The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.Pelham, Camden
History
The Chronicles of Crime or The New Newgate Calendar. v. 1/2: being a series of memoirs and anecdotes of notorious characters who have outraged the laws of Great Britain from the earliest period to 1841.
Pelham, Camden
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England)
At the time the lives of these noblemen were thus unfortunately
sacrificed, many persons thought they fell by the hands of the seconds;
and some writers on the subject subsequently affected to be of the same
opinion: but nothing appears in the written or printed accounts of the
transaction, nor did anything arise on the trial, to warrant so
ungenerous a suspicion; it is therefore but justice to the memory of all
the parties to discredit such insinuations.
WILLIAM LOWTHER AND RICHARD KEELE.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF EDWARD PERRY, A TURNKEY OF CLERKENWELL
BRIDEWELL.
William Lowther was a native of Cumberland, and being bound to the
master of a Newcastle ship which traded to London, he became acquainted
with low abandoned company in the metropolis. Richard Keele was a native
of Hampshire, and served his time to a barber at Winchester; and on
coming to London, he married and settled in his own business in
Rotherhithe: but not living happily with his wife, he parted from her,
cohabited with another woman, and associated with a number of disorderly
people.
On the 10th of December, 1713, they were indicted at the Old Bailey, for
assisting Charles Houghton in the murder of Edward Perry. The case was
as follows:--The prisoners, together with two other desperate offenders,
of the name of Houghton and Cullum, having been convicted of felony at
the Old Bailey, were sentenced to be kept to hard labour in Clerkenwell
Bridewell for two years. On their being carried thither, Mr. Boreman,
the keeper, thought it necessary to put them in irons, to prevent their
escape. This they all refused to submit to; and Boreman having ordered
the irons, they broke into the room where the arms were deposited,
seized what they thought fit, and then attacked the keeper and his
assistants, and cruelly beat them. Lowther bit off part of a man's nose.
At this time, Perry, one of the turnkeys, was without the gate, and
desired the prisoners to be peaceable; but, advancing towards them, he
was stabbed by Houghton, and, during the fray, Houghton was shot dead.
The prisoners being at length victorious, many of them made their
escape; but the neighbours giving their assistance, Keele and Lowther,
and several others, were taken and convicted on the clearest evidence.
Some time after conviction, a smith went to the prison to take measure
of them for chains, in which they were to be hung, pursuant to an order
from the secretary of state's office; but they for some time resisted
him in this duty.
On the morning of execution (the 13th December, 1713), they were carried
from Newgate to Clerkenwell Green, and there hanged on a gallows; after
which, their bodies were put in a cart, drawn by four horses, decorated
with plumes of black feathers, and hung in chains.
WILLIAM JOHNSON AND JANE HOUSDEN.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDER OF SPURLING, A TURNKEY IN THE OLD BAILEY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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