George Cudmore was on March 25, 1830 executed at Devon County Gaol, the present-day site of Exeter Prison.
Wanting to run off with his mistress, Cudmore slipped his wife a lethal dose of the 19th century’s prolific domestic assassin, arsenic. But suspecting the foul play, the surgeon opened Grace Cudmore’s belly and found the incriminating powder. At trial, Cudmore was convicted of the murder while the mistress, Sarah Dunn, was acquitted — somewhat to her own surprise.
The man’s strange last request was for Dunn to witness his hanging — grandly justified as a means to scare straight his ex-lover’s amoral libido. (Dunn already had four children out of wedlock at this point.) Exeter’s Western Times (March 27, 1830) reported that the ghastly sight of her Cudmore’s strangling on the rope “sunk [Dunn] down, and violent hysterics deprived her for awhile, of any further consciousness.”
More strange by far than the man’s late turn to righteousness was the disposal of his remains.
Condemned to the post-mortem terror of dissection, part of Cudmore’s skin was flayed, tanned, and eventually used to cover a book — an 1852 edition of The Poetical Works of John Milton.
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?
–Paradise Lost
On this day..
- 1865: Robert Cobb Kennedy, Confederate terrorist - 2020
- 1752: James Lowry, despotical nautical - 2019
- Feast Day of St. Dismas, the penitent thief - 2018
- 1825: Louis August Papavoine, An Execution in Paris - 2017
- 1775: Joseph Skidmore, carrier - 2016
- 1851: Sarah Chesham, poisoner - 2014
- 1586: Saint Margaret Clitherow, pressed Catholic - 2013
- 1915: 22 Singapore mutineers - 2012
- 1887: William Jackson Marion, who'd be pardoned 100 years later - 2011
- 1843: 17 who drew the black beans - 2010
- 1997: Pedro Medina, en flambe - 2009
- 1977: Alphonse Massamba-Débat, Congolese Communist - 2008