Louisa Merrifield

 I wrote about Louisa Merrifield, the phosphorus murderer.

Alfred Rouse

I wrote about Alfred Rouse and the burning car murder.

New Article

 A new article From Knucklebones to Apps 

Jack the Ripper

I wrote about Jack the Ripper 

Public Executions

In 1849 Frederick and Maria Manning were hanged in Walworth, London. A big crowd gathered to watch. Public executions were a popular form of entertainment. Best of all, they were free. (Although people who owned houses overlooking the gallows often charged people to stand in a bedroom where they could get a better view). Vendors sold hot food and drink to the crowd. On this occasion, a crowd of thousands turned up to watch.

But among the watchers was Charles Dickens. He was appalled by what he called ‘the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd' Afterward, Dickens campaigned for the end of public executions. He campaigned for their abolition.

In the USA, the last public execution was in 1936. The last one in France was in 1939.

A shocking story

In 1981, Michael Anderson Sloan was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair, but in 1983 the sentence was changed to life imprisonment. However, on 7 March 1989, while he was sitting on a metal toilet in a cell mending an earphone cable, he was electrocuted. 

Mary Blandy - she poisoned her father

 Mary Blandy was convicted of murdering her father and was hanged for the crime. Mary was born in 1720 into a middle-class family. Her father, Francis Blandy, was a well-to-do lawyer and the town clerk of Henley on Thames in Oxfordshire. Mary was, by all accounts, intelligent and well educated.

Keen to see his daughter marry well, Francis offered a dowry of £10,000 (a huge sum at that time). However, Blandy's entire estate was only worth about £4,000, and he could not have honoured the bargain. Still, the offer attracted a man named Captain William Cranstoun in 1746. Cranstoun was the son of a Scottish nobleman. In 1747, he asked to marry Mary. Francis agreed, and even invited him to move into the Blandy home. 

However, Cranstoun was already married. When Francis Blandy found out, he was naturally enraged. However, Cranstoun managed to persuade Mary and her mother that his marriage was invalid and would soon be annulled by the Scottish courts.

Cranstoun moved to London to await the court's decision. However, the Scottish court ruled that his marriage was legal.

Cranstoun persuaded Mary that he had a 'love powder' that, if she mixed it with her father's food and drink, it would change his attitude. He would start to like Cranstoun. The 'love powder' was actually arsenic. It's not clear if Mary naively believed Cranstoun or if she realised what the powder actually was. In any case, her father fell ill and gradually worsened. He died on 14 August 1751.

Nevertheless, Mary was not arrested till the following year, 1752. Cranstoun heard of the arrest, and he fled to France. Mary Blandy was convicted of murder, and she was hanged on 6 April 1752.