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Jane Jameson - a matricide. |
Jane Jameson (also given as Jamieson) was
hanged at Town Moor Newcastle on Saturday the 7th of March 1829 for the murder
of her mother, an inmate at the
It appears that the reason for attacking her mother, 60 year old Margaret Jameson, was that the latter had accused her of killing her two illegitimate children.
Jane was tried on the 5th of March 1829 at Newcastle Assizes. The jury heard evidence from Mary Carr, a resident of Keelman’s Hospital who testified that “Hearing words, I looked in at the door, and saw a weapon in the prisoner’s hand, held in a very threatening manner to her mother. It was a poker. She was pointing the poker at her mother.” Ann Hutchinson told the court “I can hear in my room what passes in her’s”. “I heard the prisoner say; ‘You old, lousy, stane-naked, kill-good-man.” “I heard her mother, in reply, say; “No, I did not kill my man, but you killed your two bairns.” (Bairns is a Northern word for children) “I heard nothing more till the mother gave a great shout, and said; “Oh! dear me.” I got up and went in immediately.” It took the jury just 45 minutes to reach a guilty verdict. Jane was sentenced to be returned to Carliol Street Gaol where she was to be kept in fetters and fed only on bread and water. She was then to be hanged within 48 hours and thereafter her body given to surgeons for dissection, as required by the Murder Act of 1751.
In the condemned cell she told the prison chaplain, the Rev. Robert Green that “I might as well say that I had done it, as that I had not done it, for I was so drunk that I knew nothing at all about it.”
It appears that Jane was much more concerned about the dissection part of her sentence than the actual hanging part. This was not uncommon at the time, when to have one’s body desecrated and not given a proper Christian burial was a far greater punishment than hanging.
At 8.45 am she was pinioned, and then placed in a cart to take her to the gallows on Town Moor. Mr. Turner, the turnkey, rode with her. The procession comprising the Town Sergeants, the town Marshall, Jane sitting on her coffin in the cart, eight javelin men, ten constables and a coach containing the Rev. R. Green, Mr. Adamson, the Under sheriff, Mr. Sopwith the Gaoler, and Mr. Scott clerk of St. Andrews, moved at a very slow pace to the spot near the barracks on the Town Moor, which was the usual place of execution.
At the gallows a prayer was said then a cap
was placed over her face she stepped up onto a stool on the cart she said
"I am ready" and was then “launched into eternity”, dying almost
without a struggle. She was suspended at
The body was then taken to the Newcastle Barber Surgeon's Hall for display to the public (but not dissection), until six in the evening. A penny was charged to each person wishing to view it. Jane’s body was afterwards used for anatomical lectures for several days by surgeon, Mr. John Fife.
The execution cost
Expenses attending the execution of Jane Jameson : 7 sergeants 5s. each, 20
constables, 3s.6d. each, 16 freeporters
5s. each, tolling
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