Throughout the centuries and history, there were many people who were executed in public.
Henry VIII executed 70,000 people inside of his kingdom, and much of this happened in
front of huge crowds.
Prominent people such as Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More were taken to Tower Hill in
front of thousands, and they lost their heads at the sharp end of the executioner’s axe.
For centuries executions in public remained a staple of town life and city life across
England, until in 1868 the final person to be hanged in public lost his life.
But what is the story of this?
Join us today as we look at the horrific execution of the last public hanging in England.
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Michael Barrett is remembered in history as the last man to be publicly hanged in England.
As a young man, he moved to Glasgow and he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhoo.d At
the age of 27, he joined the Fenians, and he defied the Catholic Church.
He was amongst tens of thousands of Irishmen who were recruited, and he would be a part
of the most infamous action carried out by the group in mainland Britain.
The Clerkenwell Explosion was a bombing that occurred in London on the 13th December 1867.
The events that led up to the bombing began with the arrest of Richard O Sullivan Burke.
He was a senior Fenian arms agent, who planned a prison van escape in Manchester months before.
O’Sullivan Burke was imprisoned on remand in Middlesex House of Detention in Clerkenwell.
On the 12th December, there was an attempt to rescue him by blowing a hole in the wall
of the prison.
The explosion however was seriously misjudged.
It exploded and demolished a large section of the wall, but also a number of tenement
houses opposite on Corporation Lane.
The bombing resulted in the deaths of 12 people, and wounded up to 120 more.
It was said of the explosion that, ‘The London masses, who have shown great sympathy
towards Ireland, will be made wild and driven into the arms of a reactionary government.
One cannot expect the London proletarians to allow themselves to be blown up in honour
of Fenian emissaries.’
No one escaped because of the bomb, and the prison authorities had been forewarned earlier
that something was happening.
Because of this the prisoners were all locked in their cells.
The bombing enraged the British public, and it made relations between the English and
Irish tough.
It was described as an act ‘calculated to destroy all sympathy, and to evoke the opposition
of all classes.’
In the day before the explosion, the Prime Minister banned all political demonstrations
in London to end the weekly marches and meetings being held in support of the Fenians, but
the explosion turned public opinion against them.
But months before the explosion, Michael Barrett had been arrested in Glasgow for illegally
discharging a firearm, and it was later claimed that false evidence was used to link him to
the Clerkenwell Prison explosion.
At court he produced witnesses that said he was in Scotland when the explosion occurred,
and the case against him based on the evidence of a Dubliner who had a past in giving false
information., He told the court Barrett had informed him that he had carried out the explosion,
but after two hours the jury said he was guilty.
One of the lawyers stated, ‘On looking at the dock, one's attention was attracted by
the appearance of Barrett, for whom I must confess I felt great commiseration.
He was a square-built fellow, scarcely five feet eight in height and dressed like a well-to-do
farmer.
This resemblance was increased by the frank, open, expression on his face.
A less murderous countenance than Barrett's I have not seen.
Good humour was latent in his every feature and he took the greatest interest in the proceedings.
Barrett then later said, ‘I am far from denying, nor will the force of circumstances
compel me to deny my love of my native land.
I love my country and if it is murderous to love Ireland dearer than I love my life, then
it is true, I am a murderer.
If my life were ten times dearer than it is and if I could by any means, redress the wrongs
of that persecuted land by the sacrifice of my life, I would willingly and gladly do so’
Many people asked for clemency with regards to Barrett, and his mother even walked several
miles in the snow to appeal to her local MP.
However his death sentence was confirmed, and he was sentenced to be hanged outside
the walls of Newgate Prison on the 26th May 1868.
It was said of the execution, ‘On Monday the barriers were put up, and on Monday night
a fringe of eager sightseers assembled, mostly sitting beneath the beams, but ready on a
moment’s notice to rise and cling to the front places they had so long waited for.
There were the usual cat-calls, comic choruses, dances, and even mock hymns, till towards
2 o’clock, when the gaiety inspired by alcohol faded away as the public houses closed, and
popular excitement was not revived till the blackened deal frame which forms the base
of the scaffold was drawn out in the dawn, and placed in front of the door from which
Barrett was to issue.
Its arrival was accompanied with a great cheer, which at once woke up those who had been huddled
in doorsteps and under barricades, and who joined in the general acclamation.
The arrival of the scaffold did much to increase the interest, and through the dawn people
began to flock in, the greater portion of the newcomers being young women and little
children.’
It was then said, ‘With the first sound of the bells came a great hungry roar from
the crowd outside, and a loud, continued shout of “Hats off,” till the whole dense, bareheaded
mass stood white and ghastly-looking in the morning sun, and the pressure on the barriers
increased so that the girls and women in the front ranks began to scream and struggle to
get free.
Amid such a scene as this, and before such a dense crowd of white faces, Barrett was
executed.
His clergyman came first.
Barrett mounted the steps with the most perfect firmness.
This may seem a stereotyped phrase, but it really means more than is generally imagined.
To ascend a ladder with one’s arms and hands closely pinioned would be at all times difficult,
but to climb a ladder to go to certain death might try the nerves of the boldest.
Barrett walked up coolly and boldly.
His face was as white as marble, but still he bore himself with firmness, and his demeanour
was as far removed from bravado as from fear.
There was a partial burst of cheers, which was instantly accompanied by loud hisses,
and so it remained for some seconds, till as the last moment approached the roars dwindled
down to a dead silence.
To neither cheers nor hisses did the culprit make the slightest recognition.
He seemed only attentive to what the priest was saying to him, and to be engaged in fervent
prayer.
The hangman instantly put the cap over his face and the rope round his neck.
Then Barrett turning spoke through his cap and asked for the rope to be altered, which
the hangman did.
In another moment Barrett was a dead man.
After the bolt was drawn and the drop fell with the loud boom which always echoes from
it, Barrett never moved.
He died without a struggle.
It is worthy of remark that a great cry rose from the crowd as the culprit fell—a cry
which was neither an exclamation nor a scream, but it partook in its sound of both.
With the fall of the drop the crowd began to disperse, but an immense mass waited till
the time for cutting down came, and when 9 o’clock struck there were loud calls of
“Come on, body snatcher!”
“Take away the man you’ve killed!”
&c.
The hangman appeared and cut down the body amid such a storm of yells and execrations
as has seldom been heard even from such a crowd.
There was nothing more then to be seen, so the concourse broke up with its usual concomitants
of assault and robbery.’
Michael Barrett’s remains lay inside a lime grave in the walls of Newgate Prison for 35
years, and they were then moved to the City of London Cemetery.
He is remembered today as the last man who was publicly hanged in England.
His link to the Clerkenwell Explosion is one which is controversial and debatable today,
and many believe that he was not actually involved in it, and his execution was a miscarriage
of justice.
But the explosion caused great tensions between the English and the Irish, especially after
the death of many innocent people.
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