Executions Described in Newgate Calendar
British Book on Criminals Intended to Improve Moral Fibre
Oct 25, 2009
The Newgate Calendar was an enormously popular publication of the 18th and 19th centuries. According to exclassic.com “The Newgate Calendar was one of those books, along with a Bible, Foxe’s Books of Martyrs, and the Pilgrim’s Progress, most likely to be found in any English home between 1750 and 1850."
Newgate Prison had Old Roots
The first jail on the site occupied by Newgate Prison was built in 1188; it served as the last home for many of London’s most notorious criminals for almost 700 years.
It was London’s chief prison and the place where the condemned spent their last few days before execution. Spartacus.schoolnet.co relates how, “Every Monday morning large crowds would assemble outside Newgate Prison to watch the men and women executed. A seat at one of the windows overlooking the gallows could cost up to £10. Public executions were abolished in 1868 and until 1901 prisoners were hanged inside Newgate.”
Newgate Calendar Compiled from Broadsheets
Following the execution of a particularly notorious criminal, peddlers sold broadsheets describing the event. Some even fashioned poems and songs which were read or sung in gin houses for tips.
The keeper of Newgate Prison had the idea of collecting these stories and published them as a monthly accounting of the execution of highwaymen, rapists, pickpockets, and all the other ne’er-do-wells that passed through his hands.
The first issue to come out in book form was published in 1773. According to The British Library its full title was “The Newgate Calendar; comprising interesting memoirs of the most notorious characters who have been convicted of outrages on the laws of England since the commencement of the eighteenth century; with anecdotes and last exclamations of sufferers.”
The complete collection was published in four volumes between 1824 and 1826.
John Hayes Murdered by his Wife’s Lovers
A favourite entry in the Calendar recounted the life and death of Catherine Hayes in five pages, such was her notoriety. She led a promiscuous life and seems to have had an almost insatiable sexual appetite that could not be satisfied by her husband John Hayes. She took numerous lovers, one of whom was her own son from a previous liaison.
In March 1725, she persuaded two of her lovers, Thomas Billings (her son) and Thomas Woods to kill her husband. After getting him drunk, the two men killed Hayes with an axe and dismembered his body. But they were sloppy in disposing of their victim’s head, which was discovered and identified.
The Trial and Sentencing of Hayes and Accomplices
In April 1726, the three came up for trial at the Old Bailey. Billings and Woods were charged with murder, Hayes with “petty treason.” (Petty, or Petit Treason was a charge reserved only for women who killed their husbands).
Having previously confessed, the three were found guilty and sentenced to death, Billings and Woods by hanging, Hayes by burning at the stake.
The website capitalpunishment.uk describes how “Catherine and her fellow condemned were lodged in the Condemned Hold at Newgate where she reaffirmed her confession but protested the severity of her sentence. She accepted that she deserved to die for her crimes but was understandably horrified by the thought of the manner of her death.”
Botched Execution of Catherine Hayes
Along with six other condemned criminals, Hayes, Billings, and Woods were taken to Tyburn (now the site of Marble Arch) for execution on May 9, 1726. Hayes had to witness the hanging of her son Thomas Billings before her turn came.
The Newgate Calendar describes the grisly end to the life of Catherine Hayes at the age of 36.
“When the wretched woman had finished her devotions, in pursuance of her sentence an iron chain was put round her body, with which she was fixed to a stake near the gallows. On these occasions, when women were burned for petty treason, it was customary to strangle them, by means of a rope passed round the neck and pulled by the executioner, so that they were dead before the flames reached the body.”
But Richard Arnet, the executioner, made a mess of it; the flames came too close to him and he let go the cord, leaving Catherine Hayes to die agonizingly and slowly in the fire.
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