Tyburn: London's Fatal Tree by Alan Brooke & David Brandon

Author:Alan Brooke & David Brandon [Brooke, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780752495798
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-04-30T23:00:00+00:00

But she to vicious ways inclin’d,

A life most wicked led;

With tailors and with tinkers too,

She oft defiled his bed …

Mary Young, also known as ‘Jenny Diver’, was one of London’s most gifted pickpockets. A native of Northern Ireland, at the age of fifteen she attracted the amorous attentions of a young man and having decided that London was the place of opportunity, she let him know that she would confer her favours on him if he took her there. Overjoyed at the prospect, he made the necessary sailing arrangements. He also stole a gold watch and 80 guineas from his master. They got to Liverpool and took temporary lodgings but he was apprehended for the robbery. Mary was not implicated and showed her true feelings for her swain by proceeding to London while he was taken back to Northern Ireland to stand trial and eventually to be transported. She found lodgings in Covent Garden and tried to get honest employment as a seamstress but like so many before and since, she found herself destitute and desperate. Another woman lodger took her under her wing and introduced her to a gang of pickpockets operating out of the nearby St Giles Rookery. These thieves were well organised and highly skilled and Mary quickly won their respect, being naturally adept at pickpocketing. A genius in her own way, she invented a pair of false arms and hands. Equipped with these she would take her place in a pew for divine service and sit during the sermon with her false arms and hands crossed in her lap, gazing demurely at the parson. Meanwhile with her real hands she dextrously removed the valuables from her unsuspecting neighbours. Caught and transported to the Virginian colonies, she managed to serve her time and to make her way back, by which time the gang had dispersed. She returned to picking pockets, was caught, transported yet again and once more managed to return to England. Reverting to her wicked ways, she was caught again and this time condemned to death. She was hanged at Tyburn on 18 March 1740, having greatly irritated the crowd by the lengthy time she spent on the gallows engaged in prayer. She was interred in St Pancras churchyard.

In 1748 John Lancaster met his end at Tyburn. A Londoner, born in 1726 in the East End, he became apprenticed to a velvet-maker and combined that work with part-time education at a Methodist charity school and gambling with dissolute companions in disreputable alehouses. He stole some material from his master, sold it and ran away to sea. Eventually he returned and went back to the velvet-making trade. He carried out a second theft but was caught, convicted and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, his teacher at the Methodist school appeared and persuaded him of the error of his ways and converted him to Christianity. Lancaster took to his new, if brief, way of life with great zeal. He is reputed to have ridden with ten other condemned prisoners from Newgate and led them in an impromptu recital of prayers and hymns.

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