Glimpses into the 19th Century Broadside Ballad Trade

The first piece to consider under the Walker imprint is entitled The Trial, Confession And Execution Of W.  Hardiment … for the killing of a Mr Baker in 1822.  It consists of a prose account and a set of stanzas, the prose account opening thus:

The trial of the above unhappy man excited an uncommon degree of interest among all classes of people …

In the Walker printing Hardiment's own account of events is given although the sentiments are described in the piece as 'very improbable'.  In consequence 'the awful sentence of the law was passed upon him' in front of 'a vast concourse of spectators'.  We learn of the state of mind of the culprit - from an external viewpoint, that is: how that the 'unhappy man' had wandered from one county to another since the murder, 'a wretched vagabond' - 'unhappy' appearing alongside 'wretched' as standard description - and of a 'goading conscience forever tormenting him': also a regular comment in murder and execution balladry, perhaps mostly used in hope and, implicitly, in condemnatory connection.2

Eventually, during Hardiment's final hours:

The pressure of the crowd on the Castle Hill, was astonishing, during the execution, and every evenue (sic) to the spot was filled with people from the City and County to witness the awful spectacle, all waiting with breathless expectation till the platform fell, and the soul of the unhappy criminal was launched into eternity.

Now from my dark and dismal cell,
Where sorrow only deigns to dwell …

The Walker piece continues with Hardiment warning his friends to 'reflect upon your ways'.  He himself must die 'on the fatal tree'.  There is a sustained appeal to God for mercy and then:

When all the train of Adam's race
Are summoned to appear,
To meet their Saviour face to face,
O God may I be there.

We would not know from the Walker piece of the complications in this case.  One account, in the Norfolk Chronicle, tells us that the murder in question took place at Wells (Next-the-Sea) on October 11th 1817 and that two men, Hardiment and a John Johnson had been involved.  Hardiment, it appears, had absconded and Walker's piece takes up the story after he had been retaken.  Finally, we find that Hardiment's body was given to surgeons for dissection - recalling other varied instances of what happened to bodies in such cases.  Our concern is, of course, with the Walker piece on Hardiment but the prospect of other material as yet undiscovered such as might cover the fate of Johnson is an intriguing one.  A report in the Norfolk Chronicle notes Johnson's execution - an 'unhappy victim'.  A second account, though, from Charles Mackie in his Norfolk Annals - a valuable compilation gleaned from newspapers - indicates that the trial involved Hardiment and one Benjamin Neal and that the Bill against Neal was thrown out during the Spring Assize of 1818.  This was not the information given in the Norfolk Chronicle and no resolution of the details has yet been possible.  What we do have here is a clear case of a printer leaving out certain details either as a matter of choice or because he was not in full possession of all the facts and this is a procedure that crops up on several occasions in Norfolk (and elsewhere, of course).3

The second Millenium library piece from Walker is a short prose account of the hanging of four 'unhappy' men at Newgate 'pursuant to their sentences' on November 26th 1823.  There are brief biographical details - John Smith, who pleaded guilty, leaving a wife and child; John Crisp 'connected with a lawless gang at the east end of the town'; Edward Hogan 'quite a youth, a journeyman baker' (but also, evidently, a previous murderer anyway); and James Scott, who had stabbed his wife with a pair of scissors.  An equally brief account of the hangings is given, the only comment of any difference to most proceedings being the observation that:

For the first time, the ceremony of knocking off the irons was rendered unnecessary, the culprits never having since their conviction … been in irons'.

Walker's third piece (in date order), The Defence & Execution of J.  Thurtell …, is, like the previous piece discussed, not concerned with a local murderer but with one who 'Suffered' at Hertford on 9th January 1824 for the murder of a Mr Weare.  This was a prominent enough case both at the time and in subsequent commentary.  Detail here has been mostly assembled from various websites (but see the reference to Hugh Anderson below).  Thurtell was a gambler and held a grudge against William Weare, a solicitor and fellow-gambler.  At the house of yet another gambler, William Probert, at Radlett in Hertfordshire, Thurtell proposed a weekend's gambling and on the way there with Weare tried to shoot the latter, then used a penknife on Weare's neck and, finally, jabbed the pistol barrel so hard that it entered Weare's skull.  Joseph Hunt, an actor friend, helped dispose of the body; but it was found; and Thurtell and Hunt were taken into custody.  In the end, Hunt was transported.  Thurtell was hanged on a newly built 'drop' (surrounded by javelin men) and his body was sent to the College of Surgeons in London for dissection.

Pitts printed a confession (Thurtell had, apparently, confessed to the prison chaplain) and a description of the execution that appeared later in Hindley's Curiosities of Street Literature.  Catnach, it seems, also printed a piece that was his most successful in selling terms before being overtaken by sales of his Corder material in 1828.  According to Hugh Anderson, Pigott of Clerkenwell also printed a ballad on Thurtell's execution, not, so far, located.

Mr Anderson included The True And Sorrowful Lamentation Of John Thurtell in his Farewell to Judges and Juries but gives no details of provenance.  The ballad seems to include most of the details given above and referred to Hunt 'one of my vile companions' as having showed 'them' where Weare's body had been thrown.  Thurtell would now 'advance to the fatal tree' and he warns 'all ye wild and thoughtless young men' against 'the awful story' of his own life.  The piece, in single ballad form, complements the Walker printing as discussed below.5

One line in it is worth mentioning since it may explain why Walker took on the case, other than through widespread publicity, because 'I was' declares Thurtell 'brought up in Norwich city'.  He had indeed been born there in 1794, the son of the then Mayor of Norwich.

The Walker form, like that concerning the forgers above, is that of a prose piece only (there is no header block nor any stanzas) that first of all gives verbatim John Thurtell's account of his state of mind: effectively a plea proclaiming innocence in the face of numerous calumnies - 'the late slanders' - exercised, in particular, he claimed, by the press.  It was the practice at the time for the accused to try to defend himself after the prosecution case had been put and without benefit of cross-examination by the prisoner of the prosecution.

The jury, in this instance, was praised by Thurtell for its obvious integrity; Thurtell's upbringing under the eye of a 'kind, affectionate, and, above all, a religious mother' was recalled (numerous such mothers appear in murder and execution balladry - some below); Thurtell's work serving his monarch alluded to.

Nonetheless, according to the Walker piece, after a half-hour retirement the jury returned to pronounce Thurtell guilty.  'Mr Justice Park' gave out the sentence of death.  There follows a lengthy description of Thurtell's cell and his manner of carrying himself in it: tears, contrition, 'fervid and impassioned', a gradual firming up of his bearing - all impressing his attendants.  At the same time, there is no admittance of guilt.  This is underlined in the final paragraphs - actually set in smaller type - but first, 'As the hour for the Execution approached, vast quanties (sic) of vehicles of all descriptions were in requisition.  The equestrians were unusually numerous …'  The procession to the scaffold took its normal form with the Under Sheriff and the governor of the gaol - both of whom Thurtell had thanked for their kindness - in attendance and Thurtell 'was launched from his mortal state into eternity'.  Then - and contradicting expectations - the report does add that 'It is said he persisted to the end to refuse any confession'.  One should not overlook the distancing implied in the phrase 'It is said'.  We have come across this feature before.  We note the phrase 'as we may see' in Murder of Mr O'Connor (bv the Mannings in 1849), 'as we hear ' in Lamentation of John Jones (1870), 'as we may hear' in Horrid Murder…of Thomas Briggs by Franz Muller (1873) and 'so we hear' in connection with the murder of Eliza Bloor by John Pointon (1878).  More explicitly still, in the Dixblanc case:

What horrid crimes to us are mentioned
In the papers from time to time …

There is also a description in the Norfolk Chronicle of Thurtell's body as it lay in the prison chapel.  Further, we find the following account of events:

…The first who entered the town were chiefly the Yeomanry of the county, who came in their own vehicles, or rode their own horses.  The London folk began to arrive about eight o'clock - These consisted principally of the class of men known as “The Fancy.” We were shocked at the want of common feelings of humanity which they exhibited in their conversation.  About nine o'clock “the country people” began to flock into town, including a large proportion of females, principally young ones too…

Clearly Walker - and other printers - did not concern themselves unduly with any possible debate.  Theirs was a singular enough task.  And so, in a manner associated with the Hardiment piece, certain details were not considered - nothing is said of the fate of Hunt, for instance; nor of Probert who, whilst escaping prosecution in the Weare case, was convicted of horse stealing a year later and hanged on June 20th 1825 outside Newgate.

The fourth Robert Walker piece to be considered is very much in the Norfolk mode as described when the wider Millenium library cache was considered and whose prevalence was noted: that of header block, prose account and some brief stanzas - and one might bear in mind that it may have been Walker himself who to a substantial degree promulgated this form locally.  The header, for instance, is that already described previously - a hanging figure on a gallows set between two large gateways and backed by the outline of a castle, unmistakeably that of Norwich; with a crowd in the foreground, backs to the reader and distinguished by headgear - one finds the same header on several Walker pieces (as is being revealed) but also, as reminder, on William Upcroft's Daines piece (1839), on the piece, without imprint, concerned with William Flack's murder of Maria Steggles (1853) and on Gifford's Thompson piece (1854).  Importantly, this Norfolk header is not found in execution balladry from elsewhere nor, in Norfolk, before Walker's contributions.

The Walker piece is entitled A Correct Account Of the Trial, execution, Life, Character & behaviour … of the 'unfortunate Man', Richard Knockolds (or Nockolds as he is described in newspaper reports), hanged in 18317: not for murder but for arson, on the premises of a Mr Ducker, amid 'the most heartrending scene'.  At first glance, then, one might think that the piece accurately reflects the discontent and ambiguity of conscience surrounding the deaths of those engaged in agricultural agitation that was reaching a height at the time.  But a closer inspection reveals a hard attitude in the account:

The crime was of a nature the most diabolical!  and the frequent occurrence of which have (sic) lately rendered it one of the most terrible and alarming subjects of anxiety that ever occurred in a civilized Country!  - The evidence against the prisoner was the most clear and satisfactory ever produced in a court of Justice …

what were the feelings of the poor disconsolate mother and her unhappy children on entering the cell of her husband!  How did they shudder, at the clank of the chains that fettered their poor Father's limbs!  What tears of anguish!  trickled down the cheeks of the innocent offspring …

Who could at such a scene as this refuse a tear, to the heart struck Criminal, and his sorrowing Family, a weeping Mother!  left to struggle through the world with her helpless Offspring!  their only Protector!  Friend!  and parent!

Finally, the piece says, as Knockolds was hanged, a 'universal Shudder' ran through the crowd, accompanied by prayers for mercy.

We should pause yet again to note how detail has been left out in a similar way to that on the Hardiment case above, for along with Knockolds, three other men, Josiah Davison, David Davison and Robert Hunt, were also indicted.  No serious evidence was offered against Hunt and David Davison and they were acquitted.  Josiah Davison was considered to have been an accessory and a verdict of Guilty was bestowed.  However, this was accompanied by a recommendation for mercy and there is no evidence that he was hanged.  More and more we see how ballad-printers honed in on events with a particular eye and with a frequent airiness where actuality was concerned.

The stanzas that follow the prose account in this Walker piece cannot but be something of a let-down in intensity, running as they do along well-worn paths:

FAREWELL, dear friends, the day is come, the dreadful hour draws nigh,
This morning is my fatal doom, upon a tree I die …

Nothing quite as spattered with so many exclamation marks appears in other Walker pieces although, as will be seen, the tendency towards emotional outburst is visible, not least in a further piece from Walker concerned with the case of James Clarke, who was, like Knockolds, hanged for arson.  This kind of highblown presentation may signify a particular hand at work: that of a hack or even of Robert Walker himself.  One pauses to remark that Walker was much associated with Samuel Lane at this time, a maker of verse whose life and work will be examined in a separate article.  Indeed, Samuel Lane's stanzas can be found in numbers of printings from our old friend Robert Lane and from Walker.  Was Samuel Lane, perhaps, involved in the production of the piece under consideration?  Or was it J Parkerson (Jun.), another of Walker's hacks?  If it is not possible to say, the prospect is clear enough, although in Lane's case, he does not seem to have suffered a rush of blood in his political squibs.  There are other named writers to be found in a range of ballads, especially amongst the same sorts of election pieces as those put out by Samuel Lane and collected together in the Colman volumes in the Millenium library.

The Clarke printing of 1835 has a very similar title to that of the Knockolds piece - The Trial and Execution, Life, Character and Behaviour …; and virtually the same header block - the hanged figure, though, is entirely black whilst in the Knockolds piece a line or two (that comes out white) is etched on the body; but details of the crowd and castle backgrounds are identical.  The man, like Knockolds and others, is introduced as being 'unfortunate'.  Then, without quite the pitch of emotion as can be found in the Knockolds piece, a version of events is given that was reconstructed from witness statements under cross-examination.  The physical location of James Clarke's crime is described: first a 'Cottage', then the 'premises' (actually a stack) of one Bambridge, Clarke 'standing against the Stack with a light!', where he took a sheaf from the stack, lighted it and the stack burst into flame.

Oddly, the witnesses under cross-examination, though positive as to Clarke's identity, had not thought to give this information when first questioned.  Thus Clarke escaped and took ship for Sunderland before he was taken and brought back to Norwich Castle.

Clarke's life-history is then surveyed - his mother a poor widow, his own disposition to keep 'low company', the crime as now addressed.  'Happily' the man now 'began to feel sincere penitence and deep remorse for his conduct' - he evidently having no personal quarrel with Mr Bambridge.  His friends found him in a state of wishing that he had shunned 'those distinctive paths that have brought me to this untimely end'.  Then the particular piece does exhibit some of the fulsomeness of the Knockolds printing with exclamation marks around Clark's end before 'a vast concourse of Spectators' (a characteristic newspaper description as seen in the previous piece in this series and in newspaper accounts of executions from across the country) and, fervently:

a Final judgement from that Throne of Grace where the merits of a redeeming Saviour will we sincerely pray plead the cause of the hapless sinner!

Ah!  you that see this wretched sufferer's end!
To the warning voice of these few lines attend;
Ah you that heard his last sad dying groans,
The judgement of almighty God must own.

What agony thy relatives must feel,
Thy mother's anguish, no tongue on earth can tell…

Ah!  still I hear the platform's awful drop,
Ah!  could my wishes they sad fate have stop'd;
I would at that sad moment still have sav'd
Thy wretched youth from an untimely grave …

We can remark one or two points of interest in a Norfolk Chronicle report - first, that Clarke's body was actually 'taken away by friends in a cart', a variant on procedure already described and, no doubt, encouraged by fear of dissection. 

Second, Clarke:

… attributed his first seduction into bad company and idle habits to poaching, and poaching to the want of regular employment …

Third - perhaps the reference is somewhat gratuitous but what an opportunity the particular tale might have given to a ballad-maker - an old man known as a cake-seller was thought to have said that he would take Clarke's place on the scaffold for five shillings and, afterwards, went home and did hang himself.  One can only think that the printer had not cognisance of these particulars, perhaps even refused the same, and that, indeed, his piece was put out before the Norfolk Chronicle report.  Similarly, when the Judge sentenced Clarke to death, giving out the words, 'and may God have mercy on your soul', Clarke allegedly replied, 'Yes, or there is not much mercy on earth'.  Again, the printer did not take this up.  If nothing else this suggests that Walker did not necessarily rely entirely on newspaper reports for his material but may well have secured information either in person or through an unknown intermediary.8

The lacunae as noted above seem to be characteristic of printings so far discussed.  As was noted above in connection with Hardiment printers selected material and they did it not only without total regard to either accuracy or importance in 'historical' terms but, it seems, somewhat randomly.  The only valid pattern seems to be an absence of pattern.  And, whilst one sees a dependence on ballad convention, this absence of pattern is a factor in the visibility of an individual slant at times.

Thus, in the case of Catherine Frary (given elsewhere as 'Frarey') and Frances Billings in 1835, Walker certainly employs convention but, in two different pieces, perhaps widens the scope of hyperbole.9  A prose piece entitled 3 Dreadful Murders By Poison offers 'A full and true account of the dreadful and shocking Murder committed last week at BURNHAM MARKET … on Mary, the wife of PETER TAYLOR, a journeyman shoemaker of that place …', this suggesting breaking news and not attempting to pre-empt events.  Predictably, the piece claims that the murder was one of 'the most distressing and harrowing…ever remembered in the County of Norfolk' and that it 'produced a surprising degree of excitement in that town and neighbourhood' (my italics).  The word 'surprising' is subject to a degree of scepticism since the same excitement can be found noted in the piece on Hardiment above, an example of convention in reporting - 'unhappy ' and 'wretched' being prominent also - just as there was convention in ballad-printing.  In this case we might just suspect that this was an attempt to absolve the printer from any commercial gloating

Mary Taylor, it turns out, was poisoned by arsenic as was a child living in the same place.  One recalls several other instances of poisoning through arsenic such as those involving John Tawell, Sarah Dazley, John Pycraft, John Stratford, Catherine Foster and Charles Daines, the first two discussed in 2005 on this site and the others featuring in the previous piece in this series10, and whilst, initially, the means of administering the poison were not known:

It being remembered … in the neighbourhood, that there had been an intimacy between the husband of the deceased and Fanny Billing (sic), a married woman living at the next door, and she being of a loose character, other enquiries were made.

Well might SOLOMON say of a loose woman - “he that goeth after her is as an Ox going to the slaughter, or a fool to the correction of the stocks: he goeth after her straitway 'til a dart strike through his liver, - as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life.”

Francis Billings, the mother of no less than fourteen children, nine of whom were still alive, is described first as 'unhappy'; both women as 'wretched'; and when the Guilty sentence was pronounced 'the Paleness of Death overspread the countenance of both Prisoners and they were with difficulty kept from falling'.  Relatives and spectators alike uttered 'Shrieks of Horror' as the 'miserable' women were taken out of court.

Again, we find a certain journalistic liberty in some fulsome outbursts from both women (although they are not quite liberally sprinkled with exclamation marks as was the Knockolds piece described above).  Francis Billings, apparently 'always infinitely fond of her children' exclaimed:

Oh my dear, dear, children, tis for you I shall feel, as for myself I have merited my Fate, but to be torn from you by an ignominious Death, to part from all my dear children, to end my Life on the Scaffold, tear my very heartstrings asunder, Oh wretched Mother, & is this to be the last time, I shall fold you to my miserable bosom, what cruel Fate could tempt me to commit the horrid Deed that have brought me to this dreadful End! 

Oh my Murdered Husband!  Soon shall I appear at the Bar where thou wilt confront me with the diabolical act of thy cruel murder.  Oh!  then wilt thou reproach me with thine untimely death.  My Judges were merciful and gave me time to prepare for death, but I wretched woman shew no mercy to thee, but sent thee to an untimely Grace, without allowing thee one hour to lake thy peace with God; but soon shall me writhing and suffering frame be expos'd to the Gaze of the multitude who will witness without regret the miserable Death of so wretched a Murderer as myself: And Oh, may my awful End be a warning to all who see and read of me.

The stanzas that follow could even be said to be superfluous except that there are one or two convolutions of sentiment and warning:

AH you that these poor Wretches end (sic) behold,
One hour ago in health!  now Dead and Cold!
Their vicious passions brought them to their end,
And to the warning of their fate attend.

Two of them smiling Babes of tender years,
Who not as yet have thought of worldly cares …

The other wretch that suffered by her side,
The woman Frarey deep in Guilt was dy'd;
Or else she had never mixed the fatal Dose,
That in the Grave her Husband's life did close …

The bodies in yet another slight variation in practice were now laid out for dissection 'and Public Shew', an awful warning - may it be a lesson 'To shun the Paths of Vice and Misery' and may both women 'to Christ's redeeming arms ascend'.

Walker certainly seems to know how to fully exploit his material in broadside language and almost reaches the heights (depths, perhaps) of the Knockolds piece.

We turn now to the murder of Hannah Manfield11 on which William Upcroft based a piece, described in the previous article in this series.  Walker's printing, entitled The Trial and Execution Of the Two unhappy Men who were executed on the Castle Hill, at Norwich … in 1837 - that is, John Smith (Day) and George Timms - follows a by now familiar pattern.  There is the usual header block, this time with two suspended figures with Norwich Castle in the background and, in the foreground, a crowd with backs towards the reader.  A prose account follows that asserts first off that it contains 'a true copy of the confession made by Smith, since his condemnation' and then 'a full account' of the murder that Smith insisted should be made public 'as a warning to others'. 

There is a description of the trial scene where 'every one was anxious to see the inhuman Monsters'.  So far, 'Monsters' is not a word that has featured in Walker pieces as it had been in several other murder ballads discussed on this site in previous articles, but Walker, as we are learning to expect, sometimes changed the exact form and here extended his range of vocabulary as when he referred to the 'Brutality' of - note - 'three Powerful young men, through cruel wantonness!' (my italics), 'Brutality', again, not so far a word found frequently in Walker text and the number 'three' contradicting the naming of Smith and Timms alone.  And 'monsters' is used once more in the piece as description of the men.  A third man is later named - one 'Varnham' (we know that he was acquitted).  There follows some discussion of the victim's name that does not advance the narrative element and then the comment that:

The behaviour of the prisoners when on Trial by no means shew any particular feeling of the awful situation in which their crimes had placed them.

They seemed entirely unmoved at the awful and solemn manner in which the Learned Judge pronounced the awful sentence of the Law …

And if the reader of the last words of mine can give a prayer for the souls of three such wretched Murderers oh may that prayer be heard at the mercy seat of Christ's everlasting Kingdom!!

The accompanying stanzas, offering an enveloping religious sentiment, have, in a way that we have discovered previously, no obvious relationship to the crime.  They begin:

All you that now these wretched men behold,
Pray for God's mercy on the Murders' soul;
You see them writhing on the fatal Drop,
God's judgement to their crimes has put a stop.

…may their awful Fate a warning be,
To all, that this most dreadful sight shall see;
Shun loose Companions; sin and guilt avoid,
See what a wretched Death these Culprits died.

A full description of the supposed execution, and of the behaviour of the men on the gallows, with a copy of their confessions and their “last dying words,” was hawked about the streets of the city.12

The first thing revealed in the prose account, brief in comparison with other Walker prose accounts, was that Daines had made a full confession and we learn through this that he had made two previous attempts on the life of Elizabeth Mills and his child 'on two former Occasions' through the agency of arsenic poisoning - disguised within 'Fried Potatoes' and 'Pea Soup'.  The account concludes as follows:

The concourse of People present to witness his lamentable end, was immense, his struggles were short, and the unhappy criminal was soon launched into ETERNITY!!!

The attendant stanzas are comparatively substantial and we might expect that they could elaborate on the case a little.  They begin in a familiar fashion: not literally as a 'Come-all-ye' but with images found widely in balladry - in 'As I walked out' style - and, more specifically, pre-echoing, say, lines associated with the 1851 Drory case as discussed on this site previously14:

As I walked down by Chelmsford Jail,
    I heard as youth in sorrow sigh,
In anguish he did sore bewail,
    Saying, I am condemned to die…

As I walked down by Norwich gaol,
    I heard a man thus sore bewail;
To fetters bound I here do lie,
    For Murder I'm condemned to die.

And Daines records how he had lived in Hempnall and how he had taken to drink 'Which quickly drove me to ruin's brink' (it really is noteworthy how many times our four favourite 'reasons' for murder crop up); indeed until:

My love did turn to hatred dread,
    And I wished my wife and children dead.

O in the morning I arose,
    And quickly did put on my clothes;
I did light the fire and the kettle fill,
    The poisonous mixture to distil.

My loving wife soon did follow me,
    And wondered I had made the tea;
I then went out though not at ease,
    And had my breakfast of bread and cheese.

Daines' neighbours then tell him that his wife was dying, whereupon:

I quickly went with a troubled mind,
    And there my children dear did find
Breathing their last; and my poor dear wife,
    Almost ready to part with life.

The rest is quickly told: the appearance of the constable - 'You are my prisoner!'; the trial - although 'On the first indictment I did get clear' for his wife did not appear against him; but then when she did give evidence, the knowledge that 'I had not long to live'; and the sentencing - 'You must be hanged 'till you are dead.'

As was often the case in balladry the piece is ended there but we have already learned from the prose account and from information given immediately under the header that Daines was executed, on April 27th 1839.  This is confirmed in newspaper reports and lists of executions.

The piece is not really in the same mode as those from Walker previously examined and there is no accounting why unless a different hand was at work at the compositioning.  In other Walker printings (found in the Colman collection), if another hand is at work it is usually evident - the names of Samuel Lane and P.  Parkerson (Junior) have already been noticed; and their individual contributions do not really match the tone of Walker's execution ballads.  If the two were careful enough to change their style, or if Walker employed another hack or, indeed, wrote his own material, we are not yet the wiser.  In respect of the latter possibility, we recall Upcroft's own verses discussed in the previous piece in this series. 

The Upcroft prose account of the Daines affair, as reminder, is more fulsome in its condemnation and gives us more detail also.  In contrast to those from Walker the Upcroft stanzas are heavily religiose.  It is almost as if there had been a turnaround and that Upcroft had adopted the Walker manner as we have hitherto found it; or, perhaps, Upcroft had beaten Walker to the post in the printing issue stakes and Walker was content, therefore, to offer a gesture only: another puzzle in broadside printing amongst many.

Walker's account of the Trial and Execution, Life, Character, and Behaviour of John Randalsome …(1840) reverts somewhat though not entirely to type with the usual header block and then a substantial prose account followed by a short set of stanzas.15  The prose account begins with the familiar epithet, 'unfortunate man'.  Some of the details of the case are then given.  It appears that Randalsome had married a Mary Barnaby but that this was not known generally and she had continued to live at her father's house until the night of the murder, a night after which the couple were to have left to live with a sister of Mary's - in the same village.  Already, apparently, attempts had been made on Mary's life through the agency of arsenic 'in the water in a tea kettle' and her own father had been suspected.

Then a web of deceit emerges: Randalsome, enamoured of an Elizabeth Punchard in Ditchingham to the extent of promising to marry her after seducing her, his success in obtaining money from her, his continued clandestine visits to his wife who became pregnant, the realisation that he could not keep this from 'Bet Punchard' or the world at large, the attempt to murder his wife through poison and, then, violence.  He and his wife walked out as was their (secret) practice and Randalsome tried to drown her in a pond.  She cried 'Murder' and he beat her with a stake, causing her death.  Randalsome got his own family to say that he had been in bed at the time of the murder.  Eventually, at trial, he was sentenced to die.  Sometimes refusing to eat whilst in jail, 'He passed his time between hope an despair till the last morning arrived'.

Here, in Walker's account, is another of those Biblical interjections pointing a moral, a lengthy one in this case reminding us of other religiose material amongst Norfolk printers but, nevertheless, one that need not detain us.  Then, briefly, the execution is described.

The stanzas that follow, offered as if from the tongue of Randalsome himself, dwell entirely on his state of mind, making no reference to the events that led to his conviction for murder:

Tremendous sound, what do I hear!
O Lord receive my soul,
For I'm condemn'd and death is near,
Which puts an end to all.

The clock now strikes, the dismal bell,
It seems to sound my passing knell;
I know for me it soon will toll,
May God have mercy on my soul.

But there are still one or two differences in the Walker piece as opposed to those in newspaper reports.  The first Norwich Mercury report gave the name of the murderer as 'Ringlesham', the second as 'Randlesham' and the third as 'Randlesome'.  Walker, we assume, came to the case when the debate over naming had been settled.  In Walker's piece there is no mention, as there is in newspapers, of any 'others' charged along with Randalsome.  The newspaper also indicated that Randalsome 'was unable to read, and very ignorant of divine and moral truths', these final details taken together throwing the tiniest new light on Randalsome's character.  One would not guess from the Walker piece that Randalsome was in any possible way a truly 'unfortunate' man.  To Walker it seems that this did not matter but, in accepting the status quo as regards the appropriateness of justice as it was meted out, that 'news' did.  Finally, according to the Norwich Mercury, Randalsome did not offer a confession and Walker does not mention one.

Our next Walker example, concerning the case of Charlotte Yaxley, has a slightly changed format yet again - in this case there is simply a short prose account of the murder of Mary Anne Karrington in 1841.16  The whole tone of the piece is that of a routine newspaper report, the sort found as preliminary to accounts of trial proceedings, themselves frequently set out verbatim and as such so used in murder balladry (although we know from the Norwich Mercury that certain details of the case, as in the Randalsome case above, are absent from Walker's printing).  What makes the piece more interesting still is that it appears in exactly the same terms in a printing from William Broadhurst as discussed in the previous article in this series.  The question was posed there and may be repeated: who filched from whom?  We know that the printers worked contemporaneously.  Broadhurst, at least, included some brief stanzas.  Is it possible even that Walker was once again anticipated in the timing of his issue? 

The question may also arise in connection with Walker's Trial, Execution, and Confession, of John Self … who murdered a Jemima Simpson in 1841 since William Broadhurst printed a piece on the same case - he, it should be said, called the man Benjamin Self but newspaper reports use Walker's designation of 'John' and it is as John that the man appears in lists of executions.17  Broadhurst, we have found, seems to have been a little careless in production.  Walker's piece here has his familiar header although details of headgear in the crowd are, as it were, shuffled.  A prose account offers a spread of detail, beginning with an encounter 'on a bank', an incipient assault, Jemima Simpson's declaration that she would tell her mother, and then a blow-by-blow description of Self's full assault - striking her with a spade, dragging her to a pond into which he threw her, her partial escape, his second attempt to drown her, this time putting his spade on her neck to keep her under.

The piece continues with a survey of John Self's life as 'a kind-hearted and industrious youth'.  This praise of previous behaviour occurs elsewhere - for instance, above by implication where Thurtell and Knockolds were concerned and then Taylor in the Frarey and Billings case in exactly the same terms.  Thurtell, we recall, was in the process of defending himself so his self-aggrandisement is understandable.  The others, in a sense, inhabit a printer's imagination as a way of dramatising events.  At length, the execution scene is described and 'thus ignominiously perished in the dawn of manhood, one who might have been the stay, comfort, and protector of his parent'.

Then Walker draws an extensive moral addressed to the 'Dear Reader' who must 'beware of sin' and, as in previous instances, Walker indulges in a flurry of exclamation marks:

Cursed is that peace that is maintained in a way of sin!  - Sin, O the work that sin hath made in the world!  this is the enemy that has brought in death, and hath robbed and enslaved men, that hath backed the Devil, that hath digged Hell; and sown dissension between man and his creator.

The mother more dead than alive was conveyed from the prison, supported by her sorrowing husband - Thus reader you see the amount of misery inflicted by one living mortal - again, Beware of sin!

Sinner stop!  I pray take heed
A lesson learn from this my wicked deed,
Which with shuddering frame I tell,
Whilst laying in my mournful cell.

A guilty conscience accuses me,
In frightful dreams I think I see,
My tortured victim writhing on the ground,
Whilst crimson gore poured from every
    wound.

The issue of conscience portrayed here is implicit in many other pieces in the wider spectrum of murder and execution material, both during and after Walker's times, as perpetrators are made to 'see' their victims and the state of their minds is supposedly made evident as they reflect and lament and repent.  Thus, in a piece on Edward Prince's murder of Emma Coppins (1859):

… the spirit of the murdered girl
    Torments him day and night

Unusually here - the piece has these one or two surprises - there is an illustration of Self dragging his victim by the heels on the brink of a pond, thus echoing detail given in the prose account.19

The header block on Execution & Confession Of John Jones for the Murder Of His Sweetheart (Jones was hanged in Nottingham in 1842; another uncommon venture outside Norfolk for Walker) offers a startling regression in printing terms to a relatively crude woodcut of a hanging figure, the gallows being flanked by a clergyman and a figure with what looks like a pike; and the merest suggestion of a line of figures at the bottom of the block in front of the gallows scene.  It may well have derived from a much older block, quite arbitrary in the gallery offered by Walker as so far found.  It nevertheless reminds us that executions during Walker's printing career were guarded by javelin men in the manner of executions down the ages.20

The bulk of the piece consists of a lengthy prose account of events and, at its foot, a purported confession.

The prose account emphasised how the prisoner conducted himself 'in the most becoming and proper manner', full of desire to receive religious instruction, courteous to 'all the people in the jail'.  His calmness was noted more than once.  The piece describes the morning of the execution at some length as if from the point of view of an intimate observer to the extent of including reference to previous prisoners and to a letter received by Jones before the procession to the scaffold, the whole as if to create a setting for Jones' conduct.  The behaviour of the crowd is also noted - 'one moving mass of wedged and undulating bodies' that gave voice to its feelings as Jones was supported up the steps.  The moment of execution is described in drawn-out fashion.

Jones' confession begins in the third person before proceeding in the first person to recount his purported words - a resumé of his relationship with his sweetheart and his attempts to get her to leave off 'walking' with other young men until the time when 'I took my knife got behind her and did the deed'.  Then the confession reverts to independent comment with the point of the confession included almost as an afterthought:

He also confessed … that he was the murderer, as he was determined if he could not have her, no one else should.

The usual procession commenced, 'headed by the Under Sheriff'.  The prescribed service was read by a Chaplain 'with a voice trembling with emotion'.  The hangman's attentions were described, step by step.  Then Saville 'acknowledged the justice of his sentence' and at the moment of the drop 'there was not the least apparent fear or excitement about the culprit'.

The crowd's behaviour is given prolonged attention and no wonder.  There was a great deal of pushing, numbers of faintings, many cries, coarse language and, eventually, the crowd 'burst in the middle'.  Clothes were stripped in the crush and twelve fatalities occurred as well as numerous injuries:

The immense and fatal rush we have alluded to, was carried we believe principally by a gang of lawless scoundrels who were drawn together from the town and various parts of the county.

Clearly, these were extraordinary events.  Walker's survey would seem to have been drawn from local accounts - it is most unlikely that he or his hack(s) had been present - and Saville's hanging was a little overshadowed.  There are no additional stanzas to the piece: simply the extended prose account.  At the same time, the piece used a kind of touchstone in description, seen elsewhere in execution material, where the crowd's behaviour might be criticised, its dismissal of the supposed effects of the 'awful spectacle' of hanging emphasised, all this involving a certain level of what we might now call hypocrisy or self-delusion or at best journalistic opportunism.

The case of William Frost (1844) drew three pieces from Walker.22  Firstly, there is one with a short prose account and accompanying stanzas but no header block - The Full Particulars Of Most Inhuman Murder …, 'Murder' being writ extra large.  This recounts Frost's killing of his four children after sending his wife away on an errand and is full of familiar and relentless epithets.  Frost is described as a 'Monster', a 'wretched man', a 'cruel wretch', a 'wretched Murder' and a 'wretched monster'.  Of the youngest child, aged ten weeks, Frost:

had the heart to take this young and tender Babe and suffocated it in a Pot of water, and the other three he most Brutally Butchered by knocking their Brains out with a large Hammer.

Nevertheless, if horror is the prerogative of the piece, this is compounded in a description of how a neighbour, a George Filby, called and how blood dripped through the ceiling onto his hat. 

Then Frost immediately admitted his crime and he was taken into custody, sent to Norwich for examination and 'directly committed on the Coroner's warrant' to Norwich Castle to await trial at the Assizes.

The stanzas in this case repeat the substance of the prose account, not, then, presenting some separate religiose comment; and open with well-worn lines:

Ah who can hear the dreadful Tale,
    That in Norfolk must be told,
A monster here a deed have done,
    That makes the Blood run cold…

Frost's children are described as 'Sweet smiling Babes'.  The drowning of the youngest in a pot of 'Brine' is recounted and then the death of the other children:

The eldest Girl a lovely child,
    Oh Father dear cried she,
When the wretch did lift the hammer up,
    Oh do not Murder me…

And Justice on the Murderer,
    For retribution calls.

The prose account that follows surveys events, giving the names and ages of the murdered children, Harriet (5), Charlotte (3), Eliza (18 months) and Louisa (10 weeks), describing the apprehension of Frost and then offering a substantial body of evidence from neighbours.  This was after the Jury had visited Frost's cottage and then returned to the Falgate public house to deliberate on the day after the murders.  The first witness, Sarah Allen, told how Mrs.  Frost had returned home and found her dead children and called aloud to Mrs.  Allen.  She, in turn, went into the house and found the bodies of the dead children and showed them to another friend, Elizabeth Yarham, 'just come into the house'.  Frost himself was 'setting by the fire'.  Other witnesses were called 'but stated nearly to the same effect'.

The Coroner, says the piece, read all the depositions over.

Finally, there is a confession from William Frost, not detailing the offence nor denying culpability but corroborating witness statements and, finally, admitting that 'I slayed my children'.  The Jury 'almost instantly returned a Verdict of Wilful Murder'.

A possible sequence of printing is visible for in the first piece described above the time of the murders was given as 'on Monday morning' and the 'Verdict' of the jury as being obtained 'after a very short deliberation'.  The second piece described the murders as having taken place 'On Monday morning last'; and the confession that would most likely have taken place in the condemned cell or, at least, whilst Frost was awaiting sentence, seems to add weight to the notion that the particular piece was issued after the first one above.

A third piece seems, more clearly, to have been printed later still: Trial Of William Frost (And Judges' Address) For The Barbarous Murders Of His Four Dear Children.  This piece, another prose account, includes the names and ages of the children and gives the date of the murders as 8th April.  The case, it declares 'created a degree of excitement' (as always, it seems in such accounts).  Frost, 'placed at the bar amid a dead silence':

sighed heavily when arraigned, but had a very sullen and steadfast expression of countenance.

The subsequent deliberations turned not on Frost's actions but on his state of mind whilst carrying them out.  The case was reviewed (in the Walker piece) and then a witness, Robert Leaman, indicated that Frost had been in his employment for fourteen years, that he had heard that Frost was unwell, had visited, had given the prisoner medicine…Frost took time off…Leaman went to the house on the Monday and found the children dead.  His exchanges with Frost are given in the piece but do not offer strong clues as to Frost's possible state of mind.

However a Mr Crosse (presumably a doctor) had examined the prisoner and had concluded that he was of unsound mind.  Frost, he said, had avoided the subject of the murders but had instead dwelt on his own 'distressed' mind.

As the 'Learned Judge' put it, there was no doubt about the act but was Frost insane?

The Learned Judge further summed up the evidence at great length and with extreme minuteness.

A Walker piece on the Lucy Thorpe case of 1844 24 entitled A Full And Particular Account Of A Most Cruel Murder Committed On The Body Of A Male Infant By His Mother … is hardly that although the title alone - there is more, noting the place - offers a fairly complete summary.  But there follows but a brief prose account, much in the line of the first Frost report described above, referring initially to 'Wednesday last'.  In it, Lucy Thorpe, described as a 'single woman' with a 'little boy about 2 years old', apparently took rooms with a Mrs.  Roll.  The daughter of the house, Emily, sleeping with Lucy Thorpe, noticed a child's head under the bed and heard some crying.  Eventually the presence of the child was confirmed by Lucy Thorpe, but, after a 'gurgling' noise, nothing more was heard.  However, when the child was fully discovered it was found to be dead and a post mortem examination revealed that it had been strangled.  The jury at inquest, therefore, returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against Lucy Thorpe.

That is all.  The piece must surely anticipate further enquiry but nothing from Walker (nor from other printers) has surfaced.  Lucy Thorpe was evidently hanged on 13th September 1844.  One pauses merely to remark the form of the Walker piece, in conjunction with the first on Frost and pieces on the Frarey and Billings case and on that of Charlotte Yaxley (there is one more such case, to be considered below), perhaps - as posited earlier in this article - indicating something of a regular procedure in Walker's output: short prose accounts that would appear to offer first thoughts or first 'news'.  But any sort of imposition of a pattern is dangerous, especially since we have seen how Walker varied the content of several of his pieces and because there may well be material as yet ungarnered that could alter the overall frameworks of presentation.  We are probably encountering printings that are a response to individual cases in individual manner, relatively spontaneous and probably motivated by the impact of each case, its notoriety and relish, its commercial potential.  This does, though, draw attention to the apparent absence in Walker output of printings dealing with the most prominent cases of Corder (1827), the Mannings and Rush (both 1849).  In this latter instance, it should be added, an entry in Bibliotheca Norfoliensis, does record that Walker published 'Full particulars of the trial of James Bloomfield Rush…' although no date is given and, so far, the piece has not been unearthed.25

And, as if it might throw out any calculation whatsoever, there comes the case of Samuel Yarham in 1846 and Walker's output of no less than five pieces.26  Trial of Samuel Yarham … takes the form of a prose account, a quite extensive one, and quite obviously depends on witness statements (the words right at the beginning are 'The first called was…').  We learn about the murder alright but because the context of statements is not the natural one of court proceedings some of the details could have been confusing unless accompanied by, say, newspaper accounts.  Thus, when William Johnstone, 'a policeman at Yarmouth' was passing 'Mrs.  Candler's house' and shop with one Waller he went in, upstairs, saw nothing and went out again before returning and finding 'Mrs.  Candler's' body 'with her throat cut'.  Johnstone 'left Waller there', went back to the station, returning with a 'Serjeant Williament' who then found a knife covered with blood.  They rang 'Mrs.  Candler's' bell, whereupon Yarham, previously undiscovered, put his head out of an upstairs window.

This does help to make sense of other following witness statements but as an opening to the piece hardly covers the initial circumstances. 

The bulk of the remainder of the piece is given up to confirmation of this or that aspect of the murder although 'Sarah Dick' said that she had gone 'to Mr Shipley's:

and on returning home I said to my daughter, let us see, the boys have been hiding something here.  I went down on my knee and began to poke the sand away and found a bag, which jinked as though there were coppers in it.

We then discover that more than one man was involved because Yarham further stated - to Sarah Dick - that, of Mrs.  Candler, 'no she could not live, she had been beaten so much by Royal and Mapes'.

There are more witness contributions and then a summing up from 'Mr Justice Maule' before the jury returned a verdict of 'GUILTY' and the Judge gave the death sentence.  The prisoner was, apparently, 'unmoved':

The greatest anxiety was manifested by the public to be present at the trial, and the Court was filled almost to suffocation.  There were many ladies on the Magistrate's bench.

A second piece reverts to Walker type: Trial, Execution, & Confession Of Samuel Yarham …, the murderer's name printed large up and down either side of the usual Walker header block that itself is first in printed order of block, prose account and then accompanying stanzas.  The account begins thus:

SAMUEL YARHAM was placed at the bar at the Norwich Assizes, for the murder of Mrs.  Candler at Yarmouth, on the 18th of November, 1844.

We learn that Yarham had access to 'Mrs.  Candler's' premises because his wife was servant to a shoemaker who lived there.  We also learn that three other men were apprehended with Yarham - namely, Royal, Mapes and Hall - but that each of the other men 'succeeded in proving an alibi and acquittal followed'.  Mrs.  Dick's evidence indicated that Yarham had confessed to her before absconding to Gloucestershire - we would never have known that it was there he was apprehended from the first piece surveyed above.  Yarham's conviction and sentence are then recorded:

The wretched man, who had listened to the trial with close attention and to the auful (sic) sentence of the Learned Judge without evincing any emotion, save a slight and occasional quivering of the lips and eyes, was then removed from the dock, while the shouts of the populace on the “hill” resounded in his ears.

Yarham's confession is given although it appears that it is in substance what he had told Mrs Dick - not, that is, a straightforward account from his own lips …  Thus, Royal and others are implicated but 'When he went home he cut her throat with the lard knife' (my italics).

The execution of 'the above unhappy malefactor' is described in brief.  There was a large assembly and 'the usual melancholy preparations'.  Yarham 'appeared quite calm & collected'.  The 'wretched culprit' was then 'launched into eternity'.

The stanzas begin in familiar fashion:

My hour is come, my glass is run, now by the law's decree,
On Saturday next condemn'd to die upon a fatal tree;
All for a cruel murder as all do understand,
Which has caused great sensation and horror thro' the land…

The sacred laws of GOD and man I spurned with disdain,
Left no dishonest means untried, my purposes to gain…

O could I for one moment a list'ning world address,
If in this world or that to come, the hope for happiness,
The ranks of factious traitors, as from destruction run,
Flee from those selfish counsels, which thousands has undone …

A wretched malefactor upon a fatal tree

The third Walker piece on the same case is The Full Confession of Samuel Yarham … and once again there is, in a sense, a hiatus, because, as the piece declares at the outset:

A contemporary has published a statement, in the form of a deposition, made before the mayor of Yarmouth, (William Henry Palmer, Esq) on the 25th day of October, 1845, by Mrs.  Dick, and who it will be remembered was a witness at the trial, and was the person who found the secreted money …

Mapes went across the street 'to a girl or a woman'…there was noise of men drinking in the Swan … 'Then they all went to hide the money' … went home; and Yarham, hearing Mrs Candler moaning, became afraid and went back in and cut her throat with a 'lard' knife:

I told him then that he was the murderer himself, and he said no, it was Hall and Royal beat her so with the pincers that she could not have lived.

Obviously, the pieces as described more or less agree on the salient events and they can be confirmed by reading the local newspapers.  Walker, though, takes another step, printing The Lamentation Of Samuel Yarham that, by its nature, usually means that such a piece was composed after the particular murder has taken place:

Both old and young I pray attend,
    And listen unto me,
While unto you I do relate,
    A dreadful tragedy
That did take place in Yarmouth town;
The truth I will unfold,        (blood run cold.
A bare recital of the same will make your

Young men all mend your ways,
Lest like Yarham you may end your days.

The piece continues:

One Harriet Candler, as we find,
    The truth to you I will tell;
In Yarmouth town she did reside
    By many known full well…

The Jury heard the Evidence
    As you shall understand,
And Return's a verdict of Murder
    Against SAMUEL YARHAM.
And he was sent to Norwich gaol,
    As plainly will be seen,
But the men of law soon found a flaw,
    Which quickly set him free.

Now in a dreary Prison,
    And in a dismal cell,
The sufferings I do undergo
    I am sure no tongue can tell;
The form of my murdered victim,
    I often think I see,
I am a guilty sinner,
    Good God look down on me.

Walker's piece here adopts the form of many murder and execution printings from elsewhere in the country, though it is rare in his output in offering, simply, a ballad, unaccompanied by header or prose account. 

What is more, there is a further piece including Letters From Samuel Yarham To his Wife and Relatives, although it is not yet possible to say exactly when this piece appeared in the sequence described above.  A time is implied below suggesting that the letters were sent before Yarham's final hours.

The first letter is to Yarham's wife and is surprisingly coherent, given what we have adduced about Yarham's life: he does not appear to have been the most intellectual of men.  We should, of course, remind ourselves that such letters 'purport' to be in the criminal's own hand and it is just as possible that they were made up or that they were heavily influenced by others - such as clergymen who nearly always ministered during the criminal's last hours and were always present at the drop:

My dear Sarah, my heart bleeds within me when I think of the misery you are placed in, but I cannot help you, but if you put your trust in Him above He will protect you.

Oh!  everlasting God thou knowest the secrets of all hearts, and knowest all things before they be, thou knowest they have borne false witness against me; & behold I must die, they have risen against me with lying lips and deceit upon their tongues, which thou O blessed Lord, knowest my innocence of, in whose presence I shall shortly have to appear to answer for the things done in the body; thou that searchest all hearts, and from nothing is hidden, have mercy upon me, and grant me they Salvation.

So I must conclude, with my kind love to you, wishing you health, wealth, and prosperity here below, and may the Almighty protect you wherever you be situated, and at last bring you to His Heavenly mansions above - where all will be joy, peace, and felicity, is the sincere prayer of your affectionate but unfortunate and innocent dying husband.

A second letter, dated 9th April 1846, sent to Yarham's father, is of 'similar import' to the other.  In it, Yarham declares that 'I have been spending my time in the best manner I am able, with the assistance of the Chaplain.' He hopes for pardon from the 'Divine Being'; but does not feel his mind as settled as he would have liked it to have been, presumably because:

As a dying man I am as innocent of the crime that I am about to suffer such an ignominious death, as a child unborn.

Walker's piece, finally, produces a kind of trump card.  Yarham was allowed visitors and contrived to 'slip' papers into his wife's hand which she immediately yielded up to the authorities.  In one ('My dear Sarah'), Yarham states that he was minded to commit suicide and that Sarah, his wife, could perhaps get a private interview during which they might both die together.  Again he declared his innocence and in the midst of personal details insisted: 'Don't let anybody see this.  I am determined not to be hung'.  The letter ends in apparent confusion:

Don't let me persuade you.  If you will do this let me know the day and hour.  I know you are miserable, so am I.  do not (sic) deceive yourself, but I should recommend hanging: let me know.

We can, though, add details of one more Walker piece concerned with murder and hanging; in this instance from the Bodleian Allegro archive, thus suggesting - as has been hinted at above - that there could well be more Walker material resting somewhere.  The particular piece is entitled The Lamentation Of Henry Groom…and we recall William Broadhurst's two pieces on the same event (note the spelling of the victim's name below in comparison with Broadhurst's 'Ayton' and 'Heighton').29  Like the Yarham Lamentation described above this is simply a ballad alone (dispensing with prose accounts), dating from 1851, and once more suggesting that Walker kept an eye on developments elsewhere since the particular form of presentation is so rare in his stock.  The sentiments, though, can be found in many other such ballads:

Good people all pray give attention,
    Listen to my mournful tale,
And unto you I quick will mention,
    While close confined in Norwich Jail;
John Hayton was my friend and neighbour,
    Many years by me secure did dwell,
But being discharged for bad behaviour,
    I murdered him how sad to tell.

Pray God protect my wife and children,
    Good people do not on them frown;
My murdered victim seems to haunt me
    When I rise up or lay me down.

My blood with horror seems to freeze,
    I cannot rest my aching head.
Like a bird caught in the fowler's net,
    Terror meets me everywhere;
In gloomy horror now I sat
    A victim in the tempter's snare.

My blood with horror now is filled
    While I the dreadful tale unfold …

Within my sad and gloomy dungeon
    A full confession now I make …

A public spectacle I'm doomed to be
    To end my days on the fatal tree,
Be warned by me each rank and station
    Mark well my fatal destiny.

There is no need to rehearse the majority of detail in ballad terms as described above.  Walker clearly uses an established pattern of vocabulary in his ballads; sometimes obviously misses out details of various cases that may well have altered the overall perspective in any one piece; presents small variants within convention, seemingly without pattern; but sustains particular forms - the brief prose account and the frequent appearance of the form of presentation of header block, prose account and following stanzas.  His is an important voice in Norfolk during the nineteenth century where murder and execution material is concerned.  It remains to see in forthcoming articles how important he might be in a more general survey of his life and work.

Roly Brown - 28.2.07
Oradour sur Vayres, France

Appendix:

List of cases covered by Robert Walker, all verified as having taken place.  There are one or two additional details.

1.  William Hardiment hanged April 1st 1822 Norwich Castle
2.  Smith, Crisp, Hogan and Scott hanged November 26th 1823 Newgate
3.  John Thurtell hanged January 8th 1824 Hertford
4.  Richard Knockolds (sometimes 'Nockolds') hanged April 9th 1831 Norwich Castle
5.  James Clarke hanged April 18th 1835 Norwich Castle
6.  Frances Billings and Catherine Frarey hanged August 10th 1835 Norwich Castle
7.  John Smith (known also as 'Day') hanged April 29th 1837 Norwich Castle
8.  George Timms hanged April 29th 1837 Norwich Castle (6 and 7 may be placed together)
9.  John Randalsome hanged August 22nd 1840 Norwich Castle
10.  John Jones hanged March 3rd 1842 Nottingham
11.  William Saville hanged August 7th 1844 Nottingham
12.  William Frost committed murders on 8th April 1844 but was found to be insane and lodged in the Criminal Lunatic Asylum in St.  George's Field, London.
13.  Lucy Thorpe hanged September 13th 1844 Norwich Castle
14.  Samuel Yarham hanged April 11th 1846 Norwich Castle
15.  Henry Groom hanged August 16th 1851 Norwich Castle

Notes:

1.  I am once again most indebted to the staff at the Norfolk Millenium library, and especially Wendy Sterry, for attention over a period of time and for the supply of material; to the Bodleian library for permission to quote from its Allegro archive; and to the Nottinghamshire Record Office and VWML for supply of material.

2.  See, for instance, pieces on Drory, Butt, Prince and Cadwallader Jones discussed in MT article 157.  Much is, as noted, by way setting out how such criminals should feel…thus indicating an understanding by the printer of the minds and expectations of his public.

3.  For a report on the Hardiment case see Norfolk Chronicle for June 6th 1822, unpaginated but, through counting, on p.2 - henceforth most unpaginated references are enclosed in square brackets as being my own additions: I regret the one or two instances where counting did not take place.  See also Norfolk Chronicle for Saturday March 21st 1818 [p.2] where the jury found Hardiment guilty and he was sentenced; and Saturday March 28th 1818 [p.2] where Johnson's execution on the previous Monday was described.  For the 'alternative' account of events, see Charles Mackie: Norfolk Annals, Vol.  II.  1851-1900 Printed at the Office of the 'Norfolk Chronicle' Market Place, Norwich… an entry for March 1822 on p.206.

4.  Most information concerning this case came from enquiry via the Rootschat on-line facility; and I have to thank various contributors for their help.

5.  For Hugh Anderson's comments and inclusions see Farewell to Judges and Juries The broadside ballad and convict transportation to Australia, 1788-1868 (Hotham Hill, Victoria, Australia, Red Rooster Press, 2000), pp.296-298 and, for notes, pp.582-583.

6.  In Norfolk, the Norfolk Chronicle printed articles in a supplement to issue on January 3rd 1824, unpaginated ('Trial of Thurtell & Hunt For The Murder of Mr Weare') and in its issue on January 17th 1824 [p.4] ('Execution of John Thurtell') from where quotations in text here are taken.  Copy of Pitts' piece from Hindley's Curiosities…, p.187, was found on the web.  The phrases distancing printer from event here can also be found in a wider discussion in MT article 156, Tawell the Quaker. Newspaper comments, explicitly or implicitly critical of the presence of women and children at executions include the following: reports on the hanging of Thomas Drory and Sarah Chesham (Chelmsford Chronicle, 28th March, 1851); of Mary Ann Ashford (The Western Daily Mercury, 19th March 1866); of Anne Lawrence and James Fletcher (Maidstone and Kentish Journal, 12th January 1867); of Hubbard Lingley (Norfolk Chronicle, 31st August 1867); and of Henry Farrington (Bury Free Press, 21st September 1867).

7.  See Norwich Mercury for April 2nd 1831 [p.2], a report of the Norfolk Assizes; and April 16th 1831 [p.3] ('Execution of Nockolds').

8.  See Norfolk Chronicle for April 24th 1835 [p.3.  ('Execution of James Clarke'); Norwich Mercury for April 11th 1835 [p.2] where we find the jury's verdict, the sentence pronounced and the anecdote of the exchange between the judge and Clarke; and Norwich Mercury for April 25th 1835 [p.3] for Clarke's execution.  Mackie's Annals, Vol.  II, repeats the anecdote about the old man who hanged himself (April 1835, p.339).

9.  The cases of Catherine Frarey and Francis Billings were reported in the Norwich Mercury for August 15th 1835 [p.3] and the Norfolk Chronicle for August 15th 1835 (unpaginated) in which the word 'gruel' was used.

10.  Sarah Dazley's case was considered in MT article 122; John Tawell's in MT article 156; and the others in MT article 201.  A further discussion of Daines is contained here below.

11.  See Norwich Mercury April 8th 1837 [pp.2-3] ('The Denver Murder'); and May 6th 1837 [p.3] ('The Confession & Execution' of Smith and Timms). 

12.  Charles Mackie: Norfolk Annals, Vol.  II… entry for April 1837 on p.359.  For accounts of the sale of ballads, see the Sarah Dazley case as instance (MT article 122) and the information given in the three 2004 articles 140, 141 and 142 on this site.

13.  Reports of the Daines case can be found in the Norwich Mercury for April 13th 1839, [p.2] and April 20th 1839, [p.4], both describing events; May 4th 1839, [p.3] ('Execution and Confession of Charles Daines'); and May 11th 1839, p.3 ('The Late Execution').

14.  See MT article 156: Tawell the Quaker.

15.  For Randalsome, see Norwich Mercury for July 4th 1840, [p.3] ('Murder at Thwaite'); July 11th 1840, [p.3] ('The Thwaite Murder'); July 18th 1840, [p.3] - the same report continued; August 8th 1840, [p.3] which gives the information that the murderer was charged 'with others'; and August 29th 1840, [p.3] ('Execution of John Randalsome').

16.  The Yaxley case has been rehearsed - in the previous article in this series - but a reminder of newspaper source is here given: Norwich Mercury for April 3rd 1841 [p.3] and April 10th 1841 [p.2]…and of the discrepancies between these newspaper accounts and Walker's printing.

17.  Self's case, as noted in the previous piece in this series, was covered in reports in the Norwich Mercury for July 24th [p.3] and July 31st [p.1] and then August 7th [p.4] and August 13th [p.3] 1841.

18.  See MT articles 156 and 157, Tawell the Quaker and Constance Kent and the Road Murder.

19.  There is a total of but three illustrations in the body of texts studied here and in the previous article, two on Walker printings, of Self's murder of Jemima Simpson and of Frost's 'likeness', and one on J.  Broadhurst's printing of the Sturley material.  The references to other murder and execution material where aspects of conscience appear may be found in MT articles 156 and 157.

20.  Wild and Sheppard are discussed in V A C Gattrell's invaluable book, The Hanging Tree Executions and the English People 1760-1868 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1994) and in Lucy Moore's The Thieves' Opera…(Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1998 p/b edn.).  As for Jones, a booklet appeared ('Copied From The Nottingham Review', 1842) with the particulars of Jones' trial (along with that of Samuel Moore) and the trial and execution of Jones.  The booklet, kindly forwarded by Nottinghamshire Record Office also included sketches of the house and the very room in which the murder was committed.

21.  For the execution of Saville see Norfolk Chronicle for August 10th 1844 [p.2] ('Trial of a Murderer'): a brief note only; and Nottingham Journal, August 9th 1844 - I regret that I do not have a page number - which includes a long description of Saville's life and his admission that he committed the murders; and an account of the catastrophic scenes during his execution.  A booklet (like the booklet on Jones' case above, 'Copied From The Nottingham Review' and again forwarded by the Nottinghamshire Record Office) containing 'Some Particulars' of the event and of the distress amongst the crowd, was also published (1844); and at the end is a claim that previously 'we have lifted up our voice against the front of the County Jail being made for the demoralising exhibition of the hangman, the culprit, and the gallows'. 

22.  For Frost see Norwich Mercury April 13th 1844 [p.3] ('Horrible Murder of Four Children'); Norfolk Chronicle August 13th 1835 [p.2] ('Horrible Tragedy at Whitwell'); Norfolk Chronicle for August 3rd 1844 [p.2 ) ('Trial of Frost'); Norfolk Chronicle August 10th 1844, Supplement ('Trial of Frost'), the latter proclaiming that he was 'not guilty on account of insanity'.

23.  See MT article 156 where various ballads are cited as using the phrase - in Murder of Mr O'Connor (the Mannings case in 1849); in Gleeson Wilson's Lamentation (also 1849); in a ballad on the murder of Ciara Bruton (1872); in the case of Edward Roberts in Witney (also 1872); and in one of the Wainwright ballads (1875) discussed. 

24.  It has not yet proved possible to locate newspaper accounts of the Thorpe case.  The date of execution is that given by Swords, op cit (no confirmation has yet been found elsewhere).

25.  See Bibliotheca Norfoliencis A catalogue Of The Writings of Norfolk Men And Of Works relating to the County of Norfolk In The Library Of Mr J J Colman, At Carrow Abbey, Norwich.  NORWICH 1896.  The reference is to a Rush piece printed by Walker, undated, but running to some eight pages.

26.  Yarham's case was reported in the Norwich Mercury for November 23rd 1844 [pp.2-3] ('Dreadful and Brutal Murder'); December 7th 1844 (p.3] ('The Murder at Yarmouth'); December 14th 1844 [p.3] ('The late Murder'); and April 18th 1846 [p.3] ('The execution of Yarham'), which included letters as used by Walker in his piece.

27.  See MT article 181 for a discussion of ballads relating to transportation to Van Diemen's Land and including references to Young Henry….

28.  The survey of letters from the Catherine Foster case of 1847 promised in the previous piece in this series has been held over until a more full examination of such documents from a variety of cases can be assembled.

29.  Groom's case was considered in the previous piece in this series. As reminder, newspaper sources are as follows: Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette for 23rd August 1851and the Norwich Mercury of the same date (both unpaginated - I regret the absence of a count). The Bodleian Allegro archive ballad can be found as Firth c. 17(257) and Johnson Ballads 1978.

Article MT202

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