Early Life and the Temple Chambers
Sarah Malcolm was an educated, middle-class young woman who met her death at the hands of the common hangman.
She was just 22 years old when she was executed for the murders of three women during a robbery at the home of one of her employers.
Sarah originated from Durham and was born in 1711 to a respectable family. However, her father squandered the family’s finances, and as a teenager, Sarah was forced to move to London to enter domestic service.
Initially, she performed her duties well, but later took employment at the Black Horse, a tavern in Boswell Court near Temple Bar, where she became connected with members of London’s criminal underworld.
She eventually left the tavern and found employment as a laundress and charwoman to several chambers (apartments) above the Inns of Court, working for various legal tenants.
Among her clients was Mrs. Lydia Duncomb, an affluent but frail widow whose age was variously reported as between 60 and 80, who occupied chambers in Tanfield Court within the Inner Temple.
Mrs. Duncomb employed two live-in domestic servants: Elizabeth Harrison, aged 60, who was semi-retired and had served as her companion for many years, and 17-year-old Ann Price, who carried out the heavier household duties.
The Murders in Tanfield Court
The precise events of the night of Saturday, the 3rd of February 1733, remain shrouded in controversy because Sarah never delivered a fully credible account.
At her trial, she alleged that she had entered the apartment with confederates named Martha Tracey and the Alexander brothers, who carried out the robbery while she kept watch on the stairs outside.
The crime scene revealed extraordinary violence:
- Ann Price, the 17-year-old maid, was found lying in the entry passage leading to the apartment, her hands clutching a mortal two-inch knife wound across her throat.
- Elizabeth Harrison was discovered strangled to death across her bed, choked with an apron string or cord.
- Mrs. Lydia Duncomb was found dead across her bed, having also been suffocated or strangled, though the surgeon noted that shock, terror, and the weight of an assailant pressing down upon her chest likely contributed to her death.
On Sunday morning, a close friend of Mrs. Duncomb, Mrs. Ann Love, arrived for a dinner appointment but received no response to her repeated knocking.
She fetched another acquaintance, Mrs. Frances Rhymer, but the apartment remained silent. Sarah Malcolm then approached the doorway. Fearing something was amiss, Mrs. Love sent Sarah to fetch a locksmith.
Sarah returned with Mrs. Ann Oliphant, another friend of Mrs. Duncomb, who was younger and managed to force an entry into the rooms.
Inside, they discovered the three corpses. The chambers had been ransacked, and Mrs. Duncomb’s strongbox had been forced open and stripped of gold coins, silver, and valuables.
A Temple porter summoned medical assistance, and Mr. Thomas Bigg, a surgeon, arrived to conduct a preliminary examination of the bodies.
Suspicion and Arrest in the Inner Temple
Mr. John Kerrel, a barrister and tenant of chambers in the Temple who also employed Sarah as a laundress, had been away on Saturday evening.
Returning to his rooms around one o’clock on Sunday morning, he was surprised to find Sarah inside.
Aware that a triple murder had occurred in Tanfield Court, Kerrel was uncomfortable with her presence, suspecting that whoever carried out the crime possessed intimate knowledge of the Temple chambers.
When he discovered that several of his own waistcoats were missing, he confronted Sarah, who admitted she had pawned them. He ordered her to leave immediately.
Thoroughly suspicious, Kerrel searched his rooms. In his close-stool (commode), he uncovered hidden linen concealing a silver tankard stained with blood on the handle. Beneath his bed, he discovered a blood-spattered shift and apron.
Kerrel immediately alerted the Temple watchmen. Officers overtook Sarah near the Inner Temple Gate and brought her back to Kerrel’s chambers.
When asked about the silver tankard, she claimed it was her own property, given to her by her mother.
She was handed over to the parish constable and brought before Alderman Sir Richard Brocas, who committed her to the Compter lock-up and on Monday morning remanded her to Newgate Prison.
Upon admission to Newgate, a standard search revealed substantial quantities of silver and gold hidden in her clothing, which authorities identified as belonging to Mrs. Duncomb.
A warder discovered a purse containing 21 gold guineas concealed in the bosom of her dress. Sarah claimed she had found the purse in the street and offered it to turnkey Roger Johnson as a bribe if he kept silent.
Johnson refused the bribe and reported the incident to his superiors.
Sarah repeated to prison keeper Roger Johnson that she had organized the robbery, but insisted that she remained on the staircase outside while Martha Tracey and the Alexander brothers committed the killings.
A coroner’s inquisition returned wilful murder verdicts against Sarah, committing her for formal trial.
The Old Bailey Trial
Sarah came to trial at the Old Bailey during the February Sessions on Friday, 23 February 1733.
The grand jury returned four separate capital indictments:
- The wilful murder of Ann Price by cutting her throat with a knife;
- The wilful murder of Elizabeth Harrison by strangulation;
- The wilful murder of Lydia Duncomb by strangulation;
- Burglary and felony theft, for breaking and entering Mrs. Duncomb’s dwelling-house and stealing 20 Moidores (Portuguese gold coins), 18 Guineas, valuable broad-pieces, silver coinage, and a silver tankard valued at 40 shillings.
Sarah pleaded not guilty to all charges.
To economize court time, the prosecution proceeded solely on the first capital charge: the murder of Ann Price.
John Kerrel testified regarding the bloodstained items and stolen tankard found hidden in his chambers. His friend, John Gehagan, and watchmen John Mastreter and Richard Hughs corroborated the discovery and Sarah’s apprehension.
Frances Rhymer confirmed that the silver tankard and the purse discovered on Sarah were the property of Mrs. Duncomb, matching the contents of the looted strongbox.
Turnkey Roger Johnson and prison keeper Mr. Alstone testified to the 21 guineas found in Sarah’s clothing and her attempts to bribe warders into concealing the money.
Sarah was not represented by legal counsel, as was standard for felony defendants under 18th-century law, but she mounted a vigorous defence.
She cross-examined prosecution witnesses at length. She claimed the blood on her shift and apron was menstrual blood rather than that of the murdered maid, and asserted that the blood on the tankard handle had come from an accidental cut to her finger.
She admitted planning the burglary and receiving stolen goods—openly acknowledging that these crimes carried a capital penalty—but adamantly denied committing the physical murders, insisting that Tracey and the Alexanders had killed the women without her foreknowledge.
She even petitioned the court to return any cash found in her possession that exceeded the amount stolen from Mrs. Duncomb.
The jury deliberated for just fifteen minutes before returning a verdict of guilty of wilful murder and burglary.
Because authorities found no corroborating evidence against Martha Tracey or the Alexander brothers, neither was prosecuted.
The following day, Sarah was brought to the bar alongside nine men and formally sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead.
Imprisonment and Hogarth’s Portrait
In Newgate’s condemned hold, Sarah continued to deny that she had struck the fatal blows.
The sensational nature of a triple murder committed by a young, educated gentlewoman drew widespread public fascination, transforming Sarah into a national celebrity.
Two days before her execution, the celebrated artist William Hogarth visited her cell in Newgate. He sketched her likeness, later painting a famous portrait that depicted her sitting beside a table in her cell.
Hogarth was unimpressed by her claims of innocence, later observing that he believed:
“she was capable of any wickedness.”
Under contemporary practice for notorious crimes, authorities ordered that her execution take place near the scene of the offense rather than at the usual gallows at Tyburn.
Sarah was deeply distressed by this decision, knowing she would be forced to die in front of crowds of former neighbours and Temple acquaintances, rather than dying among the eight men executed at Tyburn on Monday, 5 March.
On the eve of her death, she delivered a lengthy written statement to the Reverend Mr. Piddington, which was published as A Paper delivered by Sarah Malcolm on the Night before her Execution, though it functioned largely as a self-justifying narrative of her role in the burglary.
Public Execution in Fleet Street
Sarah’s execution was appointed for Wednesday, 7 March 1733.
Newgate’s portable gallows was erected in Fleet Street, directly opposite Mitre Court near the Temple gates.
In Newgate, the Yeoman of the Halter pinioned her arms with cord and secured the hempen rope around her neck.
She was placed in the execution cart alongside London hangman John Hooper for the short procession to Fleet Street, escorted by the Under Sheriff and a contingent of javelin men.
Overcome by terror, Sarah fainted several times in the cart, weeping and wringing her hands before the gathered crowds.
At the scaffold, she listened to the Ordinary of Newgate, the Reverend John Gutherie, recite the prayers for the dying, fainting once more.
Upon recovering her senses, moments before the cart was drawn away, she turned toward the Temple buildings and cried aloud:
“Oh, my mistress, my mistress! I wish I could see her!”
Casting her eyes heavenward, she commended her soul to Christ.
The cart was driven forward, leaving her suspended under the short drop. She died after a brief convulsive struggle.
Her body hung for the customary hour before being cut down. According to parish registers, she was buried in the churchyard of St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate on 10 March 1733, although contemporary reports indicate her corpse was dissected by anatomists prior to interment.
Other notable 18th-century executions involving domestic theft and murder include Jenny Diver at Tyburn in 1741 and Elizabeth Brownrigg in 1767.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Sarah Malcolm?
Sarah Malcolm was a 22-year-old laundress and charwoman originally from Durham who was convicted and executed in March 1733 for the robbery and murders of three women in the Temple, London.
What were the Temple Murders of 1733?
On 3 February 1733, wealthy elderly widow Lydia Duncomb, her elderly companion Elizabeth Harrison, and her 17-year-old maid Ann Price were found murdered inside their chambers at Tanfield Court in the Inner Temple. Price had her throat slit, while the two older women were strangled and the chambers stripped of gold, silver, and coins.
Why did William Hogarth paint Sarah Malcolm?
The brutality of the triple murder and Sarah Malcolm’s status as an educated, attractive young woman made the case an 18th-century media sensation. William Hogarth visited her condemned cell in Newgate Prison two days before her hanging to sketch her portrait, producing an artwork and engravings that sold widely across London.
Did Sarah Malcolm murder the three women alone?
Malcolm confessed to planning the robbery and receiving the stolen goods, but insisted until her death that two brothers named Alexander and a woman named Martha Tracey committed the murders while she stood watch on the stairs. However, authorities found no corroborating evidence against these individuals, and the bloodstained clothes and stolen tankard hidden in her employer’s room pointed to her direct guilt.
Where and when was Sarah Malcolm executed?
She was publicly hanged on a portable gallows erected in Fleet Street, opposite Mitre Court near the Temple, on Wednesday, 7 March 1733, by executioner John Hooper.
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