Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 2: From the eighteenth century to its demolitionGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 2: From the eighteenth century to its demolition
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
Hunton's execution no doubt aroused public attention to the cruelty
and futility of the capital law against forgery. A society which had
already been started against capital punishment devoted its efforts
first to a mitigation of the forgery statute, but could not immediately
accomplish much. In 1829 the gallows claimed two more victims for this
offence. One was Richard Gifford, a well-educated youth who had been
at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards in the National Debt Office.
Unfortunately he took to drink, lost his appointment, and fell from
bad to worse. Suddenly, after reaching the lowest depths, he emerged,
and was found by his friends living in comfort in the Waterloo Road.
His funds, which he pretended came to him with a rich wife, were
really the proceeds of frauds upon the Bank of England. He forged the
names of people who held stock on the Bank books, and got the value
of the stock; he also forged dividend receipts and got the dividends.
He was only six-and-twenty when he was hanged. The other and the last
criminal executed for forgery in England was one Maynard, who was
convicted of a fraud upon the Custom House. In conjunction with two
others, one of whom was a clerk in the Custom House, and had access to
the official records, he forged a warrant for £1,973, and was paid the
money by the comptroller general. Maynard was convicted of uttering the
forged document, Jones of being an accessory; the third prisoner was
acquitted. Maynard was the only one who suffered death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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