Oscar Wilde and the Murders at Reading Gaol by Gyles Brandreth

Author:Gyles Brandreth
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: John Murray
Published: 2012-10-24T23:00:00+00:00

Oscar Wilde

Five days after I had submitted my petition, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896, Charles Wooldridge was hanged in Reading Gaol. His petition was considered before mine and, in Wooldridge’s case, the Home Secretary was ‘pleased to accede to the prisoner’s request that there should be no reprieve in this instance and no delay to his execution’. The hanging took place, as was the custom, at 8.00 a.m., as the clock outside the prison walls struck the hour. According to Dr Maurice, who witnessed it, alongside the governor, the chaplain, the undersheriff and two warders on ‘special duty’ for the occasion, it was a ‘clean execution’: Wooldridge died instantly, his death caused by dislocation of the vertebrae. But a rumour ran round the prison that as the condemned man swung from the rope his neck stretched by eleven inches and his face was distorted beyond recognition.

At 8.00 p.m. on the same day, Sebastian Atitis-Snake, at his own request, was taken from his cell to the governor’s office and there, after making a full confession, was charged with the murder of Warder Braddle.

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