The Fatal Altercation in Marylebone
Richard Prince was a coachman by trade and was living with a woman named Emily Bisset in the Marylebone area of London in a house of “ill repute”, owned by their landlord Mr. William Scott.
Elizabeth Godfrey (also given as Godfry) had taken the room adjoining theirs four days before Christmas 1806.
A quarrel had occurred between Richard and Elizabeth, apparently due to him having sent for William Atkins, the watchman, to arrest her for having a man in her room the day before, with whom she was arguing over money.
It was alleged that Richard had cut Elizabeth’s hand during this altercation.
It seems that Elizabeth was quickly freed without any criminal charge being brought and returned to her lodgings. However, this incident festered in her mind and she determined to take revenge on Richard.
Between five and six o’clock in the evening of Christmas Day 1806, she knocked on Richard and Emily’s door and told Emily, who answered her call, that she wanted to speak to Richard.
Emily called him, but when he went to the door he did not see Elizabeth, so he fetched a candle and returned.
Elizabeth verbally abused him for fetching the watchman and then stabbed him just below the eye with a pocket knife, sending Richard reeling back into the room, exclaiming:
“Oh! I am a dead man.”
He pulled the knife from his eye and threw it down. Mr. Scott was alerted by the commotion and came to see what had happened.
Emily took Richard to a surgeon who decided that he needed immediate hospital treatment for what was considered to be a dangerous injury. He was accordingly admitted to the Middlesex Hospital under the care of Mr. Barry, a surgeon.
Richard survived in hospital until Saturday the 18th of January 1807, when he finally died from the wound.
John Foy, an officer from Marlborough Street police station, was sent by the magistrate to the hospital to enquire into the stabbing and took possession of the knife.
The Old Bailey Trial
Elizabeth had been arrested and originally charged with wounding, with the charge being upgraded to murder after Richard died.
She came to trial at the Old Bailey on the 18th of February 1807 before Mr. Justice Heath.
Emily Bisset, her landlord William Scott, and William Atkins the watchman gave evidence for the prosecution. Mr. Barry told the court that he was certain that the cause of Richard’s death was the stab wound rather than other causes.
The case for the defence was that Richard had abused Elizabeth and also given her a bad cut to the hand. She called William Atkins to corroborate this.
She also pointed out how hard life was for a single woman with no man to protect her and that she had not caused any trouble to Mr. Scott on the previous occasion she had lodged in his house.
However, she had no real answer to the charge of stabbing Richard. It was not possible to argue self-defence as the reported incidents of his injuring her hand and of her stabbing him were separated by a considerable passage of time.
The jury found her guilty of wilful murder after a brief deliberation, and Elizabeth was returned to Newgate to await sentence at the end of the Sessions.
Sentencing and the Hounslow Heath Murderers
She was not the only person to have been convicted of murder at these Sessions.
John Holloway and Owen Haggerty had robbed and murdered John Cole Steele on Hounslow Heath in Middlesex in November 1802 and would have escaped justice except for an accomplice turning them in four years later when he thought he was dying.
All three were duly sentenced to be hanged and their bodies delivered to Surgeons’ Hall for dissection under the provisions of the Murder Act of 1751.
Their executions were set to take place three days later, on Monday the 23rd of February 1807.
The Triple Hanging Outside Newgate
The hanging of these three convicted murderers attracted enormous public interest, and it was estimated that no less than forty thousand people had come to watch, with every inch of ground outside Newgate and the Old Bailey occupied.
The sheer numbers and the pressure created by surges in the crowd quickly began to cause problems as people were being crushed and trampled even before the execution preparations commenced.
Just before eight o’clock, the prisoners were led out, accompanied by the Ordinary, Brownlow Forde.
The first up was Owen Haggerty, who was already pinioned and had the halter around his neck. The rope was tied up to the beam, and then John Holloway was brought out.
Elizabeth was allowed to sit on a bench at the bottom of the stairs to the platform until the two men had been prepared.
Haggerty said nothing on the gallows, but Holloway made a short speech proclaiming his innocence until William Brunskill, the London hangman, terminated it by pulling the white nightcap over his face.
Elizabeth was now brought up the stairs and must have been shocked to see the two hooded and pinioned men standing there.
She was prepared in the same manner, and all three continued to pray with Brownlow Forde, who then gave the signal at around a quarter past eight to Brunskill to release the trap.
The three hooded bodies dropped together, falling a short distance into the huge box-like structure of Newgate’s gallows.
Haggerty and Holloway became still almost immediately, but Elizabeth writhed and struggled for some time after suspension under the short drop, “dying hard”, as was the contemporary expression.
Little of her struggles would have been seen by the spectators, as all they could typically see was her upper body and perhaps some convulsive movements in it.
The Old Bailey Crowd Disaster
As the three prisoners died on the gallows above, dozens were being injured and dying in the crowd in the Old Bailey below.
Women, children, and men were being crushed and then trampled as they fainted and fell. It is reported that there were desperate cries of “Murder, Murder” from some of the victims in the press of the crowd.
It was impossible for the small number of constables and officials present to do anything to help the injured as people were so densely packed.
The worst part of the crush was in Green Arbour Lane, nearly opposite the Debtor’s Door where the gallows stood.
A pie seller had placed his basket of pies on a stool, which was knocked over by the surging crowd. The basket and upturned stool caused dozens of people to trip, fall, and be trampled underfoot.
A 12-year-old boy named Harrington, who had gone to watch the hangings with his father, was killed here, although his father survived and was taken to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
A woman nursing a baby had the presence of mind to pass the infant over the heads of the crowd to a man, who passed it along until it was safely rescued. Sadly, the mother died moments later from suffocation.
Elsewhere, an overloaded spectator cart collapsed under the weight of the crowd, killing several people in the ensuing panic as onlookers scrambled to escape.
Casualties, Inquest, and Aftermath
It was only after the bodies of the three executed prisoners were taken down and the gallows removed back inside Newgate that officials were able to clear the street and attend to the casualties.
A total of twenty-seven bodies were recovered from the street, and approximately seventy injured spectators required hospital treatment.
The roadway was strewn with hats, shoes, cloaks, and personal effects of the dead and injured.
Most of the dead were taken to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where a temporary mortuary was set up to enable relatives to identify their loved ones.
An inquest into the disaster opened at the hospital the following day and concluded on Friday with the verdict:
“That several persons came by their death from compression and suffocation.”
Public hangings outside Newgate remained notoriously disorderly affairs throughout the early 19th century until Catherine Wilson became the last woman executed in public outside the gaol in 1862, followed by the complete abolition of public hangings in 1868.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Elizabeth Godfrey?
Elizabeth Godfrey was a London woman convicted and executed in February 1807 for the fatal stabbing of coachman Richard Prince, who died after she struck him in the face with a pocket knife during an argument in Marylebone.
What caused the catastrophic crowd crush at Elizabeth Godfrey’s execution?
Over 40,000 spectators gathered in the narrow streets outside Newgate Prison to witness the triple execution of Godfrey alongside notorious Hounslow Heath murderers Owen Haggerty and John Holloway. Surges in the crowd caused people to trip over a pie vendor’s upturned stool in Green Arbour Lane and an overturned cart, creating a mass crush.
How many people died in the 1807 Newgate execution crowd crush?
A total of 27 spectators were crushed or suffocated to death, and around 70 others sustained serious injuries, making it one of the deadliest crowd stampedes in British penal history.
Who carried out the hanging of Elizabeth Godfrey?
She was hanged alongside Haggerty and Holloway on the gallows outside the Debtor’s Door of Newgate Prison on Monday, 23 February 1807, by London executioner William Brunskill.
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