The persons whose names are mentioned above, having been apprehended on suspicion of being concerned in this cruel murder, were tried at Clonmel, and being found guilty, were executed in 1766.
WILLIAM GUEST.
EXECUTED FOR DIMINISHING THE COIN OF THE REALM.
GUEST was the son of a clergyman of unblemished character, of the city of Worcester, who placed him apprentice to a genteel business. He passed the term of apprenticeship to the satisfaction of his master, and then came to London, and took a shop in Holborn, where he carried on business some years with the usual success of trade. His father’s good name assisted him in procuring a clerkship in the Bank of England; and there he pursued a system of fraud which procured his execution for a crime amounting to high treason—that of diminishing the gold coin of the realm.
He took a house in Broad-street Buildings, in a room in the upper part of which he used to work. Having procured a curious machine for milling guineas, not unlike that made use of by mathematical instrument-makers, he used to take guineas from his drawer at the Bank, file them, and return them to the Bank, and take out guineas of full weight in their stead. Of the filings he made ingots, which he sold to an assayer, who, on his trial, deposed that they were of the same standard as our guineas.
About three years before his conviction he became a teller at the Bank, and Mr. Leach, who was also a teller there, observing him picking out new guineas from the old ones, and having some suspicion, watched him, to discover whether this was a frequent practice; and finding that it was, he communicated his suspicions to some others. On the 4th of July 1766, Mr. Guest paid thirty guineas to Richard Still, a servant to Mr. Corner, a dyer, at Bankside, Southwark; and Leach observing him take some gold out of a bag in the drawer, and put it among the rest on the table, went after Still, asked him if his money was right, and begged he would walk with him into the Pay-office, and let him tell it over. The man consented, and Leach found three guineas that appeared to have been newly filed, which he took away, giving Still other guineas for them. He then carried the light guineas into the hall, and showed them to Mr. Robert Bell, another teller, who carried them to Mr. Race, the principal cashier. The latter weighed them, and found that they wanted from ten pence to about fourteen pence of weight each; and he then, having examined the edges, delivered them to Leach.
It is a custom at the Bank for the cashier in waiting to take the tellers’ bags every night, and lock them up; and Mr. Race, after these suspicious circumstances had appeared against Guest, ordered his bags to be examined after they were taken away. This was done by Mr. Thompson, one of the under cashiers, and Kemp and Lucas, two in-door tellers, who found the whole sum they contained to be 1,800l. 16s. 6d.; and they found in one bag forty guineas, which appeared to have been filed on the edges, and each of which was found to be deficient in weight, from eight pence to fourteen pence.
In consequence of this disclosure, Mr. Sewallis and Mr. Humberton, servants to the Bank, went with proper officers to search Mr. Guest’s house in Broad-street Buildings, and in a room up two pair of stairs, they found a mahogany nest of drawers, which, being broken open, was discovered to contain a vice, files, an instrument proper for milling the edges of guineas, two bags of gold filings, and one hundred guineas. The nest of drawers had a flap before, to let down; and a skin was found lying at the bottom, fastened to the back part of the flap, with a hole in the front part, to fasten to a button on the waistcoat, in the manner used by jewellers.
Mr. Guest was then apprehended, and being brought to trial, was found guilty, and sentenced to be executed. He subsequently zealously applied himself to the only duty which remained for him in this life to perform—that of making his peace with God, and was hanged on the 14th of October, 1767.
ELIZABETH BROWNRIGG.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
THE case of this most notorious criminal is too well remembered to render any introduction to it necessary. The long scene of torture in which the inhuman wretch kept the innocent object of her remorseless cruelty ere she completed the long premeditated murder, requires no comment, engaging as it did the interest, and exciting the horror of all ranks of people, and rousing the indignation of the populace more than the case of any criminal whose offences it is our duty to record, in the whole course of our melancholy narratives.
The wretched subject of this memoir passed the early part of her life in the service of many respectable families in London; but at length, being addressed by James Brownrigg, a plumber at Greenwich, she consented to marry him; and they were accordingly united in that town. After having resided at Greenwich during about seven years, they determined to remove to London, and they, in consequence, rented a house in Flower-de-Luce (Fleur-de-Lys) Court, Fleet-street, where Brownrigg carried on his trade with so much success, that he was enabled to hire a small house at Islington as a summer retreat. Their means, however, declining as their family increased to the number of sixteen, Mrs. Brownrigg applied to the overseers of the parish of St. Dunstan to be employed in the capacity of midwife to the workhouse; and testimonials having been produced of her ability—for she had already practised midwifery to a considerable extent—she was duly appointed. Her services were found to give entire satisfaction to the parish-officers, and she now hit upon a new mode of adding to her income. She, in the year 1765, opened a house in which she advertised her readiness to receive women to lie-in privately; but finding that the expense of keeping servants would be very great, she applied to the officers of the precinct of Whitefriars and of the Foundling Hospital for girls to be apprenticed to her, to learn the duties of household servants. Two girls, named Mary Mitchell and Mary Jones, were immediately placed with her, the former from Whitefriars, and the latter from the Foundling Hospital; and it would appear, that at first the poor orphans were treated with some degree of consideration and attention, but as soon as they became familiar with their mistress and their situation, the slightest inattention was sufficient to call down upon them the most severe chastisement. The first girl who experienced this brutal treatment was Jones; and it appears that her mistress would frequently, upon the smallest possible provocation, lay her down across two chairs in the kitchen, and there whip her until she was compelled, from mere weariness, to desist. The usual termination of this scene of disgusting inhumanity was, that the mistress would throw water over her victim, or dip her head into a bucket of water, and then dismiss her to her own apartment. The room appointed for the girl to sleep in adjoined the passage leading to the street-door; and, after she had suffered this maltreatment for a considerable time, as she had received many wounds on her head, shoulders, and various parts of her body, she determined not to bear such usage any longer, if she could secure her liberty. Observing that the key was left in the street-door when the family went to bed, therefore, she opened it cautiously one morning, and escaped into the street. Thus freed from her horrid confinement, she repeatedly inquired her way to the Foundling Hospital until she found it, and was admitted after describing in what manner she had been treated, and showing the bruises she had received.
The child having been examined by a surgeon, (who found her wounds to be of a most alarming nature,) the governors of the hospital