Snippets from the Past (4)

Essex Countryside Magazine 1966

While perusing through some old Essex Countryside magazines I came across the following article:

‘The Rev. John Talbot, curate of Laindon, was attacked on July 2nd 1669, as he was walking along a road in London called Aniseed Clear, Shoreditch. His throat was cut and after a hue and cry, two men and a woman were arrested and identified by the dying cleric. When asked if he forgave them, he replied: “I pray for the welfare of their souls but I desire the law to be executed on their bodies.”

On July 14th, 1669, the three were hanged at Tyburn. The two men confessed their guilt before they were “turned off,” while the woman maintained her innocence to the end.

Interesting to note that Justice was swift in those days, from offence to execution twelve days’.

Notes:

  • The first person to be hung in the area was William Fitz Osbert for his role in a popular uprising of the poor in the spring of 1196. The last person to be hung was highway man John Austin on 3rd November 1783.
  • The picture is the stone marking the site of the Tyburn Tree on the traffic island at the junction of Edgware Road, Bayswater Road and Oxford Street.

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