Mary Ann Higgins - the |
Mary Ann Higgins was the 19-year-old niece of William Moore Higgins of Coventry and was described in contemporary newspaper reports as being “a rather good looking girl with fresh colour and a clear complexion, but not an intellectual countenance.
When William’s brother died he in effect adopted Mary and intended to leave her his savings in his will. These were thought to amount to between £100 and £200, quite a large sum of money for the day.
Somewhere around the beginning of 1831 Mary
met 21 year old Edward Clarke, a watch makers apprentice at Messrs. Vale and
Co. in
On the 22nd of March Mary tried to buy two
penny worth (1p) of arsenic
from Wyly’s the chemists on the pretext of killing
rats. She was refused and told that she
would need to return with a witness. In
At the inquest Mary tried to shift the blame onto her boyfriend saying "that Clarke had instigated her to take her uncle's life; and that he (Clarke) had frequently beaten and ill used her when he did not have as much money from her as he wanted." A verdict of wilful murder was returned by the coroner’s jury and the pair were committed for trial at the next Coventry Assizes.
The pair were
tried together at Warwick Assizes on Tuesday the 9th of August. Both were charged with the murder and also
Edward was charged with being an accessory to it. Mary simply pleaded innocence and left what
little defense she had to her council. Edward Clarke submitted a lengthy written
statement denying the charges and citing the vagueness of the evidence against
him. Several witness testified to his
good character although there were no character witnesses for Mary. The jury took just six minutes to acquit
Edward and convict Mary. She was
therefore sentenced to be hanged within 48 hours and her body to be dissected
in accordance with the Murder Act of 1752 which was still in force up to 1836.
She wept piteously according to newspaper reports while she was being
sentenced. She was returned to the
Execution.
Just before noon on Thursday the 11th of
August 1831, Mary was put into a cart containing her own coffin on which she
sat for the journey of some two miles from Coventry gaol to the New Drop
gallows erected on Whitley Common, (just off London Road) accompanied by the
Rev. Mr. Paris. Mary arrived at the
gallows around 12.30 pm. Mr. Paris
assisted her down from the cart and up the steps of the gallows where she stood
firmly on the trap door listening to his ministrations. He shook hands with her
before descending the scaffold and Mary told him “The Lord Bless You.” The hangman, William Calcraft, removed her
bonnet and replaced it with a white hood.
He pinioned her arms and legs with cords and upon her signal of dropping
a handkerchief he withdrew the bolt. She died after a brief struggle and after
hanging for one hour her body was taken down and given to surgeons for
dissection. Her skull is
preserved in the
Executions were rare
events at
Comment.
It is difficult to
know from reading the newspapers of the day, what role Edward had in the crime
and whether he instigated it or whether Mary committed it on her own, without
his knowledge to obtain control of the money so that they could get
married. There seems little reason to
doubt that Mary and Mary alone administered the arsenic. The execution of a nineteen year old girl was
certainly not headline news in 1831 and there was no effort made to get a
reprieve for her.
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