Lawrence via Wikimedia.

“[There is] no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to the law to be punished with death as in England” ― Sir Samuel Romilly

In 1688, there were 50 crimes punishable by death in English law, in 1765 this number had risen to 160 and astonishingly in 1815 this figure had reached more than 220. The reason for this was a new penal code introduced in 1791 which turned most minor misdemeanors into capital offences. This code became known by the grim nickname of ‘The Bloody Code’ and between its introduction and abolition in 1822 more than 10,000 men, women and children were sentenced to death[3]. The implementation of the code reveals a deep anxiety in the minds of the wealthy and powerful classes to any threat to their possessions, rights or properties. This anxiety was intensified by the events of the French Revolution which saw the accepted social order turned on its head.

Amongst the usual offences such as arson, murder, piracy, rape and treason were a number which would seem extremely peculiar to us today.

Begging in the company of gipsies for a month
Malicious maiming of cattle
Damaging Westminster Bridge
Impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner
Strong evidence of malice in children seven to fourteen years old
Stealing from a shipwreck
General poaching
Begging without a licence if you are a soldier or sailor
Writing a threatening letter
Destroying turnpike roads
Stealing from a rabbit warren
Pick pocketing goods worth more than one shilling
Being out at night with a blackened face
Cutting down trees
Unmarried mothers concealing a stillborn child

1024px-William_Hogarth_-_Industry_and_Idleness,_Plate_11;_The_Idle_'Prentice_Executed_at_Tyburn

William Hogarth – Industry and Idleness, Plate 11; The Idle ‘Prentice Executed at Tyburn. Image via Wikimedia.

Despite the severity of the punishment many people charged with these crimes (with the exception of murder, robbery and burglary) were not executed but instead had their sentences either commuted to transportation or permanently postponed often on the grounds of pregnancy of the offender, benefit of clergy, official pardons or performance of military service[4]. Confusion about punishments and the whims of judges affected the consistency of the rule of law as well affecting the strength of the sentences handed as judges were sometimes unwilling to find a defendant guilty knowing they would be executed[5]. People were in general inured to the death and severity of the punishments handed out to criminals and in a society where children were treated as adults the hanging of Michael Hammond and his sister Ann, possibly aged 7 and 11 respectively at Kings Lynne for theft in 1708 made little impact[6].

The Heinous Crime of Forgery

“[Forgery] the false making or altering of a document, with intent to defraud” – Collins Concise Dictionary

In 18^th and 19^th century law forgery was listed under the category of ‘Deception’ which also included bankruptcy, fraud, perjury and a miscellaneous section which included the illegal procurement of documents such as marriage licences or the unlawful insertion of names into registers. In England the offence of forgery was considered as serious as murder and was treated with the same harshness. Although the early records of the Old Bailey show that many of those convicted of forgery were punished with the pillory and fines later as the Bloody Code legislation was implemented more and more were sent to the gallows.

The earliest cases from the Old Bailey records show that the pillory was initially the punishment of choice for most judges for example in May 1689 a John Ingham was indicted for forging the signatures of two Justices of the Peace. His aim was to obtain the release of an Edward Williams from Newgate. He was sentenced to spend three days in the pillory: the first day at Hick’s Hall; the second at Temple Bar and; the third at Westminster Hall Gate as well as finding sureties for his good behaviour for twelve months[7].

The pillory. Image from Old Bailey Online.

One of the reasons that forgery came to be seen as such a heinous crime was that with the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694, the English financial system became dependent on paper credit so any attempt to fraudulently copy or counterfeit documents such as stamps or bonds was perceived as an attack on the very foundations on which England stood. In the 1820s forgery along with arson at the Royal Docks, treason, murder, piracy and burglary was one of the last offences which carried a capital sentence. In 1832 forgery (with the exception of the forgery of wills and certain powers of attorney) was taken off that list by a parliamentary act. Eventually in 1837 all forms of forgery were exempt[8].

The minister, the mastermind and the scammer: Three cases of forgery

William Dodd at Tyburn. Image via Wikimedia.

William Dodd – The decadent Anglican minister

William Dodd lived above his means. He enjoyed the good things in life but unfortunately his partiality for fine living resulted in him accumulating bills he was unable to honour. In order to save himself and his wife from bankruptcy he decided to forge a bond for £4200 in the name of a former pupil, the Earl of Chesterfield. All was going well and the banker accepted the bond in good faith. Unluckily Dodd was not the best forger and the banker noticed a blot on the bond and decided to go and see the Earl to get a clean copy signed. Dodd confessed immediately to the fraud and despite a public campaign for a Royal pardon he was hung at Tyburn in June 1777[9]. Dodd was the last person to be hanged for forgery at Tyburn.

Ann Hurle – The master criminal

One of the cleverest and ambitious although ultimately doomed forgery scams was attempted by the 22-year-old Ann Hurle. Her background was sketchy but on the 10 December 1803 she met her friend of six months, a stock broker, George Frenallon at the Bank Coffee House. She persuaded him to obtain a power of attorney for her as she wanted to sell a Bank of England 3% stock which she had been given by a Benjamin Allin of Greenwich. Ann told George that the stock had been given to her as a present in thanks for the good work her aunt, his housekeeper had performed over the years. Once Ann received the power of attorney, she disappeared. On returning with the signed document, she had it witnessed and then took it to Thomas Bateman, a bank clerk at the Bank of England. Bateman who knew Allin’s signature became suspicious as the signature differed from that found on other documents. Despite Ann’s reassurances that the differences were due to Allin’s being over 90 years old, Bateman was not satisfied and he decided to go in person and see Allin. Allin confirmed that the signature was not his. Ann was arrested at Bermondsey and tried and convicted of the charge of attempting to defraud the Bank of England of £500 (which is in today’s money over a quarter of a million pounds). On Wednesday 8^th February Ann was hanged near St Sepulchre’s Church[10].

1709 Bank of England Exchequer Bill. Image from Just Collecting website.

Thomas Maynard – The shameless scammer

Thomas Maynard was hanged at Newgate on the 31 December 1829. His crime was defrauding His Majesty’s Custom House of the amount of £1973 by counterfeiting a warrant order and fixing the signatures of three Commissioners of Customs to it. He was also accused of a secondary charge of trying to defraud a Sir William Boothby. Witnesses attested to Maynard’s and his accomplice, Richard Hubbard Jones decadent behaviour after receiving the money. They said that the two men lived extravagantly, showing off their money and allowing women who called themselves their wives to run up huge debts with tradesmen. Both Maynard and Hubbard were arrested trying to travel to France. £280 were found on Maynard and £250 on another unknown man who was traveling with them. Strangely only Maynard was convicted of the crime, for some reason Jones was not tried. Maynard has the distinction of being the last person to be hanged for forgery in England.

Sarah Whitehead:The Black Nun of Threadneedle Street

The Bank of England, Threadneedle Street. Image via Wikimedia.

One of the most famous hauntings in London and the one that always sends chills along my spine is believed to be that of the ghost of Sarah Whitehead, otherwise known as the Black Nun. Sarah’s tragic tale begins in 1811 when her brother, Philip, a disgruntled former clerk in the Cashiers Office of the Bank of England was found guilty of forgery and attempting to defraud the bank. On the day of the trial, Sarah’s friends worried about her reaction kept the news of his conviction from her by persuading her to leave the rooms which she shared with her brother and go with them to their house off of Fleet Street. When her brother failed to return home, Sarah tried to find him. Either her brother had never told her he had left the bank or she had nowhere else to look since she kept going back to the bank in the desperate hope that someone would have heard from him. Eventually either out of annoyance or pity, one of the clerks finally blurted out the truth. The shock destroyed her mind. On her death she was believed to have been buried close to the bank of England on the former site of St Christopher le Stocks, which was demolished in 1781 when the premises of the bank was extended. The former graveyard became the gardens of the bank.

There are different accounts of what happened after Sarah was finally told the truth. One version is that she visited the bank every day for the remainder of her 25 years asking politely for her brother whilst another that on her visits she was verbally abusive to the bank’s staff. A third recounts how she became convinced that the bank had stolen money from her and would demand that they return what they had taken. Eventually in 1818 the bank’s governors tired of her constant presence gave her a sum of money on the provision that she would never come back, a promise she kept.

Even though the precise details of the story vary slightly, the one thing they all agree on is Sarah’s appearance. For the rest of her life she always wore full mourning weeds which consisted of a long black gown and full black veil.

Have you seen my brother?

Sarah Whitehead – The Black Nun of Threadneedle St. Public Domain(?)

For over the next two hundred years Sarah’s spirit has been unable to rest. She has been seen at the Bank of England itself, at Bank station (where railway staff have recalled how she leaves behind a feeling of terrible sorrow and hopelessness[11]) and in the former graveyard of the church where she was originally buried. Those witnesses who have seen her in the garden have said that she walks hesitantly, groping her way along as if she is blind then she falls to her knees and beats the ground with her fists, crying and shaking violently before she suddenly vanishes[12].

She has been most often seen at night wandering the streets around the bank and in particular Threadneedle Street still intent on finding her beloved brother. She has been reportedly seen by numerous people, some who knew the legend, most who didn’t. People of all ages, beliefs and lifestyles, people alone or with others have claimed to have seen a woman dressed peculiarly in black, walking slowly along the road. It is usually her strange attire which first catches their eye. Sometimes she stops them and with eyes downcast asks politely about her brother. Receiving a negative answer she turns and walks dejectedly away, disappearing from sight. Some people seeing her walk past are overcome by a feeling of intense grief and loneliness and approach her asking her if she needs help. Needless to say she just turns and asks her constant question, ‘Have you seen my brother?’

History or urban legend?

When looking at different websites and accounts of the Black Nun they all give Sarah’s brother’s name as Philip. On one of the websites the blogger states that there is no record of a Philip Whitehead appearing in the Old Bailey. Searching through the online records I agree, there is no evidence of Philip Whitehead but there is a Paul Whitehead aged 36 who was convicted of forgery and sentenced to be hanged. Looking at the proceedings of the trial, certain details emerge which fit with the legend surrounding Sarah Whitehead including the date of the trial, the 30^th October 1811 and the fact that Whitehead was a former clerk in the Cashiers Office at the Bank of England. The transcript from the trial records that Whitehead was indicted on six counts of forgery, the main charge being ‘’for feloniously forging and counterfeiting an acceptance on a certain bill of exchange for 87 l. 10 s. with [the] intention to defraud [13]”. Whitehead was hanged at Newgate on the 29^th January 1812 in front of a large crowd. He was described as being of ‘genteel appearance’ and who together with the five other condemned men “met their fate with decent fortitude, and when on the fatal scaffold shook hands, after which they were launched into eternity…”[14].

Courtroom at the Old Bailey. Image via Wikimedia.

Courtroom scene at the Old Bailey. Image via Wikimedia.

Maybe Paul Whitehead is not Philip Whitehead but if he isn’t then why is there no record of the latter’s trial or maybe the legend of Sarah has been fabricated based on Paul Whitehead’s crime and death. Personally I believe that it was a mistake and Philip is Paul Whitehead and that the story of the historical Sarah is true. I also hope that if her spirit is lost that one day she will be reunited with her brother and finally gain the peace of mind she has been searching for, for so long.