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
At length one of the neighbours, alarmed by the constant moaning and
groanings which issued from Brownrigg’s house, began to suspect that
“the apprentices were treated with unwarrantable severity.” It was
impossible to gain admission, but a maid looked through a skylight into
a covered yard, and saw one of the apprentices, in a shocking state of
filth and wretchedness, kept there with a pig. One of the overseers now
went and demanded Mary Clifford. Mrs. Brownrigg produced another, Mary
Mitchell, who was taken to the workhouse, but in such a pitiable state
that in removing her clothes her boddice stuck to her wounds. Mary
Mitchell having been promised that she should not be sent back to
Brownrigg’s, gave a full account of the horrid treatment she and Mary
Clifford had received. A further search was made in the Brownrigg’s
house, but without effect. At length, under threat of removal to prison,
Mrs. Brownrigg produced Clifford “from a cupboard under a beaufet in
the dining-room.” “It is impossible,” says the account, “to describe the
miserable appearance of this poor girl; nearly her whole body was
ulcerated.” Her life was evidently in imminent danger. Having been
removed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, she died there within a few days.
The man Brownrigg was arrested, but the woman and son made their escape.
Shifting their abode from place to place, buying new disguises from time
to time at rag-fairs, eventually they took refuge in lodgings at
Wandsworth, where they were recognized by their landlord as answering
the description of the murderers of Mary Clifford, and arrested. Mrs.
Brownrigg was tried and executed; the men, acquitted of the graver
charge, were only sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. The story goes
that Hogarth, who prided himself on his skill as a physiognomist, wished
to see Mrs. Brownrigg in Newgate. The governor, Mr. Akerman, admitted
him, but at the instance of a mutual friend played a trick upon the
painter by bringing Mrs. Brownrigg before him casually, as some other
woman. Hogarth on looking at her took Akerman aside and said, “You must
have two great female miscreants in your custody, for this woman as well
as Mrs. Brownrigg is from her features capable of any cruelty and any
crime.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE GAOL CALENDAR (_continued_).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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