Chronicles of Newgate Vol 2 — Newgate Notorieties part 2

Many stories were in circulation at the time of Fauntleroy's trial with regard to his forgeries.

It was said that he had by means of them sold out so large an amount of stock, that he paid £16,000 a year in dividends to escape detection.

Once he ran a narrow risk of being found out.

A lady in the country, who had £13,000 in the stocks, desired her London agent to sell them out.

He went to the bank, and found that no stocks stood in her name.

He called at once upon Fauntleroy, his client's bankers, for an explanation, and was told by Mr. Fauntleroy that the lady had desired _him_ to sell out, "which I have done," added the fraudulent banker, "and here are the proceeds," whereupon he produced exchequer bills to the amount.

Nothing more was heard of the affair, although the lady declared that she had never instructed Fauntleroy to sell.

On another occasion the banker forged a gentleman's name while the latter was sitting with him in his private room, and took the instrument out to a clerk with the ink not dry.

It must be added that the Bank of England, on discovering the forgeries, replaced the stock in the names of the original holders, who might otherwise have been completely ruined.

A newspaper report of the time describes Fauntleroy as "a well-made man of middle stature.

His hair, though gray, was thick, and lay smooth over his forehead.

His countenance had an expression of most subdued resignation.

The impression which his appearance altogether was calculated to make was that of the profoundest commiseration."

The crime, long carried on without detection, was first discovered in 1820, when it was found that a sum of £10,000, standing in the name of three trustees, of whom Fauntleroy was one, had been sold out under a forged power of attorney.

Further investigations brought other similar frauds to light, and fixed the whole sum misappropriated at £170,000, the first forgery dating back to 1814. A run upon the bank immediately followed, which was only met by a suspension of payment and the closing of its doors.

Meanwhile public gossip was busy with Fauntleroy's name, and it was openly stated in the press and in conversation that the proceeds of these frauds had been squandered in chambering, gambling, and debauchery.

Fauntleroy was scouted as a [Illustration: FAUNTLEROY IN THE DOCK.

] licentious libertine, a deep and determined gamester, a spendthrift whose extravagance knew no bounds.

[107] The veil was lifted from his private life, and he was accused of persistent immorality.

In his defence he sought to rebut these charges, which indeed were never clearly made out, and it is pretty certain that his own account of the causes which led him into dishonesty was substantially true.

He called many witnesses, seventeen in all, to speak of him as they had found him;

and these, all respectable city merchants and business men, declared that they had hitherto formed a high opinion of his honour, integrity, and goodness of disposition, deeming him the last person capable of a dishonourable action.

These arguments availed little with the jury, who after a short deliberation found Fauntleroy guilty, and he was sentenced to death.

Every endeavour was used, however, to obtain a commutation of sentence.

His case was twice argued before the judges on points of law, but the result in both cases was unfavourable.

Appeals were made to the Home Secretary, and all possible political interest brought to bear, but without success.

Fauntleroy meanwhile lay in Newgate, not herded with other condemned prisoners, as the custom was,[108] but in a separate chamber, that belonging to one of the warders of the gaol.

I find in the chaplain's journal, under date 1824, various entries relative to this prisoner.

"Visited Mr. Fauntleroy.

My application for books for him not having been attended, I had no prayer-book to give him."

"Visited Mr. Fauntleroy.

The sheriffs have very kindly permitted him to remain in the turnkey's room where he was originally placed; nor can I omit expressing a hope that this may prove the beginning of a better system of confinement, and that every description of persons who may be unfortunately under sentence of death will no longer be herded indiscriminately together."

[109] The kindliness of the city authorities to Fauntleroy was not limited to the assignment of a separate place of durance.

As I have already said, they took the chaplain seriously to task for the bad taste shown in the condemned sermon preached before Fauntleroy.

This was on the text, "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," and was full of the most pointed allusions to the culprit.

Fauntleroy constantly groaned aloud while the sermon proceeded, and contemporary reports declared that "he appeared to feel deeply the force of the reverend gentleman's observations," especially when the chaplain spoke "of the great magnitude of our erring brother's offence, one of the most dangerous description in a trading community."

The sermon ended with an appeal to the dying man, exhorting him to penitence.

This "personality," and it can be called by no other name, is carefully excluded from prison pulpit utterances on the eve of an execution.

A very curious and, in its way, amusing circumstance in connection with this case was the offer of a certain Italian, Edmund Angelini, to take Fauntleroy's place.

Angelini wrote to the Lord Mayor to this effect, urging that Fauntleroy was a father, a citizen: "his life is useful, mine a burthen, to the State."

He was summoned to the Mansion House, where he repeated his request, crying, "Accordez moi cette grâce," with much urgency.

There were doubts of his sanity.

He wrote afterwards to the effect that the moment he had offered himself, an unknown assassin came to aim a blow at him.

"Let this monster give his name; I am ready to fight him.

I am still determined to put myself in the place of Mr. Fauntleroy.

If the law of this country can receive such a sacrifice, my death will render to heaven an innocent man, and to earth a repentant sinner."

Fauntleroy was not entirely dependent upon the ordinary for ghostly counsel in his extremity.

He was also attended by the Rev. Mr. Springett and the indefatigable Mr. Baker, whose name has already been mentioned.

[110] When led out on the morning of his execution, these two last-named gentlemen each took hold of one of his arms, and so accompanied him to the scaffold.

The concourse in front of Newgate was enormous, but much sympathy was evinced for this unfortunate victim to human weakness and ruthless laws.

A report was, moreover, widely circulated, and the impression long prevailed, that he actually escaped death.

It was said that strangulation had been prevented by the insertion of a silver tube in his wind-pipe, and that after hanging for the regulated time he was taken down and easily restored to consciousness.

Afterwards, according to the common rumour, he went abroad and lived there for many years; but the story is not only wholly unsubstantiated, but there is good evidence to show that the body after execution was handed over to his friends and interred privately.

Some years were still to elapse before capital punishment ceased to be the penalty for forgery, and in the interval several persons were sentenced to or suffered death for this crime.

There were two notable capital convictions for forgery in 1828. One was that of Captain Montgomery, who assumed the aliases of Colonel Wallace and Colonel Morgan.

His offence was uttering forged notes, and there was strong suspicion that he had long subsisted entirely by this fraud.

The act for which he was taken into custody was the payment of a forged ten-pound note for half-a-dozen silver spoons.

Montgomery was an adept at forgery.

He had gone wrong early.

Although born of respectable parents, and gazetted to a commission in the army, he soon left the service and betook himself to dishonest ways.

His first forgery was the marvellous imitation of the signature of the Hon. Mr. Neville, M. P.

, who wrote an extremely cramped and curious hand.

He was not prosecuted for this fraud on account of the respectability of his family, and soon after this escape he came to London, where he practised as a professional swindler and cheat.

For a long time justice did not overtake him for any criminal offence, but he was frequently in Newgate and in the King's Bench for debt.

After three years' confinement in the latter prison he passed himself off as his brother, Colonel Montgomery, a distinguished officer, and would have married an heiress had not the imposture been discovered in time.

He then took to forging bank-notes, and was arrested as I have described above.

Montgomery was duly sentenced to death, but he preferred suicide to the gallows.

After sentence his demeanour was serious yet firm.

The night previous to that fixed for his execution he wrote several letters, one of them being to Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a fellow-prisoner,[111] and listened attentively to the ordinary, who read him the well-known address written and delivered by Dr. Dodd previous to his own execution for forgery.

But next morning he was found dead in his cell.

In one corner after much search a phial was found labelled "Prussic acid," which it was asserted he had been in the habit of carrying about his person ever since he had taken to passing forged notes, as an "antidote against disgrace."

This phial he had managed to retain in his possession in spite of the frequent searches to which he was subjected in Newgate.

The second conviction for forgery in 1828 was that of the Quaker Joseph Hunton, a man of previously the highest repute in the city of London.

He had prospered in early life, was a slop-seller on a large scale at Bury St. Edmunds, and a sugar-baker in the metropolis.

He married a lady also belonging to the Society of Friends, who brought him a large fortune, which, and his own money, he put into a city firm, that of Dickson and Co. He soon, however, became deeply involved in Stock Exchange speculations, and losing heavily, to meet the claims upon him he put out a number of forged bills of exchange or acceptances, to which the signature of one Wilkins of Abingdon was found to be forged.

Hunton tried to fly the country on the detection of the fraud, but was arrested at Plymouth just as he was on the point of leaving England in the New York packet.

He had gone on board in his Quaker dress, but when captured was found in a light-green frock, a pair of light-grey pantaloons, a black stock and a foraging cap.

Hunton was put upon his trial at the Old Bailey, and in due course sentenced to death.

His defence was that the forged acceptances would have been met on coming to maturity, and that he had no real desire to defraud.

Hunton accepted his sentence with great resignation, although he protested against the inhumanity of the laws which condemned him to death.

On entering Newgate he said, "I wish after this day to have communication with nobody; let me take leave of my wife, and family, and friends.

I have already suffered an execution;

my heart has undergone that horrible penalty."

He was, however, visited by and received his wife, and several members of the Society of Friends.

Two elders of the meeting sat up with him in the press yard the whole of the night previous to execution, and a third, Mr. Sparks Moline, came to attend him to the scaffold.

He met his death with unshaken firmness, only entreating that a certain blue handkerchief, to which he seemed fondly attached, should be used to bandage his eyes, which request was readily granted.

Hunton's execution no doubt aroused public attention to the cruelty and futility of the capital law against forgery.

A society which had already been started against capital punishment devoted its efforts first to a mitigation of the forgery statute, but could not immediately accomplish much.

In 1829 the gallows claimed two more victims for this offence.

One was Richard Gifford, a well-educated youth who had been at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards in the National Debt Office.

Unfortunately he took to drink, lost his appointment, and fell from bad to worse.

Suddenly, after being at the lowest depths, he emerged, and was found by his friends living in comfort in the Waterloo Road.

His funds, which he pretended came to him with a rich wife, were really the proceeds of frauds upon the Bank of England.

He forged the names of people who held stock on the Bank books, and got the value of the stock; he also forged dividend receipts and got the dividends.

He was only six-and-twenty when he was hanged.

The other and the last criminal executed for forgery in this country was one Maynard, who was convicted of a fraud upon the Custom House.

In conjunction with two others, one of whom was a clerk in the Custom House, and had access to the official records, he forged a warrant for £1973, and was paid the money by the comptroller general.

Maynard was convicted of uttering the forged document, Jones of being an accessory; the third prisoner was acquitted.

Maynard was the only one who suffered death.

This was on the last day of 1829. In the following session Sir Robert Peel brought in a bill to consolidate the acts relating to forgery.

Upon the third reading of this bill Sir James Macintosh moved as an amendment that capital punishment should be abolished for all crimes of forgery, except the forgery of wills and powers of attorney.

This amendment was strongly supported outside the House, and a petition in favour of its passing was presented, signed by more than a thousand members of banking firms.

Macintosh's amendment was carried in the Commons, but the new law did not pass the Lords, who re-enacted the capital penalty.

Still no sentence of death was carried out for the offence, and in 1832 the Attorney-General introduced a bill to abolish capital punishment entirely for forgery.

It passed the Commons, but opposition was again encountered in the Lords.

This time they sent back the bill, re-enacting only the two penalties for will forging and the forging of powers of attorney; in other words, they had advanced in 1832 to the point at which the Lower House had arrived in 1830. There were at the moment in Newgate six convicts sentenced to death for forging wills.

The question was whether the Government would dare to take their lives at the bidding of the House of Lords, and in defiance of the vote of the assembly which more accurately represented public opinion.

It was indeed announced that their fate was sealed; but Mr. Joseph Hume pressed the Government hard, and obtained an assurance that the men should not be executed.

The new Forgery Act with the Lords' amendment passed into law, but the latter proved perfectly harmless, and no person ever after suffered death for any variety of this crime.

I will include in this part of the present chapter almost one of the last instances[112] of a crime which in time past had invariably been visited with the death penalty, and which was of a distinctly fraudulent nature.

The abduction of Miss Turner by the brothers Wakefield bore a strong resemblance to the carrying off and forcible marrying of heiresses as already described.

[113] Miss Turner was a school-girl of barely fifteen, only child of a gentleman of large property in Cheshire, of which county he was actually high sheriff at the time of his daughter's abduction.

The elder brother, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the prime mover in the abduction, was a barrister, not exactly briefless, but without a large practice.

He had, it was said, a good private income, and was already a widower with two children at the time of his committing the offence for which he was subsequently tried.

He had eloped with his first wife from school.

While on a visit to Macclesfield he heard by chance of Miss Turner, and that she would inherit all her father's possessions.

He thereupon conceived an idea of carrying her off and marrying her willy nilly at Gretna Green.

The two brothers started at once for Liverpool, where Miss Turner was at school with a Mrs. Daulby.

At Manchester, _en route_, a travelling carriage was purchased, which was driven up to Mrs. Daulby's door at eight in the morning, and a servant hurriedly alighted from it, bearing a letter for Miss Turner.

This purported to be from the medical attendant of Mr. Turner, written at Shrigley, Mr. Turner's place of residence; and it stated that Mrs. Turner had been stricken with paralysis.

She was not in immediate danger, but she wished to see her daughter, "as it was possible she might soon become incapable of recognizing any one."

Miss Turner, greatly agitated, accompanied the messenger who had brought this news, a disguised servant of Wakefield's, who had plausibly explained that he had only recently been engaged at Shrigley.

The road taken was _viâ_ Manchester, where the servant said a Dr. Hull was to be picked up to go on with them to Shrigley.

At Manchester, however, the carriage stopped at the Albion Hotel.

Miss Turner was shown into a private room, where Mr. Wakefield soon presented himself.

Miss Turner, not knowing him, would have left the room, but he said he came from her father, and she remained.

Wakefield, in reply to her inquiries, satisfied her that her mother was well, and that the real reason for summoning her from school was the state of her father's affairs.

Mr. Turner was on the verge of bankruptcy.

He was at that moment at Kendal, and wished her to join him there at once.

Miss Turner consented to go on, and they travelled night and day towards the north.

But at Kendal there was no Mr. Turner, and, to allay Miss Turner's growing anxiety, Wakefield found it necessary to become more explicit regarding her father's affairs.

He now pretended that Mr. Turner was also on his way to the border, pursued by sheriffs' officers.

The fact was, Wakefield went on to say, an uncle of his had advanced Mr. Turner £60,000, which had temporarily staved off ruin.

But another bank had since failed, and nothing could save Mr. Turner but the transfer of some property to Miss Turner, and its settlement on her, so that it might become the exclusive property of her husband, "whoever he might be."

Wakefield added that it had been suggested he should marry Miss Turner, but that he had laughed at the idea.

Wakefield's uncle took the matter more seriously, and declared that unless the marriage came off Mr. Turner must be sold up.

Miss Turner, thus pressed, consented to go on to Gretna Green.

Passing through Carlisle, she was told that Mr. Turner was in the town, but could not show himself.

Nothing could release him from his trouble but the arrival of the marriage certificate from Gretna Green.

Filial affection rose superior to all scruples, and Miss Turner, having crossed the border, was married to Wakefield by the blacksmith in the usual way.

Returning to Carlisle, she now heard that her father had been set free, and had gone home to Shrigley, whither they were to follow him.

They set out, but at Leeds Wakefield found himself called suddenly to Paris; the other brother was accordingly sent on a pretended mission to Shrigley to bring Mr. Turner on to London, whither Wakefield and Miss Turner also proceeded.

On arrival, Wakefield pretended that they had missed Mr. Turner, and must follow him over to France.

The strangely-married couple thereupon pressed on to Dover, and crossed over to Calais.

The fact of the abduction did not transpire for some days.

Then Mrs. Daulby learnt that Miss Turner had not arrived at Shrigley, but that she had gone to Manchester.

Friends went in pursuit and traced her to Huddersfield and further north.

The terror and dismay of her parents were soon intensified by the receipt of a letter from Wakefield, at Carlisle, announcing the marriage.

Mr. Turner at once set off for London, where he sought the assistance of the police, and presently ascertained that Wakefield had gone to the Continent with his involuntary bride.

An uncle of Miss Wakefield's, accompanied by his solicitor and a Bow Street runner, at once went in pursuit.

Meanwhile, a second letter turned up from Wakefield at Calais, in which he assured Mrs. Turner that Miss Turner was fondly attached to him, and went on to say, "I do assure you, madam, that it shall be the anxious endeavour of my life to promote her happiness by every means in my power."

The game, however, was nearly up.

Miss Turner was met by her uncle on Calais pier as she was walking with Wakefield.

The uncle claimed her.

The husband resisted.

M.

le Maire was appealed to, and decided to leave it to the young lady, who at once abandoned Wakefield.

As he still urged his rights over his wife, Miss Turner cried out in protest, "No, no, I am not his wife; he carried me away by fraud and stratagem, and forced me to accompany him to Gretna Green....

By the same forcible means I was compelled to quit England, and to trust myself to the protection of this person, whom I never saw until I was taken from Liverpool, and never want to see again."

On this Wakefield gave in.

He surrendered the bride who had never been a wife, and she returned to England with her friends, while Wakefield went on alone to Paris.

Mr. William Wakefield was arrested at Dover, conveyed to Chester, and committed to Lancaster Gaol for trial at the next assizes, when indictments were preferred against both brothers "for having carried away Ellen Turner, spinster, then a maid and heir apparent unto her father, for the sake of the lucre of her substance; and for having afterwards unlawfully and against her will married the said Ellen Turner."

They were tried in March of the following year, Edward Wakefield having apparently given himself up, and found guilty, remaining in Lancaster Gaol for a couple of months, when they were brought up to the court of King's Bench for judgment.

The prosecution pressed for a severe penalty.

Edward Wakefield pleaded that his trial had already cost him £3000. Mr. Justice Bayley, in summing up, spoke severely of the gross deception practised upon an innocent girl, and sentenced the brothers each to three years' imprisonment, William Wakefield in Lancaster Gaol, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Newgate, which sentences were duly enforced.

The marriage was annulled by an Act of Parliament, although Wakefield petitioned against it, and was brought from Newgate, at his own request, to oppose the second reading of the bill.

He also wrote and published a pamphlet from the gaol to show that Miss Turner had been a consenting party to the marriage, and was really his wife.

Neither his address nor his pamphlet availed much, for the bill for the divorce passed both Houses.

That Mr. Wakefield was a shrewd critic and close observer of all that went on in the Newgate of those days, will be admitted by those who have read his book on "the punishment of death," which was based on his gaol experiences, and of which I have availed myself in the last chapter.

After their release from Lancaster and Newgate respectively, both Wakefields went abroad.

Mr. W.

Wakefield served in a continental army, and rose to the rank of colonel, after which he went to New Zealand, and held an important post in that colony.

Mr. E.

G.

Wakefield took part in the scheme for the colonization of North Australia, and for some years resided in that colony.

Miss Turner subsequently married Mr. Legh of Lym Hall, Cheshire.

It must not be imagined that although highway robbery was now nearly extinct,[114] and felonious outrages in the streets were rare, that thieves or depredators were idle or entirely unsuccessful.

Bigger "jobs" than ever were planned and attempted, as in the burglary at Lambeth Palace, when the thieves were fortunately disappointed, the archbishop having, before he left town, sent his plate-chests, eight in number, to the silversmith's for greater security.

The jewellers were always a favourite prey of the London thieves.

Shops were broken into, as when that of Grimaldi and Johnson, in the Strand, was robbed of watches to the value of £6000. Where robbery with violence was intended, the perpetrators had now to adopt various shifts and contrivances to secure their victim.

No more curious instance of this ever occurred than the assault made by one Howard upon a Mr. Mullay, with intent to rob him.

The latter had advertised, offering a sum of £1000 to any one who would introduce him to some mercantile employment.

Howard replied, desiring Mr. Mullay to call upon him in a house in Red Lion Square.

Mr. Mullay went, and a second interview was agreed upon, when a third person, Mr. Owen, through whose interest an appointment under Government was to be obtained for Mullay, would be present.

Mr. Mullay called again, taking with him £500 in cash.

Howard discovered this, and his manner was very suspicious; there were weapons in the room--a long knife, a heavy trap-ball bat, and a poker.

Mr. Mullay became alarmed, and as Mr. Owen did not appear, withdrew; Howard, strange to say, making no attempt to detain him; probably because Mullay promised to return a few days later, and to bring more money.

On this renewed visit Mr. Owen was still absent, and Mr. Mullay agreed to write him a note from a copy Howard gave him.

While thus engaged, Howard thrust the poker into the fire.

Mullay protested, and then Howard, under the influence of ungovernable rage, as it seemed, jumped up, locked the door, and attacked Mullay violently with the trap-ball bat and knife.

Mullay defended himself, and managed to break the knife, but not before he had cut himself severely.

A life and death struggle ensued.

Mullay cried "Murder!"

Howard swore he would finish him, but proved the weaker of the two, and Mullay got him down on the floor.

By this time the neighbours were aroused, and several people came to the scene of the affray.

Howard was secured, given into custody, and committed to Newgate.

The defence he set up was, that Mullay had used epithets towards him while they were negotiating a business matter, and that, being an irritable temper, he had struck Mullay, after which a violent scuffle took place.

It was, however, proved that Howard was in needy circumstances, and that his proposals to Mr. Mullay could only have originated in a desire to rob him.

He was found guilty of an assault with intent, and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years.

A more complicated and altogether most extraordinary case of assault, with intent to extort money, occurred a few years later.

It was perpetrated upon a respectable country solicitor, Mr. Gee, of Bishop Stortford, who administered the estate of a certain Mr. Canning, deceased.

This Mr. Canning had left his widow a life interest in £2000 so long as she remained unmarried.

The money went after her to her children.

Mr. Gee had invested £1200 of this, and was seeking how best to place the remaining £800, when he was asked to meet a Mr. Heath in London with regard to the sale of certain lands at Bishop Stortford.

An appointment was made and kept by Mr. Gee, but on arrival he was met by a young sailor with a letter which begged Mr. Gee to go to Heath's house, as the latter was not well.

Mr. Gee went in the coach sent for him, and alighted at 27, York Street, West, Commercial Road.

The coach immediately drove off; Mr. Gee entered the house, asked for Mr. Heath, was told he would find him in the back kitchen at breakfast.

He was about to descend the stairs when three persons, one of them the young sailor, fell upon him, and in spite of his resistance carried him into a sort of den partitioned off at the end of the back kitchen.

There he was seated on some sort of wooden bench and securely fastened.

"A chain fixed to staples at his back passed round his chest under his arms, and was padlocked on the left side;" his feet were bound with cords and made fast to rings in the floor.

Thus manacled, one of the party, who pretended to be Mrs. Canning's brother, addressed him, insisting that he should forthwith sign a cheque for the £800 of the Canning inheritance still uninvested, and write an order sufficient to secure the surrender of the other £1200. Mr. Gee at first stoutly refused.

Then, as they warned him that he would be kept a prisoner in total darkness in this horrible den until he agreed to their demands, he gave in, and signed the documents thus illegally extorted.

One was a cheque for £800 on his bankers, the other an order to Mr. Bell of Newport, Essex, requesting the surrender of a deed.

His captors having thus succeeded in their designs, left him, no doubt to realize the money.

The door of his place of durance stood open, and Mr. Gee began to consider whether he might not escape.

For three hours he struggled without success with his bonds, but at length managed to wriggle out of the chain which confined his body, and soon loosened the ropes round his feet.

Thus free, he eluded the vigilance of two of the party, who were at dinner in the front kitchen, and creeping out into the garden at the back, climbed the wall, and got into the street.

His first act was to send a messenger to stop the cheque and the order to Mr. Bell, his next to seek the help of the police.

Two Bow Street runners were despatched to the house in York Street, which had evidently been taken on purpose for the outrage.

There was no furniture in the place, and the den in the kitchen had been recently and specially constructed of boards of immense strength and thickness.

It was a cell five feet by three, within another, the intervening being filled with rammed earth to deaden the sound.

A fixed seat, two feet, was at one end, and a foot above it was a bar with a staple, to which hung the body chain.