Some Distinguished Victims of the ScaffoldBleackley, Horace
History
Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold
Bleackley, Horace
Criminals -- Great Britain; Executions and executioners; Trials -- Great Britain
The career of Samuel Denmore Hayward, hanged at the Old Bailey for
forgery on the 27th of November 1821, a picture of whom, dancing with
‘a lady of quality’ ornaments one version of the _Newgate Calendar_,
is similar to that of the Keswick impostor. Both men seem to have had
culture and address; each was distinguished for his social ambition,
and both were famous for gallantry. With the exception of James
Maclean, illustrious as the friend of Lady Caroline Petersham and
little Miss Ashe, none of our rogues--not even William Parsons, the
baronet’s son--have been such fine gentlemen.
Mary Robinson’s child was born early in June 1803, but did not survive
its birth. Who can tell whether she wept over it; or if the words that
came from the lips of her parents, when they heard of the death of her
betrayer, did not seem a fitting epitaph--“God be thanked!” To avoid
the gaze of curious travellers the unhappy girl was obliged for a
period to leave her native place, and the shadow that had fallen upon
her young life was not lifted for many years. Yet, brighter days were
in store for the Maid of Buttermere. In the course of time she was
wooed and won by a Cumberland ‘statesman’ named Richard Harrison, to
whom she was married at Brigham Church in the May of 1808. Two of her
sons, born at Buttermere, where she resided for a period after her
marriage, died in infancy; but when her husband took her to his farm
at ‘Todcrofts’ Caldbeck, beyond Skiddaw--where the Harrison family
had been ‘statesmen’ for generations--she became the mother of five
more children, three daughters and two sons, all of whom grew up and
married. In later years it was remarked that her girls were as pretty
as Mary had been herself when she was the Maid of the Inn. There is
reason to believe that the rest of her career was happy and prosperous,
and she lived tranquilly in her home at ‘Todcrofts’ where she died in
her fifty-ninth year. The tombstone records that she passed away on the
7th of February 1837, while her husband survived her for sixteen years.
Both rest in the churchyard that holds the ashes of immortal John Peel,
who followed Richard Harrison to ‘the happy hunting-fields’ within a
few months.
* * * * *
(I am indebted to the kindness of Mr Richard Greenup, of Beckstones,
Caldbeck, one of Mary Robinson’s few surviving grandchildren, for much
interesting information.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE HADFIELD CASE
I. CONTEMPORARY TRACTS, ETC.
1. _Report of the Proceedings on the Trial of John Hatfield_, London.
Printed for A. H. Nairne and B. Mace. Sold by Crosby and Company price
6d. 1803. Brit. Mus.
Although always spoken of as John Hatfield, the proper name of
the ‘Keswick Impostor’ if the register of his baptism is an
authority, was Hadfield.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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