At the ensuing session at the Old Bailey the three prisoners were brought to trial; and, after an investigation of eleven hours’ duration, Mrs. Brownrigg was capitally convicted; but her husband and son were found not guilty of the offence imputed to them. Mrs. Brownrigg was immediately sentenced to undergo the extreme penalty of the law, while the participators in her guilt were detained for trial on the minor charge of misdemeanor, of which they were eventually convicted, and were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.
After sentence had been pronounced, the unfortunate woman addressed herself to the Almighty; and, being attended by the ordinary of the jail, she confessed to him the enormity of her guilt, and that the punishment which awaited her was a just one. The parting between her and her husband and son is described to have been one which exhibited the strongest affection to exist, and which appeared to call up all those better feelings of the heart in the breast of this wretched woman, which must have lain dormant during the whole course of the maltreatment to which she subjected her wretched apprentices. On her way to the scaffold she was assailed by the mob, who expressed the most unmitigated disgust for her crime; and, before the termination of her existence, she appeared to be fully sensible of the awful situation in which she stood, and prayed the ordinary to acquaint the people that she confessed her crime, and acknowledged the justice of her sentence.
After her execution, which took place at Tyburn, September the 14th, 1767, her body was put into a hackney-coach, and conveyed to Surgeons’ Hall, where it was dissected, and her skeleton hung up.
JOHN WILLIAMSON.
EXECUTED FOR MURDER.
THE case of this criminal is a fit companion for that of the wretched being whose fate we last described.
Williamson was the son of people in but indifferent circumstances, who put him apprentice to a shoemaker. When he came to be a journeyman he pursued his business with industry; and in a short time he married an honest and sober woman, by whom he had three children. His wife dying, he continued some time a widower, maintaining himself and his children in a decent manner.
At length he contracted an acquaintance with a young woman deficient in point of intellect, to whom he made proposals of marriage, in the anticipation of receiving a small sum of money, which her relations had left her for her maintenance. The woman was nothing loth, and notwithstanding the opposition of her guardians, Williamson having procured a licence, the marriage was solemnized; and he in consequence received the money which he expected.
Within three weeks after the marriage, his ill-treatment of his unhappy wife commenced; and having frequently beaten her in the most barbarous manner, he at length fastened the miserable creature’s hands behind her with handcuffs; and, by means of a rope passed through a staple in the ceiling of a closet where she was confined, drew them so tight above her head, that only the tips of her toes touched the ground. On one side of the closet was now and then put a small piece of bread-and-butter, so that she could just touch it with her mouth; and she was daily allowed a small portion of water. She once remained a whole month without being released from this miserable condition; but during that time she occasionally received assistance from a female lodger in the house, and a little girl, Williamson’s daughter by his former wife. The girl having once released the poor sufferer, the inhuman villain beat her with great severity; but when the father was abroad, the child frequently gave the unhappy woman a stool to stand upon, by which means her pain was in some degree abated.
On the Sunday preceding the day on which she died, Williamson released his wife; and at dinner-time cut her some meat, of which, however, she ate only a very small quantity. Her hands being greatly swelled through the coldness of the weather and the pain occasioned by the handcuffs, she begged to be permitted to go near the fire; and the daughter joining in her request, Williamson complied; but when she had sat a few minutes, her husband, observing her throwing the vermin that swarmed upon her clothes into the fire, ordered her to “return to her kennel.” She immediately went back to the closet, the door of which was locked till the next day, and she was then found to be in a delirious state, in which she continued till the time of her death, which happened about two o’clock on the Tuesday morning.
The coroner’s jury being summoned to sit on the body, Mr. Barton, a surgeon, of Redcross-street, who had opened it, declared that he was of opinion that the deceased had perished through the want of the common necessaries of life; and other evidence being adduced to criminate Williamson, he was committed to Newgate.
At the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey he was brought to trial before Lord Chief Baron Parker; and the principal witnesses against him were his daughter, Mrs. Cole, and Mr. Barton, the surgeon who opened the body of the deceased.
The prisoner’s defence was exceedingly frivolous. He said his wife had provoked him by treading upon a kitten, and killing it, and then turning up the whites of her eyes. He had the effrontery also to declare to the Court that he had not abridged his wife of any of the necessaries of life; and after sentence of death was pronounced, he reflected upon his daughter as being the cause of his destruction.
Being put into the cells, he sent for a clergyman, and acknowledged that he had treated his wife in the cruel manner represented upon the trial; adding, however, that he had no design of depriving her of life: and he afterwards behaved in a decent and penitent manner.
He was conveyed to the place of execution in a cart, attended by two clergymen and a methodist preacher. The gallows was placed on the rising ground opposite Chiswell-street, in Moorfields; and after he had sung a psalm, and prayed some time with an appearance of great devotion, he was turned off, January 19th, 1767, amidst an amazing concourse of people.
His body was conveyed to Surgeons’ Hali for dissection, and his children were placed in Cripplegate workhouse.
SARAH METYARD AND SARAH MORGAN METYARD.
EXECUTED FOR THE MURDERS OF PARISH APPRENTICES.
A SINGLE year had not elapsed since the public example made of Elizabeth Brownrigg, to which the public indignation was yet alive, when these two, if possible, more cruel women, were found guilty of torturing their apprentices to death.
Sarah Metyard was a milliner, and her daughter her assistant, in Bruton-street, Hanover-square, London.
In the year 1758 the mother had five apprentice girls bound to her from different parish workhouses, among whom were Anne Naylor and her sister.
Anne Naylor, being of a sickly constitution, was not able to do so much work as the other apprentices, and she therefore became the more immediate object of the fury of her mistress. The ill-treatment which she experienced at length induced the unhappy girl to abscond; but being pursued, she was brought back and confined in an upper apartment, where her food consisted of a small piece of bread and a draught of water only each day. Seizing an opportunity, she again attempted to escape; but her young mistress was in time to see her run out, and, following her and seizing her by the neck, she brought her back, and with great violence thrust her into an upper room. The old woman then interfered, and catching the girl, she threw her on the bed, while her daughter beat her unmercifully with a hearth-brush. This done, they put her into a back room, and fixing a cord round her waist, they tied her hands behind her, and fastened her to the handle of the door so as to prevent her sitting or lying down; and in order that the example of her punishment might intimidate her fellow-apprentices, they were ordered to work in the adjoining apartment, strict injunctions, however, being given to them to afford the prisoner no relief whatever.
In this condition, without the smallest nourishment of any kind, the wretched girl remained for three days and two nights, when having been let loose, in order that she might go to bed, she crept up to the garret in a state of the greatest exhaustion. On the fourth day she faltered in her speech, but was nevertheless