The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 1/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 1/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
he was led past Mrs. King’s house, and at which he cast one glance as he
passed. His body was hanged in chains on Hounslow Heath.
Women were as capable of fiendish cruelty as men, and displayed greater
and more diabolical ingenuity in devising torments for their victims.
Two murders typical of this class of crime may be quoted here. One was
that committed by the Meteyards, mother and daughter, upon an apprentice
girl; the other that of Elizabeth Brownrigg, also on an apprentice. The
Meteyards kept a millinery shop in Bruton Street, Berkeley Square, and
had five parish apprentices bound to them. One was a sickly girl, Anne
Taylor by name. Being unable to do as much work as her employers
desired, they continually vented their spite upon her. After enduring
great cruelty Anne Taylor absconded; she was caught, brought back to
Bruton Street, and imprisoned in a garret on bread and water; she again
escaped, and was again recaptured and cruelly beaten with a
broom-handle. Then they tied her with a rope to the door of a room so
that she could neither sit nor lie down, and she was so kept for three
successive days, but suffered to go to bed at night time. On the third
night she was so weak she could hardly creep up-stairs. On the fourth
day her fellow apprentices were brought to witness her torments as an
incentive to exertion, but were forbidden to afford her any kind of
relief. On this the last day of her torture she faltered in speech and
presently expired. The Meteyards now tried to bring their victim to with
hartshorn, but finding life was extinct, they carried the body up to the
garret and locked it in. Then four days later they enclosed it in a box,
left the garret door ajar, and spread a report through their house that
“Nanny” had once more absconded. The deceased had a sister, a fellow
apprentice, who declared she was persuaded “Nanny” was dead; whereupon
the Meteyards also murdered the sister and secreted the body. Anne’s
body remained in the garret for a couple of months, when the stench of
decomposition was so great that the murderesses feared detection, and
after chopping the corpse in pieces, they burnt parts and disposed of
others in drains and gully holes. Four years elapsed without suspicion
having been aroused, but there had been constant and violent quarrels
between mother and daughter, the former frequently beating and ill-using
the latter, who in return reviled her mother as a murderess. During this
time the daughter left her home to live with a Mr. Rooker as servant at
Ealing. Her mother followed her, and still behaved so outrageously that
the daughter, in Mr. Rooker’s presence, upbraided her with what they had
done. He became uneasy, and cross-questioned them till they confessed
the crime. Both women were arrested and tried at the Old Bailey, where
they were convicted and sentenced to death. The mother on the morning of
her execution was taken with a fit from which she never recovered, and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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