The Triple Tree

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[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The Tyburn Tree, Hyde Park, London, UK[/FONT]

How a public execution at Tybirn would have looked in the 1700s. Public executions took place here between 1196 and 1783, when they were moved to Newgate Gaol as the crowds watching the "entertainment" had become more and more unruly and were easier to control at Newgate. Many of those hanged here had to ride the streets - lined with thousands of people - in the back of a horse-drawn cart with their coffins. The journey was about 3 miles from Newgate to Tyburn - and the carts contining the condemned even stopped at numerous inns along the way so the prisoner could have beer.

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[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Every Monday for the last 200 years or so of its existence, condemned men and women travelled the route through London from Newgate to Tyburn, place of public execution. Set at the junction of what is now Edgware Road, Park Lane and Oxford Street[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]1[/FONT], the gallows overlooked Hyde Park. Estimates of the number of people who died here vary between 40,000 and 60,000. They were mostly commoners.[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The first execution at Tyburn took place in 1196, the last in 1783. The first hangings were carried out from tree branches on the bank of the Tyburn River (see below), but in 1220 a pair of gallows were built on the site. The Triple Tree (the name given to the gallows) was built in 1571, and removed in 1759 because it was obstructing the highway. A mobile gallows was used until public executions ceased there.[/FONT]

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif][FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The River[/FONT]

The name Tyburn comes from the river that flowed through the area from South Hampstead to the Thames. Tyburn is now one of London's 'lost rivers' and is completely underground, but many years ago it crossed Regent's Park, followed Marylebone Lane, down to Piccadilly near Green Park, and into the main river near Vauxhall Bridge. 'Bourne', written down 'burn' at some point, means brook. The river branched a number of times and 'Ty' meaning two, hence 'two brooks' reflects this.

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]The Journey to Tyburn[/FONT]

William Hogarth's drawing of 1747 shows the condemned, in the backs of carts with their coffins, about to arrive at Tyburn. In the background is a huge grandstand where the public can sit and watch the "entertainment".



At Newgate, having been released from their chains, prisoners were put on carts (often sitting on their coffins) with the hangman and, accompanied on all sides by peace officers, constables and javelin men, began their last journey. First stopping at St Sepulchre's Church, where prisoners traditionally received a nosegay of flowers, the procession then moved down Snow Hill, turned left and crossed Fleet Ditch by a narrow stone bridge, and then went back uphill to High Holborn. It manoeuvred through the narrow streets of St Giles High Street, before the last part of the route, Oxford Road. The three-mile journey could take up to two hours.

Interestingly the phrase 'on the wagon' stems from another tradition that took place on this last journey. At Queen Matilda's ( wife of Henry I) bequest a cup of charity was given to the condemned as they travelled towards their death. Originally this was given at St Giles-in-the-Fields, a leper hospital until 1539 (it became a church in 1547). Then it became a custom that Bow tavern gave a pint of ale to each condemned person. Commonly used to describe abstaining from alcohol, one theory states that the phrase developed because prisonsers were put back on the wagon, never to drink again.

Another theory goes that the executioner stayed on the wagon the whole time, as they were not invited into the tavern.

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Execution[/FONT]

The Tyburn tree was a huge triangular construction, the three posts were 18 feet high and the crossbeams were nine feet long - capable of hanging 24 (eight on each horizontal beam) prisoners at once. Records only show it being used at full capacity once, in 1649, but days when only one person was hanged were very rare.

Being hanged at the tree was an agonising death; standing on a wagon with a rope around their neck the condemned waited for the horse to be whipped so that it ran forward. This meant that as the wagon moved away the prisoners were only supported by the rope around their necks. A slow death by asphyxiation followed.

Hangings were a big public festival. Crowds gathered along the route from Newgate to Tyburn, and around the Tyburn tree itself, often exceeding 100,000. The rich rented upper-storey rooms in houses and pubs so that they could get the best views. Street hawkers and food vendors also lined the route - they knew a good bet when they saw one. A grandstand was even erected at the gallows. Thieves and pickpockets also took advantage of the holiday atmosphere.

The hangman was entitled to the clothes of the dead, which was why some prisoners would wear their worst rags - they didn't want him to benefit too much. Some prisoners took the opposite stance and wore their finest clothes in the hope that the hangman would make it as easy as possible for them. He would then help out by pulling on their legs and beating on their chests so that they died more quickly.

This was also done by the friends and family of many of the prisoners; having the hangman close also meant that they couldn't lift the prisoner in an attempt to save them.

The people of the time believed that the bodies of the hanged had medicinal properties. People would pay the hangman for the chance to stroke the hands of the dead across their faces, illnesses or injuries. If they could, they would also take body parts, locks of hair or even blood.

Some of the bodies were given to hospitals for dissection (surgeons were allowed ten bodies per year), and the rest taken away by friends and family to be buried. The hangman would then settle himself in a pub in Fleet Street and sell the rope for 6d an inch.

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Leaving Tyburn[/FONT]


Because the procession to Tyburn became more and more unmanageable, in 1783 executions were moved to Newgate prison. Too many precautions were needed to prevent rescue attempts and premature lynchings, and complaints were made about the noise and crowds that accompanied them.

(1) Samuel Rogers watched people on the way to be executed at Tyburn after the Gordon Riots in 1780.

I recollect seeing a whole cartload of young girls, in dresses of various colours, on the way to be executed at Tyburn. They had all been condemned for having been concerned in (that is, perhaps, for having been spectators of) the burning of some houses during Lord George Gordon's riots. It was quite horrible.

(2) Elizabeth Fry was one of the few people who campaigned against the death penalty in the 19th century. In March 1817 she saw Elizabeth Fricker just before she was executed. Afterwards she wrote about the meeting in her journal.

Her hands were cold, and covered with something like the perspiration preceding death, and in a universal tremor. There were also six men to be hanged, one of whom has a wife near confinement, also condemned, and seven young children. A strait waistcoat could not keep him within bounds: he had just bitten the turnkey; I saw the man come out with his hand bleeding, as I passed the cell.

[FONT=Trebuchet MS, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Fascinating Facts[/FONT]

• The first anniversary of the Restoration was celebrated by exhuming the bodies of Cromwell, Bradshaw and Ireton and hanging them at Tyburn from sunrise until sunset.

• There is a plaque in a traffic island at Marble Arch, claiming to be the exact site of the Tyburn Tree.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A988833
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A typical execution in the mid 1750's at Tyburn.

Criminals were tried and then sentenced to death in groups at the Old Bailey Sessions before being returned to Newgate prison to await their fate. A few weeks later after the Recorder’s Report had been considered by the King and Privy Council, there would be a “hanging day” when all those sentenced to death for crimes other than murder and not reprieved would be executed. The execution process began at around 7 o'clock in the morning when the condemned men and women would be led in fetters (handcuffs and leg-irons) into the Press Yard in Newgate. Here the blacksmith would remove the fetters and the Yeoman of the Halter would tie the criminals' hands in front of them (so that they were able to pray when they reached Tyburn) and place the rope (or halter, as it was known) round their necks, coiling the free end round their bodies. They might typically be 7 men, not one convicted of murder or rape, but of crimes such as highway robbery, theft or burglary and uttering, and perhaps one woman convicted of privately stealing, highway robbery or theft from a dwelling house. When the pinioning was completed, they were placed in open horse drawn carts sitting on their coffins and the procession consisting of the Under Sheriff, the Ordinary (Newgate's prison chaplain), the hangman and his assistants, and a troop of javelin men started out for Tyburn about two miles away. The streets would be lined with crowds, especially if the criminals were particularly notorious, and there would often be insults and more solid objects hurled at them and their escorts on the way. A stop was often made at St. Sepulchre's Church and two public houses along the way where the criminals were customarily given a drink. If the prisoner was wealthy, they might be permitted to be driven to Tyburn in a morning coach, as happened with Earl Ferrers and Jenny Diver, thus sparing them from the insults of the crowds along the way. It was normal for better off criminals to wear their best clothes for their execution.

On arrival at Tyburn, often some 3 hours later, the condemned were greeted by a large unruly crowd who had come to watch the spectacle - it was considered an excellent day out. The carts were each backed under one of the 3 beams of the gallows and the prisoners were positioned at the tail of the cart and tied up to the beam with only a small amount of slack left in the rope. The Ordinary would pray with them and when he had finished, the hangman pulled the white night caps over their faces.

When everything was ready, the horses were whipped away leaving the prisoners suspended. They would only have a few inches of drop and thus many of them would writhe in agony for some moments. The hangman, his assistants and sometimes the prisoners' relatives might pull on the prisoners' legs to hasten their end. After half an hour or so, the bodies were cut down and claimed by friends and relatives or in the case of murderers, sent for dissection at Surgeons' Hall. For more detail on execution at Tyburn, read about the case of Jenny Diver who was hanged there with 19 others on the 18th of March 1741.

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/hanging1.html[/FONT]