By John Grainger
Beaumaris was established from the small village of Llanfaes, an important port on the shore of the eastern entrance to the Menai Strait.
The English king, Edward I, also known as Edward Longshanks because of his height, moved the Welsh population from the town a mile to the south at Beaumaris.
He added the castle there in 1295 following the Madog ap Llywelyn uprising.
Work ended in 1330 with the construction being incomplete, long after the king had died.
As far as can be established, no formal executions took place at the castle, although there were many such deaths as a result of uprisings and retaliation, not least that of Roger de Pulesdan, the unpopular and extortionate sheriff of Anglesey, who was hanged.
The hanging was the work of two Anglesey men: Goronwy, the rhingyll of Twrcelyn, and Trahaearn ap Bleddyn of the commote of Talybolion.
Both Goronwy and Trahaearn were later executed and their lands in Bodewryd and Dronwy escheated to the crown.
Early Execution Sites: Gallows Point (1744–1786)
Prior to Beaumaris Gaol being erected, Gallows Point was the location for the only five recorded public hangings in the area, as documented in our historical survey of execution sites from the late 18th century to abolition in 1964.
Shipbuilding was a major industry in Beaumaris, and this was centred on Gallows Point—a nearby spit of land extending into the Menai Strait about a mile west of the town.
Gallows Point had originally been called “Osmund’s Eyre” but was renamed when the town gallows were erected there—along with a “Dead House” for the corpses of criminals dispatched in public executions using the short drop method.
The recorded Gallows Point executions are:
- April 1744: Joseph Jones – for sacrilege;
- April 1744: Robert Ellis – for housebreaking;
- May 1747: John Hoult – for highway robbery;
- 17 September 1785: John Williams – for sheep stealing. Notes for John Williams: on 11 July 1785 in the parish of Llanbedrgoch, he stole two ewes the property of Robert Pritchard (value 8s.), one ewe the property of John Thomas (value 4s.), and one lamb the property of Robert Pritchard and John Thomas (value 2s.) (WALES 4/255/1). At the Hilary Quarter Sessions for Anglesey, 10 January 1786, the Treasurer was ordered to:“pay the Revd Maurice Lewis, Clerk, 3 guineas for his call and attendance in the county gaol on John Williams who was afterwards executed” (QS Order Book);
- May 1786: John Ellis – for stealing in a dwelling house.
Construction and Architecture of Beaumaris Gaol
The jail was designed by Joseph Hansom, designer of the Hansom cab, and was built in 1829.
It was expanded in 1867 to accommodate approximately 30 inmates.
Beaumaris Gaol was closed in 1878, but it remains largely unaltered and is now a museum open to visitors, with around 30,000 visiting each year.
Each visitor is given an audio guide to direct and inform, the speaker claiming to be one Richard Rowlands, the last person to be hanged there!
The building became a police station until the 1950s, when it became, oddly, a children’s clinic, and lastly a museum in 1974.
During World War Two, the town’s air raid siren was located in the gaol and was kept in operation during the Cold War in case of nuclear attacks.
The gaol’s chapel is not original to the building; the pews and pulpit were brought from a chapel being renovated elsewhere on the island.
It is possible to tell that the pews are not the original ones as the numbering sequence is out of order and they are not fixed to the floor.
The prison regime may appear brutal to a modern visitor, but in its day it was seen as a humane improvement on earlier gaols.
Even so, methods of keeping criminals in check included chains, whippings, and isolation in a dark cell for up to three days.
It has one of the last working treadmills in Britain.
The treadmill at Beaumaris is unusual in that it pumped water to the top of the building for use in the cells, meaning that the prisoners were not forced to work for no reason.
Throughout its time as a gaol, there was only one instance of a prisoner escaping.
The prisoner, John Morris, escaped on 7 January 1859, using rope he had stolen whilst working with it.
Although he broke his leg whilst escaping, he did make it out of the town before being recaptured a few days later in a nearby wood.
The Gallows Mechanism at Beaumaris
There were numerous felons sentenced to death at the gaol, but only two hangings took place at Beaumaris.
The rest were given hard labour, usually breaking rocks for various periods of time, or transported to Australia.
The condemned cell is on the top floor of the gaol, and the prisoner was escorted along the corridor for about ten paces before going through a door at the end.
This door was normally permanently closed and latched on the outside, a 15-foot drop being on the other side.
Directly opposite, a distance of about eight yards in the gaol’s surrounding wall, was an identical door, also normally latched shut.
On execution day, both doors were opened and a bridge placed connecting the two openings, allowing the prisoner and escort access to the gallows and the trapdoors set over the street.
The metal rivets which held the gallows in place, along with the two doors through which the condemned man passed, can still be seen from the street outside the gaol walls.
It is a rare location where a prisoner was hanged without first climbing steps.
Both men executed here were buried within the walls of the gaol in a lime pit, but the exact location of their burial remains unknown, as the facility predated the evolution of the long drop in the 20th century.
With special thanks to Nigel Thomas for allowing me to reproduce the case details of the two men who were hanged here.
The Executions at Beaumaris Gaol
William Griffith: Attempted Murder (15/09/1830)
William Griffith was the first man to be hanged in the new Beaumaris prison.
He was condemned to death for the attempted murder of his wife, Mary Griffith.
He had been separated from his wife, but on the night of the 2nd of April 1830, he went to the house in Newborough where she resided with her daughter.
He became violent, prompting his daughter to run out to summon a neighbour’s help.
When they returned to the house Griffith had fled, but his wife was found with her head beneath the fire grate covered with hot coals.
He had also tried to strangle her and force a stick down her throat.
She was very severely burned and wounded, but survived.
After his trial, where he was found guilty, he was taken to the new prison, and his wife visited him.
Frequent visitors were also the clergy: the Revd H. D. Owen, the Gaol’s Chaplain, and the Revd Mr. Hughes of Beaumaris.
All their efforts were in vain, however, as he:
“died as he had lived, without any manifestation of Christian feeling or even of manly firmness”.
While incarcerated, he was observed to be mentally disturbed.
On the morning of his execution, while left alone for a few minutes, he tore up the wooden bench on which his bed was placed and used it to barricade the door of his cell shut.
This gave him but little time, as the door was at length forced open and he was secured.
Uttering the most agonising cries and groans, he continued to struggle violently and attacked the executioner until he was pinioned and brought to the gallows.
An immense crowd gathered to watch Griffith die, many believing that the death penalty should not have been passed since he had not actually killed his wife.
Local men refused to work on the scaffold, so labour had to be brought in from Liverpool.
He was hanged on the 15th of September 1830 by Samuel Burrows from Chester.
The execution cost a total of £61 12s. 0d. (£61.60).
Richard Rowlands (Dic Rolant): The Murder of Richard Williams (04/04/1862)
Rowlands was born the son of a farmer in the village of Llanrhyddlad, north-west Anglesey.
His father was Roland Williams and his mother was Sydna Williams; he had three brothers.
Richard took after his maternal grandfather and became the area’s “bad boy”.
In 1842 he married Emma Owens of Llanbadrig, after which he disappears from local records.
He re-emerged in 1861 as a farm labourer in Camog Bach, Llanrhyddlad, where he was described as a widower.
Everyone was puzzled when 45-year-old Richard Rowlands married a widow but continued to sleep alone at his parents’ home.
In 1861 he married Elinor, having made her pregnant sometime in February of that year.
Elinor, herself a widow with four children, went to live on her father’s farm, Garnedd in Llanfaethlu.
Elinor’s father, Richard Williams (70 years of age), had denied Rowlands access to Garnedd, but relented and allowed him to visit occasionally on the condition that he and Elinor moved out by All Saints (November 1st).
At the time, Rowlands had no permanent employment, but followed the threshing machine from farm to farm.
There was no direct evidence of quarrelling between father-in-law and son-in-law, primarily because they avoided each other.
In November 1861, four months after the marriage, Rowlands was alleged to have waylaid 70-year-old Richard Williams as the old man was returning home after an evening out.
He was discovered dead by Elinor’s son, Richard, with his feet in a ditch at the bottom of the field.
His skull had been battered in, possibly with a hammer, and suspicion quickly fell on Rowlands.
“He must have had a fit on his way home and never made it,”
Rowlands told police. Then, naively, he added:
“I don’t think he was killed with a hammer.”
He was charged with murder, and at the Anglesey Assizes the prosecution argued that the motive was to gain control of his father-in-law’s farm through his new wife.
The Trial (22/03/1862)
The trial took place on Saturday the 22nd of March 1862, presided over by Sir Henry Keating.
Prosecuting were Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Trevor Parkin; defending was Mr. Morgan Lloyd, prominent barristers on the North Wales Circuit.
There were significant discrepancies between the testimony given at the inquest and that given at the trial regarding sightings and timings.
The police attempted to place Rowlands incontrovertibly at the crime scene using witness William Jones of Brynteg, who claimed to have seen a spot of blood on the prisoner’s whisker.
However, principal witnesses confirmed that Rowlands had returned home on the night of the murder without a speck of blood on his clothing.
The jury considered the evidence of Ellen Hughes, who testified that Rowlands had been outdoors around the time the murder occurred.
After asking to rehear her testimony, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty, and Rowlands was sentenced to death.
Condemned Cell and the Legend of the Church Clock
Throughout his confinement, Rowlands steadfastly maintained his innocence, even as ministers urged him daily to confess “for the sake of the jury” (which had comprised prominent local landowners).
His wife, his son from his first marriage, and his brothers visited him on the Wednesday before the execution.
Elinor fainted, and his son was so distressed that he had to be carried out.
During his final days, Rowlands convinced the attending ministers of his innocence, though a clemency petition submitted by them was rejected by the Home Office.
At 8:00 a.m. on the morning of Friday the 4th of April 1862, Rowlands was hanged in public outside Beaumaris Gaol by William Calcraft before a huge crowd.
Death was reported as instantaneous.
Popular legend records that Rowlands cursed the nearby church clock from the scaffold, proclaiming that if he were innocent, the four faces of the clock would never show the same time.
For years afterwards, the clock faces frequently failed to synchronize, though local horologists attributed this to high winds buffeting the southern dial.
In reality, Rowlands made no speech on the scaffold, having been persuaded by the clergy to remain silent.
Following the execution of Richard Rowlands (popularly remembered as Dic Rolant), intense controversy erupted in the press over the reliance on thin circumstantial evidence.
His case remains one of the most famous contested capital convictions in Welsh legal history, long remembered prior to the abolition of capital punishment in Britain in 1965.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Beaumaris Gaol built?
Beaumaris Gaol was designed by architect Joseph Hansom (creator of the Hansom cab) and constructed in 1829 on Anglesey. It was enlarged in 1867 and closed as a penal facility in 1878.
How many executions took place at Beaumaris Gaol?
Only two judicial executions were carried out at Beaumaris Gaol: William Griffith on September 15, 1830 (for attempted murder) and Richard Rowlands on April 4, 1862 (for the murder of his father-in-law).
How did the gallows at Beaumaris Gaol operate?
The gallows utilized a unique bridge arrangement. The condemned prisoner walked ten paces from the top-floor condemned cell through a doorway, crossed a temporary wooden bridge span over an open drop to an opening in the outer wall, and stepped directly onto the gallows trapdoors without climbing steps.
What is the legend of Dic Rolant and the church clock?
Richard Rowlands (Dic Rolant) was convicted on circumstantial evidence and maintained his innocence to the end. Local folklore asserts that he cursed the town church clock, declaring its faces would never show the same time if he was wrongly executed. For decades, the clock faces were notoriously discordant.
What is Beaumaris Gaol used for today?
After serving as a police station and clinic, the gaol opened as a museum in 1974. It is remarkably intact, featuring preserved cells, a 19th-century chapel, and one of Britain’s few surviving operational prisoner treadmills.
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