Introduction: The Tyburn Double Hanging of 1777
With special thanks to guest author David Muss for researching this case.
On Friday the 27th of June 1777, there was to be a double hanging at Tyburn.
One of the prisoners was and still is a well-known name in British history: Dr. William Dodd, the celebrated “Macaroni Parson”, who was condemned to death for the crime of forging a bond for £4,200 in the name of the Earl of Chesterfield to settle his debts.
Sharing the fatal cart with him was a fifteen-year-old boy named Joseph Harris, whose tragic plight was largely overshadowed by the public spectacle surrounding Dodd.
That such a young life was treated as so cheap, provided as entertainment for a massive crowd, remains one of the poignant episodes of the 18th-century penal code. An eyewitness recounted the heartbreaking sight of a distressed father riding alongside his condemned young son on their journey to the gallows.
There was also a twist in the proceedings: a third person was originally slated to die with them that morning but was spared the gallows—Joseph’s co-defendant, James Lucas.
The Highway Robbery and Old Bailey Trial
Joseph Harris appears in the official records of the May Sessions of the Old Bailey on 14 May 1777 before Mr. Justice Sir Richard Aston.
Justice was swift, and the courts took an uncompromising view of robberies committed on the King’s Highway under the “Bloody Code”.
The indictment stated:
“Joseph Harris and James Lucas were indicted for that they in the King’s highway in and upon Robert Hughes feloniously did make an assault, putting him in corporal fear and danger of his life, and stealing from his person two half guineas and seven shilling in monies numbered, the property of the said Robert, April 21st.”
Joseph was caught when bystanders pursued a suspected highwayman across an open field. At his trial, Harris insisted that he had merely been swept up in the chase and arrested in error.
He also alleged that he was the victim of corrupt thief-takers motivated by statutory financial rewards, telling the court:
“This man has been advised by Justice Wilmot’s thief-catchers; when he came into Wilmot’s office, he asked if I should be cast for death, whether he would have 40 l. all the court laughed at him; he swore falsely; the thief-catcher took him backwards, and told him, he should have the money if I was cast, and then he said he would swear that I was the person.”
Despite his defence, both Joseph Harris and James Lucas were convicted and condemned to death.
The Old Bailey Punishment Summary formally recorded the capital sentences:
“Received sentence of death, 3.
Dr. William Dodd, Joseph Harris, and James Lucas.”
Imprisonment in Newgate and Suicidal Despair
Following sentencing, the condemned were confined in Newgate Prison under the spiritual care of the Ordinary of Newgate, the Rev. John Villette.
James Lucas received a last-minute respite, but no reprieve came for young Joseph Harris.
Overcome by terror at the prospect of being made a public spectacle at the “Tyburn Fair”, the teenager attempted suicide in his cell, but his life was saved by the vigilance of the prison warders.
Dodd’s entry in The Newgate Calendar recorded the scene in the prison chapel vestry just before departure:
“As we went from his room, in our way to the chapel, we were joined by his friend, who had spent the foregoing evening with him, and also by another clergyman. When we were in the vestry adjoining the chapel, he exhorted his fellow-sufferer, who had attempted to destroy himself, but had been prevented by the vigilance of the keeper. He spoke to him with great tenderness and emotion of heart, entreating him to consider that he had but a short time to live, and that it was highly necessary that he, as well as himself, made good use of their time, implored pardon of God under a deep sense of sin, and looked to that Lord by Whose merits alone sinners can be saved.
He desired me to call in the other gentlemen, who likewise assisted him to move the heart of the poor youth; but the Doctor’s words were the most pathetic and effectual. He lifted up his hands, and cried out ‘Oh Lord Jesus, have mercy upon us! and give, oh! give unto him, my fellow sinner, that, as we suffer together, we may go together to Heaven!’ His conversation to this poor youth was so moving, that tears flowed from the eyes of all present.”
The Procession to Tyburn
Unlike the rest of his obscure life, Joseph’s final journey is exceptionally well recorded because of his famous companion. The Gentleman’s Magazine noted:
“On this occasion there was perhaps the greatest concourse of people ever drawn together by a like spectacle. From Newgate to the place of execution the streets were thronged, and never were seen so many weeping eyes.”
The execution process began around 7:00 a.m. in Newgate’s Press Yard, where a blacksmith knocked off their heavy leg-irons.
The Yeoman of the Halter pinioned their arms with cords and placed the hempen nooses—simple slip-knots—around their necks, coiling the loose ends around their torsos.
Dr. Dodd made the journey to Tyburn in a mourning coach. Fifteen-year-old Joseph Harris made the two-and-a-half-mile journey seated in an open cart, his head resting in the lap of his weeping elderly father, who rode along to comfort him—a sight that drew deep sympathy from the onlookers.
The procession wound slowly through Holborn, St. Giles, and along Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street).
The customary stop was made at St. Sepulchre’s Church, where the bell tolled and the sexton recited the traditional admonition for the dying. Pauses were also taken at two roadside taverns—the Bowl Inn at St. Giles and the Mason’s Arms in Seymour Place—allowing the condemned a final drink.
The Execution at the Gallows
The cart was backed under the crossbeam of the portable gallows, which had replaced the historic triangular “Triple Tree” in 1759.
Executioner Edward Dennis uncoiled the halters and tied the ropes to the beam with minimal slack.
After Rev. Villette concluded his prayers, Dennis drew white nightcaps over the faces of the condemned.
The horses were whipped forward, pulling the cart out from under their feet and leaving both prisoners suspended.
Under the primitive short drop, death came through slow strangulation rather than a sudden fracture of the neck. After hanging for the standard hour, both bodies were cut down.
A contemporary observer simply recorded:
“Dodd was dead, as was the young Joseph Harris, the fifteen year old boy hanged with him.”
Historical Footnotes: James Lucas and Sir Richard Aston
Official records reveal that Joseph’s co-defendant, James Lucas, was reprieved from death and sentenced to five years of hard labour aboard the prison hulks—the decommissioned warships moored in the River Thames.
Court rolls suggest that a man named James Lucas was later sentenced to transportation to Australia for stealing four geese after being caught while intoxicated.
Mr. Justice Sir Richard Aston, who passed the capital sentence on young Harris, died less than a year later, on 1 March 1778.
Capital punishment for robbery and forgery remained standard practice for decades until major legal reforms in the 1830s restricted the death penalty almost exclusively to murder.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Joseph Harris?
Joseph Harris was a 15-year-old London youth convicted of highway robbery at the Old Bailey and executed at Tyburn on 27 June 1777.
Why is Joseph Harris remembered alongside Dr. William Dodd?
Harris shared the fatal gallows cart with Dr. William Dodd, the celebrated clergyman and royal chaplain known as the “Macaroni Parson,” whose conviction for bond forgery was an international cause célèbre.
Why was a 15-year-old boy hanged for highway robbery?
Under 18th-century English criminal law (known as the “Bloody Code”), armed robbery on the public highway was a capital felony that carried a mandatory death sentence regardless of the offender’s youth.
What happened to Joseph Harris’s co-defendant, James Lucas?
James Lucas was sentenced to death alongside Harris, but received a royal reprieve commuting his punishment to five years’ hard labour aboard the Thames prison hulks.
Where and when did the execution take place?
Joseph Harris and Dr. William Dodd were publicly hanged at Tyburn near modern-day Marble Arch on the morning of Friday, 27 June 1777, by London hangman Edward Dennis.
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