Once again it is a story of a servant who stole
from her employer with the help of others although on this occasion one of them
was to hang with her.
Elizabeth Fricker was a thirty year old
widow who worked as a maid servant in the household of Mrs. Ann Ashworth who
lived in Berner Street in the Marylebone
area of London. As in the case of Amelia
Roberts, she let her accomplices into the house and between them they stole a
considerable amount of silver plate. In
the early nineteenth century, before the advent of expensive electronic
consumer goods, the better off had servants and seemed to spend a lot of money
and silver tableware which was no doubt attractive to thieves because of its
high value and the good demand for it.
The crime took place on the night of Sunday the 28th of July 1816, which was Elizabeth’s day off. She wasn’t in the
house much that day but came back in the evening. Elizabeth’s behaviour seemed rather strange to Mrs. Ashworth and also to her
fellow servant, Hannah Holloway, who was the household’s cook. Mrs. Ashworth retired to her bedroom at about
eleven o’clock and Elizabeth came in and tried to take the candle from the bedroom. Mrs. Ashworth asked her why she was taking it
and so she put it down and left it. A
few minutes later she brought in a letter and told her mistress that she had to
go out. She was told that she couldn’t but persisted in her demand, as it she
said it was important. She left the
bedroom and went out briefly, returning about ten o’clock and
joining Hannah downstairs. Their work being finished for the day and having
locked up the house, Hannah suggested that they go to bed but Elizabeth did not
want to and seemed ill at ease. The two women went up to their shared bedroom
with Elizabeth suddenly remembering that she had left her book downstairs and
going back down to fetch it. She then
read for a bit before Hannah went to sleep.
Hannah later testified that she had never seen her read a book before. The next morning Elizabeth got up
first and woke Hannah at about six o’clock, again this was
unusual as normally Hannah had to wake Elizabeth. On going downstairs, Hannah discovered the
break in - the kitchen door was propped open with a wine bottle containing a
candle and Mrs. Ashworth’s writing desk was on its side in the kitchen with
some of its contents strewn around the floor.
Hannah went upstairs and told her mistress what she had found. Mrs. Ashworth came down and began checking
round the property. She noticed that the sideboard door had been forced open,
it was always kept locked at night, and that all of her silver plate was
missing. She estimated the value of this
to be over £400 - a considerable sum. It
transpired later, at the trial, that on the Saturday
prior to the robbery Elizabeth had asked to clean the silver which Mrs. Ashworth thought was
unusual. The robbery was reported to the
constable, Samuel Plank, who made a thorough examination of the house. He noted that there was no damage outside the
property and that as there was no key hole on the outside of the door, the lock
could not have been picked, it could only have been opened from inside. Elizabeth drew his attention to one of the window shutters which was slightly
ajar. Plank examined this, noting that
there was a row of potted plants on the sill outside. There had been rain a few days earlier and
the excess rain water had run down the outside of the pots and dried to a crust
around the base of each one. When he
looked carefully, he could see that the pots had not been disturbed, and if someone
had removed them to gain access, they must have been inordinately careful in
replacing them in their exact positions.
He demonstrated this fact to Elizabeth, but she
continued to assert that the burglars had come in through this window and not
by any other route.
On the Monday afternoon Hannah made a trip
to the butchers and returning to the house found Elizabeth in
conversation with a tall man at the kitchen door. She was later to identify this man in court
as William Kelly. Seeing Hannah,
Elizabeth and William left the house, Elizabeth returning
an hour or so later. Hannah asked her where she had been and Elizabeth told her
that she told her that she had wished to “vent her mind” on the man. She did not explain what she meant by this.
Plank was not satisfied with Elizabeth’s story
and arrested her on the Tuesday afternoon.
Having taken her into custody he asked Elizabeth to let
him see the contents of her box. (Servants typically owned a trunk in which
they kept their belongings and which was convenient to move when they changed jobs.) She let him see it and the only thing he
found was a piece of flannel cloth, certainly no silver. He also questioned her about a man he had
seen her talking to in the street. At
first she was reluctant to tell him who the man was, but on being pressed by
Mr. Plant claimed he was a tally man, named Finch, who sold items of drapery to
people on tick, collecting the money instalments. Elizabeth told the
constable that she had owed Finch eight shillings for best part of a year. During this interview the name of Kelly was
not mentioned by either Elizabeth or the constable.
Elizabeth had been observed talking to her boyfriend William Kelly by John
King who lived opposite Mrs. Ashworth.
He saw a tall man in Berner Street looking up at Mrs. Ashworth’s house and a few moments later Elizabeth emerged
and got into conversation with this man. Mr. King saw
the man give her something although he was not able to see what it was. Knowing about the burglary he told his son to
watch them and was able to attract Mrs. Ashworth’s attention and point the
incident out to her. Mr. King was able
to get a good description of the man which he later gave as evidence in court
and which seemed to fit William Kelly closely.
He also thought he had seen him outside the house before, and Mr. King’s
son Alfred was able to testify that he too had seen this man at least twice
previously on the Tuesday.
On the 29th of August Peter Kelley,
William’s father, went to the house of Hannah Compton and asked her if he could
store a trunk there, telling her that it belonged to a friend of his, who was
looking for a new job. The trunk
remained with Mrs. Compton for nine days before an unidentified woman came and
asked for it. Mrs. Compton was not
comfortable with this and went to Marlborough Street police station and got constable William
Craig to come and collect the trunk. The
police broke it open in their office and found it contained a quantity of
silver plate and various other items.
This find led to the arrest of William Kelly and also his father. Elizabeth and William were charged with the
burglary and Peter with receiving stolen goods.
The trial opened on Wednesday the 30th of October,
1816 at the Old Bailey before the Common
Sergeant. Various witnesses were called
to identify the accused and to give evidence of the crime and the relationship
between Elizabeth and William. There was
also evidence regarding the stolen goods which had initially been wrapped in
some green baize and a tablecloth with a yellow border both of which were later
discovered in the trunk left by William. The prosecution had been able to build
a strong case against the defendants who were now given the chance to speak in
their defence.
Elizabeth made a straightforward denial of the charges against but had no
actual defence.
William offered a full confession, telling
the court that he and he alone was responsible for the robbery and that the
three other prisoners at the bar were entirely innocent. (A Mr. Hitchen who
had also been charged with receiving was acquitted). William’s father Peter
simply told the court that he had no knowledge of what was in the trunk. The jury were less than impressed with these
defences and all three were found guilty.
At the end of the Sessions Elizabeth and
William were sentenced to death and Peter to transportation for fourteen years.
All were returned to Newgate to await the execution of their sentences. Peter would have been transferred to a ship
bound for Australia.
Whilst awaiting her execution Elizabeth was
visited by the great prison reformer Elizabeth Fry who endeavoured to offer her
some comfort. She recorded the meeting
in her diary and noted that she also saw six men waiting to be hanged and seven
young children. One of the men had also been sentenced for burglary, two for
robbery and three for forgery.
Elizabeth Fry was a Quaker who had been
born in 1780. She worked tirelessly for
prison reform, helping to found The Association for the
Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate. This group campainged for
better conditions for the female prsioners, a school for their children and a
woman matron to look after them. Their
activities spread to other towns and represented the first real attempt to
treat criminals as human beings rather than than vermin to be eradicated.
The Quakers generally, also campaigned against public executions. They did not approve of the pleasure that the
ordinary public derived from watching them and of the rowdy and unsympathetic
behaviour that public hangings engenderd.
It seems that Mrs. Fry raised Elizabeth’s
case in the press and was very vigorously attacked for being a sentimentalist
by the then Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon, who said that if hanging was abolished
for theft, the property of Englishmen would be left wholly without protection.
Lord Eldon was noted for his rigid application of the law and his unwillingness
to see it reformed.
Elizabeth was duly hanged outside Newgate on Wednesday the 5th of March 1817, together with William and six other men. With them on the gallows were Andrew and Benjamin Savage who had both been
convicted of forgery & uttering, Thomas Cann also
convicted of forgery and James Gates and James Baker who had been sentenced to
hang for robbery. The children whom Mrs. Fry had met
were not executed and were presumably transported.
Just after 8 o’clock the
usual procession emerged from the Debtor’s Door led by the Marshall carrying
the black wand and the various officials.
The six prisoners were led up and prayed with the Ordinary while John
Langley, the hangman, prepared them in turn.
Sometime around 8.15 the signal was given and the drop fell. There is no particular record of their deaths
so it can be presumed that nothing untoward happened. All were left on the rope
for the customary hour before being taken down.
The bodies were made available to relatives and friends for burial later
in the day.
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