Category Archives: Public Executions

1844: John Knatchbull, moral madman

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On this date in 1844, John Knatchbull hanged before an orderly crowd of 10,000 at Taylor Square in Sydney, Australia.

Knatchbull was among 20 children of a prolific baronet. The youngster fought at sea in the Napoleonic Wars but found himself in financial straits after demobilization and spiraled into a criminality.

Transported to Australia for an armed robbery, he there cultivated an extensive rap sheet — mutiny, forgery, poisoning his guards. It was a comprehensive Jekyll-to-Hyde heel turn: “all traces of a gentleman had long disappeared, he exhibited no evidence that he had been in a higher social position,” wrote a clergyman who visited him. “[H]e appeared to be in his natural place.”

So you couldn’t say that nobody saw it coming in early 1844 when Knatchbull, out on a ticket of leave, went

into the shop of a poor widow, named Ellen Jamieson, and asked for some trifling article. While Mrs. Jamieson was serving him, the ruffian raised a tomahawk, which he held in his hand, and clove the unfortunate woman’s head in a savage manner. She lingered for a few days, and died, leaving two orphan children … though an attempt was made to set up a plea of insanity, a barrister being employed by the agent for the suppression of capital punishment, so foul a villain could not be saved from the gallows. (Source)

This insanity defense was a then-novel “moral insanity” claim contending “a form of mental derangement in which the intellectual faculties were unaffected, but the affects or emotions were damaged, causing patients to be carried away by some kind of furious instinct.” That is, Knatchbull knew that he did wrong when he struck the luckless shopkeep, but he had no power to restrain himself. The court took a pass.


Sketch of the scene at Knatchbull’s hanging.

More fortunate of birth and temperament, John’s brother Edward Knatchbull, who was not only the sitting baronet but the UK’s Paymaster General, made good his vocation by arranging a donative to Ellen Jamieson’s orphaned children.

This family — the donors, not the orphans — remains among the peers of the realm, its vintage baronetcy of Mersham Hatch having been upgraded to a baronage in 1880. It’s currently held by Norton Knatchbull, who is also Earl Mountbatten (he’s the maternal grandson of the Mountbatten who led British forces in Southeast Asia, took down the Union Jack in India, and was assassinated by the IRA).

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1726: Margaret Millar, infanticide

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This broadside hails from the National Library of Scotland’s wonderful archive of such documents, and the curator notes that as a “coal-bearer” — the backbreaking work of toting mined coal from the business end of the mine up and out the shaft — it’s unlikely that Millar was as educated as implied by the prose style that publishers put to her name.

The last Speech and dying Words of Margaret Millar, Coal-bearer at Coldencleugh who was execute [sic] 10. February I726 at the Gibbet of Dalkeith, for Murdering her own Child.

My Friends,

The present Age is so degenerate into Vice and Immorality, That they have the Ascendant over Godliness and Vertue; whereas Religion and Piety are run down by manifest Profanity, Dissimulation and Hypocrisy: So the Sin of unnatural Murder (while one Relation barbarously embrues their cruel Hands in the innocent Blood of another)[.] The Parents theirs in the Blood of their tender Children, the Children theirs in that of their dutiful and affectionate Parents: And in short, That of the Inhuman and cruel Servants (for the love of Money) barbarously butchering their kind and obliging Masters and Mistresses[.] That all these horrid Actions and abominable Sins, are the ready Means to bring down the heavy and just Judgments of GOD upon a People, or Person, who avowedly do commit the same, and whatever Secrefy may be gone about, in the Perpetration of any of these, yet the all-seeing Eye of the Almighty will bring the hidden Things of Darkness to Light, That the guilty Offenders may by the Hand of Justice be brought to condign Punishment, for a Terror and Example to others, who shall or may be guilty of the like Crimes.

Dear People, since I am by the just Sentence of the Law, condemned to suffer this Day a shameful and cursed Death, for that unnatural and cruel Fact, it will be expected by you all, to hear something from me, as to the course of my frail Life, which is now near to a Period.

The place of my Birth was at Dysert in Fife. My Father John Millar was a Salter under my Lord Sinclar there, and I being in my Nonage left to the Care of an Uncle, who put me to the Fostering, and after being wean’d from the Breast, was turn’d from Hand to Hand amongst other Relations, when my Friends being wearied and neglecting me, I was obliged to engage with my Lord Sinclar’s Coalliers to be a Bearer in his Lordships Coalheughs: So being unaccustomed with that Yoke of Bondage, I endeavoured to make my Escape from such a World of Slavery, expecting to have made some better thereof: But in place of that I fell into a greater Snare; which was in a Millers House near unto Lithgow, where my Masters Son and I fell into that Sin of Uncleanness, and I brought forth a Child unto him; which Child was fostered, and lived until it was three or four Years of Age, and died in the small Pox.

After which Time, I came from the foresaid Service into this Place, where I engaged in the Coalcheugh of Coldencleugh, under the Service of Christian Lumsden, which I most solemonly regrate this Day, and which was my Misfortune, she reduced me to great Extremities, by not paying up of my Wages, so duely as I was needful of it, to buy me Cloaths to go to the House of GOD upon his Day, which made me to ran into an Hurry of Dispar, my Land-Lady and others in the Coalheugh suspecting I had an Ear with George Lauder Coal-grieve there, began to make Reflections upon me, which prompted me to greater Vice, as most unhappily hath now fallen out: Which Vice hath brought me to this unhappy and untimely End; he having had that Opportunity of inducing me into that horrid Sin of Adultry, and after which Time I came to be with Child to him, I acquainted him thereof, and when the Time of Birth came, I finding no Subsistance from him, I did most unnaturally imbrue my Hands in the innocent Blood of the Fruit of my Womb.

I must own, that even in my younger Years I was addicted to all Vice, such as neglecting Duty towards GOD, Breach of his Sabbath, and neglecting of his Ordinances: Now I desire that all Persons take a warning of me this Day who am but an Ignorant, or a Castaway, That they be not Breakers of the Sabbath, Despisers of his Ordinances left that their End be such an untimely one as mine.

F I N I S

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1768: Quamino (Dubois)

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Entry from North Carolina’s colonial records:

Minutes of a Court of Magistrates and Freeholders in New Hanover County North Carolina.

Magistrates and Freeholders Court

February 08, 1768

At a Court of Magistrates and Freeholders held at the Court House in Wilmington on Monday February 8th 1768 on the Tryal of a Negro Man named Quamino belonging to the Estate of John DuBois Esqr Deceased, charged with robbing sundry Persons —

Present
Cornelius Harnett Esqr Justice
John Lyon Esqr Justice
Frederick Gregg Esqr Justice
John Burgwin Esqr Justice
and
William Campbell Esqr Justice

And
John Walker Freeholder and Owner of Slaves
Anthony Ward Freeholder and Owner of Slaves
John Campbell Freeholder and Owner of Slaves
William Wilkinson Freeholder and Owner of Slaves

The Court upon Examination of the Evidences relating to several Robberies committed by Quamino have found him guilty of the several Crimes charg’d against him, and Sentenced him to be hang’d by the Neck until he is dead to morrow morning between the hours of ten & twelve o’Clock and his head to be affixed up upon the Point near Wilmington —

The Court valued the said Negro Quamino at eighty Pounds proclamation money proof having been made that he had his full allowance of Corn pd agreeable to Act of Assembly

CORNs HARNETT Chn

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1723: Charles Weaver, John Levee, Richard Oakey and Matthew Flood

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On this date in 1723, Tyburn was graced by a quadruple hanging.

Charles Weaver hanged on the occasion for stabbing a creditor to death as they argued about money crossing the Thames; his tragedy, we find from the Ordinary’s Account, compounded since “his Wife with Child, being kill’d about a Fortnight ago, by a Dray, or Cart that ran over her, in — as she was going to her Husband in Newgate.” He left a seven-year-old orphan.

The other three at the fatal tree — John Levee, Richard Oakey and Matthew Flood — were all part of the same circle of thieves, outlaws in a secondary orbit of the legendary crime lord Jonathan Wild.

Wild has already been profiled here, and in many other places besides; in fine, his racket was as London’s preeminent thief-taker to batten on that city’s vast traffic in stolen goods by acting as a sort of legitimate fence who would use the guise of policing to pretend to “find” the loot boosted by his own affiliates and return it to its owners in exchange for a cut. A great many of the city’s thieves in effect worked for Wild, an arrangement that Wild in his law enforcement guise could enforce by arresting criminals at his convenience and pocketing a handsome reward from the public purse into the bargain; over the years, his testimony sent something like 60 criminals to the gallows.

Here in the first weeks of 1723 the nature of Wild’s empire was not yet widely known, but the executions of Levee, Oakey and Flood were a little milepost en route to its discovery.

All three crooks had been members of a 30-strong gang centered around Irish highwayman James “Valentine” Carrick, a group that Wild had profitably busted up months before. One of their number, and a partner on the same highway robbery that hanged them, was one of Wild’s longtime cronies, a thief named Joseph Blake who was known as “Blueskin”. According to Aaron Skirball’s readable history of Wild’s rise and downfall, The Thief-Taker Hangings,

As a boy, Blueskin went to school for nearly six years, but he showed little propensity for education. Nevertheless, it was at school that he met William Blewit. Through Blewit, Blake was introduced to Jonathan Wild and entered the thief-taker’s junior league.

Young Blake picked pockets on London’s streets, focusing on pedestrians around Lincoln’s Inn Fields. By age fifteen, Blake knew the interiors of the city’s array of prisons and workhouses. But he was never more than an ordinary thief. For him, it was a matter of quantity. He sto.e plenty.

Blake grew into a ma of disheveled brawn. He was never a gentleman of the road, but rather a coarse, rugged, unkempt highwayman. On one occasion, after he stopped a coach from Hampstead and met with obstinacy from a woman in the carriage, who declared that Blueskin was sure to hang for the deed, he flew off the handle.

“You double Pox’d Salivated Bitch,” he said. “Come, no dallying, deliver your Money, or else your life must be a Sacrifice to my Fury.” Then he ordered the woman, a bawdy house operator named Mother Wybourn, to strip naked.

As the years passed, Blake robbed with Richard Oakey and John Levee and drifted into the Carrick gang. He amassed a pretty penny from his multitude of robberies, but apparently lost a great deal at the gaming tables with Carrick. Through it all, Blueskin remained interlinked with Jonathan Wild. In 1723, Wi9ld arrested Blake after a fierce struggle that left Blake with a saber gash. Yet, in prison Blake received from Wild an allowance of three shillings and sixpence a week, and the thief-taker picked up the bill to have him stitched up as well.

This allowance was a small price to pay in comparison to the hundreds of quid in rewards that Wild realized for having his accomplices hanged. Blake obligingly gave the evidence at their trial that doomed them all.

It’s difficult to trace Blueskin’s exact loyalties and motivations moment by moment here, but it’s clear that Wild’s pennies had not fully sewn up the injuries done to him: perhaps the further year-plus that Blake was obliged to cool his heels in prison before arranging his release in mid-1724 hardened him against the old boss. Once Blueskin got out, he joined forces with anti-Wild celebrity burglar Jack Sheppard in a caper that would see both those men to the gallows … but also bring down Jonathan Wild into the bargain.

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1803: Antonio Lavagnini, impiccato e squartato

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Antonio Lavagnini, impiccato e squartato in Zagarola li 5 febbraio 1803, per aver grassato un uomo avendogli levato 27 paoli.

Antonio Lavagnini hanged and quartered in Zagarola February 5, 1803, for having robbed a man of 27 paoli.

-From the journal of prolific Italian executioner Mastro Titta.

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1685: James Algie and John Park, Paisley Covenanters

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From The Covenanter, vol. 5. The footnote appears in the original.

Paisley — Its Antiquities, Manufactories, Martyrs, Theological Seminary, Social and Religious Condition.

Paisley, which I visited on the 28th of September — having left Kilmarnock the day before — was once a flourishing place, and notwithstanding its adversities, still holds an important place among the manufacturing towns of Britain. It occupies the site of an old Roman camp — a ridge some two or three hundred feet high, some half-mile in length, and half as much in breadth, lying nearly north and south, steep on its western side and northern end, less so on the east, where, and on the south, with the plains at their foot, lies the body of the town, and tapering off towards the south until it is lost in the beautiful valley, extending far to the south-west: the western side still retaining its precipitate outline. From the summit of the hill — a vacant green, once the actual site of the Roman encampment — the vision ranges over a wide and varied scene, in every direction, except on the east, where it is soon arrested by spurs shot out by the great central plateau. On the west and south lie the rich plains of Renfrew and Ayr; in the far distance are seen the bare and lofty peaks of the high mountain summits of Arran, often capped with clouds: on the north and north-east, the mountains of Bute and Argyle, with the Gowrie hills. In all, eleven counties are represented in this panorama, which the venerable Professor, whose dwelling is but a few steps distant, takes great delight in exhibiting to the inquiring stranger.


Panorama of Paisley, as seen from Barshaw Park. (cc) image from the city’s community website.

Paisley is not without its objects of interest. I have already mentioned, in a previous letter, the Wallace oak and mansion, two miles distant on the south, in the quiet vale of Ellerslie. There is no doubt of their identity. The tree is, however, in the last stages of decay. The dwelling still remains — a substantial stone edifice, some forty feet in length, two stories high, with projecting wings of equal length: evidently built in times when every man’s house was literally his castle. Part of it is still inhabited. In the town itself, near the banks of the Cart, is an ancient abbey, erected, probably, in the 14th century, but most of it still in excellent preservation — indeed, a portion of it, the southern extremity of the old, double church, is still used as a place of worship; the northern portion being the only part of the abbey building that has gone entirely into ruins, enough only remaining to show its original extent and form. The other portions of the abbey, consist of ranges of high buildings, enclosing a square, these in the olden time having been occupied as the residence of the monks and their retainers — on some occasions, furnishing a temporary place of sojourn to the Kings of Scotland. In the Sounding Aisle, so called from its prolonged and rolling echoes, is a tomb, said to be of Margory Bruce, the ancestor of the fated house of Stuart. And, in the church itself, as in many of the ancient chapels and all the cathedrals, are any number of tombs and tablets, and slabs, marking the last resting-place of the great, in their day. What a mockery do most of the inscriptions appear. 1. A name — some title — and, then, “here they lie!” The oldest of these that I noticed was 1433.

Leaving the abbey, we passed over to the factories. Of these, we visited but one — Kerr’s — where sewing cotton is spun and prepared for the market. It is a large establishment, employing, in all, nearly three hundred hands, two hundred and fifty of whom are females, who, when working by the day, earned about 6s. and 8d. sterling ($1,64) per week; working by the piece about 8s. and 6d. or 9d. sterling ($2,16) per week: out of this, of course, meeting all their expenses. The work is not, now, oppressive, the law having limited the time employed in factory work to, I think, twelve hours. Those that we saw appeared to be generally healthy. They were dressed very much alike, in dark dresses, sufficiently neat and comfortable, and manifested no want of cheerfulness. I made inquiry, however, and found that spitting of blood was not at all uncommon, and do not doubt that in many instances close confinement, in a heated atmosphere — many of them, moreover, sitting at their work — is followed by the very worst consequences as to health.*

Paisley had its martyrs. James Algie and John Park, I quote from Dr. Symington,

who were executed at the market cross, Feb. 3d, 1685; and were ignominiously buried in the Gallow-green. On the enlargement of the town some fifty years ago, their remains were exhumed, and transferred, most respectfully, to a new burying ground in West Broomlands, which had recently been laid off in the view of erecting a new parish and a parish church to accommodate the increasing population. The scheme of a new erection was not carried into effect, and, after a few interments, the ground was abandoned as a place of burial, went into neglect, and became nearly obscured by surrounding buildings. The inscription on the slab at the graves had become, by time and weather, nearly illegible. A few friends, sympathizing with similar movements in other parts of the country, suggested the erection of a simple and durable monument; and the suggestion was promptly and liberally responded to, and funds realized for carrying it into effect. A chaste and elegant obelisk is now erected on the spot where the ashes of the Martyrs repose. On the east side of the pedestal is engraved the original epitaph:

Here lie the corpses of James Algie and John Park, who suffered at the cross of Paisley, for refusing the oath of Abjuration.

February 3d, 1685.

Stay, passenger, as thou go’st by,
And take a look where these do lie,
Who for the love they bare to truth,
Were deprived of their life and youth;
Tho’ laws made then caus’d many die,
Judges and ‘sizers were not free,
He that to them did these delate,
The greater count he hath to make,
Yet no excuse to them can be;
At Ten condemned, at Two to die,
So cruel did their rage become,
To stop their mouth caus’d beat the drum;
This may a standing witness be
‘Twixt Presbyt’ry and Prelacy.

On the north side of the pedestal is an inscription stating the time and circumstances of the removal of the remains from the Gallowgreen.

The stone containing the Epitaph, transcribed on this monument, was erected over the grave in the Gallow-green, the place of common execution; and on occasion of the grounds being built upon, it was removed near to this spot along with the remains of the Martyrs, by order of the Magistrates,

JOHN STORIE, JOHN PATISON, and JOHN COCHRANE.
MDCCLXXIX

On the south side is the following inscription:

ERECTED

By the contributions of Christians of different denominations in and about Paisley, to renew and perpetuate a memorial of the respect and gratitude with which posterity still cherish the memory of the Martyrs of Scotland.

MDCCCXXXV

And on the west side are inscribed the following truthful and beautiful lines from Cowper:

Their blood is shed
In confirmation of the noblest claim,
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth,
To walk with God, to be divinely free,
To soar and to anticipate the skies.
Yet few remember them. They lived unknown,
Till persecution dragged them into fame,
And chas’d them up to heaven.

The sequel is remarkable. We again use the Dr.’s language:

During the recent movements in the extension of church accommodation an elegant structure was erected, in the immediate vicinity of the tomb, having a burying-ground attached to it, and appropriately designated Martyr’s Church. The graves of the two martyrs, though adjacent, were not within the boundaries of the church-yard, and the obelisk stood outside of the wall. The plan, however, of enclosing extensive grounds in the neighbourhood for a new and spacious cemetery was formed, and the ground where the obelisk stood came in course to be included, and the remains, formerly buried in ignominy, now lie in one of the finest burying-places in the country; the erection now marking the spot forming one of its most interesting objects.

* Paisley is not now in a flourishing state. There has been a gradual decline, I was told, for twenty-five years past.

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1610: Pierre Canal, Geneva sodomite

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On this date in 1610* a Genevan official named Pierre Canal was twice capitally punished — broken on the wheel (for treason) and burned (for sodomy).

A longtime city official, as well as an Italian-educated doctor, Canal was progeny of city worthies. Although his own father was a hero of L’Escalade, Geneva’s successful defense against a 1602 attack on Geneva by the Duke of Savoy,** Canal was rounded up for alleged adherence to Savoy’s threatened (never executed) Escalade sequel in 1610.

Under torture for treason, he also copped to dozens of homosexual liaisons over many years, a behavior that he said he’d picked up in Italy.†

Canal’s roster of names named became fodder for a sodomy-hunt spasm in the ensuing months. At least three of his claimed lovers confessed under torture and were executed, and a fourth only survived because he managed to break jail. Others either withstood torture without admitting to an affair, or managed to confine their stipulated activities to non-capital versions of the perversions, such as oral sex without ejaculation. (The latter class ended up with punishments ranging from fines to banishment, but got to keep their limbs.)‡ Echoes of the affair continued in now-queer-vigilant Geneva in the form of several additional prosecutions running until 1623.

* Sources I’ve found are keenly divided between a February 2 and a February 3 execution.

The dispositive primary source, The Archives d’etat de Geneve Proces Criminels, does not appear to me to be digitized for the public, notwithstanding the canton’s exhibitions of a few choice artifacts. I’m going with the 2nd, gingerly, because the secondary sources that seem the most rigorous and credible (such as this Swiss historical dictionary and to me tend towards that date.

** The Escalade is the event commemorated in the Genevan “national” anthem “Cé qu’è l’ainô”.

† We’ve seen gay sex euphemized as le vice italien in the 19th century British navy, too.

‡ Canal named over 20 people, though not all were pursued. There are thirteen additional people named for prosecution by Judicial Tribunals in England and Europe, 1200-1700: Abel Benoit (20, soldier), Francois Felisat (24, carder), Pierre Gaudy (18, porter), George Plongon (25, Sieur Bellerive), Mathieu Berjon (36, printer), Antoine Artaut (30, carder), Jean Bedeville (23), Paul Berenger (23, tailor), Noelle Destelle (25, baker), Jean Maillet (61), Paul Andre (23), Claude Bodet (45, baker), Jean Buffet (23, tailor).

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1821: Henry Tobin, extortionist

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Five men hanged together at Newgate Prison on this date in 1821.

All stood convicted of stealing by means of violence. In four cases, they’d deployed fists and blades further to grim street muggings in the Great Wen.

The fifth, Henry Tobin, used the executioner as his weapon of choice — in the form of a threat to expose a man named Charles Overall for sexual deviance. Such a threat would carry public obloquy and the potential for capital punishment.

The historian Rictor Norton’s archive of reportage on same-sex news from that period informs us that

Tobin was convicted, upon the most satisfatory testimony, of extorting money from a respectable tradesman in Thames-stereet, by threatening to charge him with an unnatural crime; and the audacity with which he several times repeated his extortions has seldom been equalled. He was a young man of genteel appearance and insinuating manners, and possessed talents, which, if well applied, would have rendered him an ornament of society.

In fact, Norton notes at least three other people executed in this same year of 1821 for blackmailing “unnatural criminals.” Yet for this period the same courtrooms where this hard line was held against exploiting sodomites were ones in which sodomy cases were also prosecuted; no doubt there were a few black caps which came out of the drawer on this day for the one varietal and the next day for the other.

The noose ceased to threaten English same-sexers inside of a generation. Extortioners kept up their predations for many, many years beyond.

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1726: Thomas Craven and William Anderson, reluctant autobiographers

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For this date’s post we return to one of our favorite sources, James Kelly’s Gallows Speeches: From Eighteenth-Century Ireland.

We have noticed via Kelly the unscrupulous competition between broadside publishers for any claim on privileged access to a doomed criminal, to the extent that they would pass off fake “last speeches” from men who had never spoken to them.

Posterity has reason to appreciate this vulturous commerce as we see from today’s entries, whose short autobiographies they profess to have composed simply to preempt the circulation of fabulisms.

THE LAST SPEECH AND DYEING WORDS OF
THOMAS CRAVEN AND WILLIAM ANDERSON

who is to be Executed this present Saturday being the 29th of the Instant January 1725-6, near Kilmainham.

Good Christians,

I had no thought at first to make any Speech, but being told if I would not, that Some Printers would, and I thereby made more blacker than I am, and the Publick impos’d on by a parcel of Lyes and Nonsence; in order to prevent the same, I have sent to the Printer hereof, to whom I related the whole truth of my past Life and Conversation, which is as follows, viz.

I drew my first Breath at a place call’d Ballgee, in the County of Meath, of very honest Endeavouring Parents, but so Poor, that they could not give me either Learning or Trade, but growing up to Years and Strength, I went to live with one Mr. Boylan a Miller, living at a place call’d Moorehead in the said County, with whom I liv’d for the Space of five or six Years, during which time I behaved my self true and honest, as many in them parts can tell, but leaving him about some few Months ago, took upon me to go to Dublin, but unfortunatly [sic] meeting with Mr. Elisha Charles at a place called Swords, and he having three Cows that he bought, desired me to drive them to his House, and I being one that always bore a good and honest Name, took no thought of me, but left me to my self, thinking that I would leave them at home, but he no sooner left me, but I turn’d the Cows and drove them to Dublin, and thought to have sold them the next Day; but Mr. Charles thinking I stay’d too long, he made an Enquiry about me, and being inform’d that I went to Dublin with the Cows, he took Horse and rid after me, and got me selling the Cows in Smithfield, for which he had me Apprehended and committed to Kilmainham Goal, and now must justly Dye for the same, and now as I am a dying Man this is the first fact that ever I Committed. Haveing no more to say but beg the Prayers of all good Christians, I dye a Roman Catholick and in the 36th Year of my Age, and the Lord have Mercy on my poor Soul, Amen.

The Speech of William Anderson

Good people,

I Seeing my Fellow Sufferer giving his Speech to be Printed, I thought it would be proper, since we are to dye together, that I should do the same which I did, and is as follows, viz.

I was Born in the County of Cavin, of very honest Parents, who brought me up very tenderly till I was able to go to a Trade, and then they bound me to a Courier, to whom I serv’d seven Years true and honest, being out of my Time, I wrought at my Trade, and by it got good honest Bread, but my time being so short, that I shall not trouble the reader with any long stories, but tell you the cause of my Death. I being acquainted in the House of Mr. Tyerer in St. Patrick Street, went there when I thought they were all a sleep, and went to the Window and took down the Glass and so got in, but got nothing for my pains but a small silver Cup, but indeed I thought to get a good parcel of Mony, but cou’d not, by reason they paid it away.

Having no more to Say, but begs the Prayers of all good Christians, I dye a Roman Catholick, and in the 27th Year of my Age, and as this is my first Fact, I hobe [sic] my God will forgive me my Sins, and receive my Soul in the Hour of my Death, and I hope all good Christians will say Amen.

Printed at the Rein Deer in Montrath Street, 1725-6.

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1886: The leadership of the Proletariat Party

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A quartet of revolutionary socialists were executed by the tsarist authorities at Warsaw Citadel on this date in 1886.

Poland’s first socialist party of any consequence, the Proletariat was founded in 1882 by Ludwik Warynski.

“Small in number and very young in age,” were these founding socialists, “sons and daughters of a shattered class and a defeated nation.” But Moscow had long feared the diffusion of revolutionary ideologies in Poland, for as an 1873 Russian security brief observed, “of all the lands belonging to his Imperial Majesty the Kingdom of Poland more than any other constitutes a favorable ground for the Internationale.” (Both quotes from The Origins of Polish Socialism: The History and Ideas of the First Polish Socialist Party 1878-1886.)

The Proletariat Party went some way to vindicating the fears of the secret police by gaining several hundred members in its first years and conducting some successful protest campaigns in Warsaw. Naturally this invited state violence on the heads of the leadership; Warynski was in irons by the end of 1883, and would die in prison six years later.

This in turn brought new and more implacable men to the fore of the movement, like one of our day’s principals Stanislaw Kunicki (English Wikipedia entry | Polish) — who better inclined to ally the Proletariat Party with the anti-autocrat terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will). Eventually in the course of the 1880s crackdown

several hundred members of Proletariat were arrested, of whom twenty-nine from the industrial areas of Poland were selected as being principally responsible for the direction of the party. The trial of 23 November to 20 December 1885 produced its first socialist martyrs. In the end the Russian Piotr Bardovsky, Stanislaw Kunicki, the shoemaker Michal Ossowski and the weaver Jan Petrusinski were hanged on 28 January 1886.


A plaque at Warsaw Citadel commemorates the Proletariat martyrs ((cc) image by Mateusz Opasinski.

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