Our Vicar & Prebendary of the Cathedral – the Rev’d Joseph Stephen Pratt LL. B – witnesses the confession of the last man to be executed in Peterborough, in 1813.
It was in Revd Pratt’s 7th year as incumbent that he witnessed the statement of the condemned man, David Thompson Myers, who was the last to be publicly hanged in Peterborough. Revd Pratt was our Vicar for 27 years until he was succeeded by the Revd John James MA in 1833. Myers was the last person to be executed in Peterborough – being hung in public on 4th May 1813 outside Fengate gaol (located at the corner of Padholme Road and Carr Dyke).
This was Myers’ punishment for being found guilty of “unnatural offences”, (i.e sodomy) with an apprentice tailor named Thomas Crow. Myers had previously been tried and acquitted for a similar offence at the Lincolnshire Assizes, when Crow, who was the only witness, was held to be of bad and disreputable character, but at Peterborough Assizes, where he was taken for a separate charge for an act committed in Burghley Park, there were several other witnesses, and Myers was found guilty and sentenced to death. Myers was held in the Abbot’s Gaol (Kings Lodgings, formerly Reba, on Cathedral Square) and per newspaper accounts in the Stamford Mercury he was hung in front of a crowd of 5,000; a petition to the Prince Regent by an uncle the Revd John Myers had been unsuccessful. The population of the city at this time was 3,500 – so many had come to the city for this day of entertainment, as executions were public spectacles. The atmosphere could sometimes be quite festive, although riots occasionally broke out.
Myers came from quite a notable family, and you can find out more about the case and other members of Myers’ family here and here.
There was often sympathy for the person about to be hanged and the crowd would jeer the hangman. The reputed dying speeches of the condemned person (sometimes written for them) were printed and sold at great profit to the gathered crowd.
During this period, sodomy was one of over 200 crimes that attracted the death penalty, including stealing and burglary. His crime was heard in the Assize Court (now Crown Court) where he was found guilty of a homosexual act in Burghley Park. Thomas Crow was not charged and so escaped any punishment.
At this time, the type of gallows used and the short drop resulted in death by strangulation which could take up to several minutes before the victim lost consciousness and eventually died.
As the 19th century progressed it was realised that such public spectacles did not deter criminals but encouraged troublemakers and allowed thieves easy pickings from the onlookers. Hence the Prisons Act 1868 made it mandatory that all future executions were to take place within the prison walls.
Two days before his execution Myers made his confession which reads:
“As I believe that Persons in my unhappy Situation are expected to say something at the Place of Execution, and feeling that I shall not be able to do it, I wish these my Dying Words to be inserted in the Stamford papers, and to be made as public as possible. I confess that I am guilty of the Crime for which I am about to suffer; and for these and all my Sins, I desire to repent before God with a broken and contrite Heart. I forgive from the bottom of my Soul, everyone who has wronged me, and I earnestly pray to Almighty God that my untimely end may be a warning to others, who are walking in the same path. Oh! May my shameful Death put a stop to that dreadful Crime! May those who have been Partakers with me in my Crimes be brought to true Repentance!! I am a miserable Sinner in the sight of God, and I am deservedly degraded in the sight of Man. But I commit my guilty polluted Soul in to the hands of my Blessed Saviour, to be pardoned and cleansed by Him. And tho I deserve nothing but Punishment for my Sins, I trust, thro the merits of my Redeemer, when I leave this wicked and miserable World, to be received into a World of Purity and Peace.
As my Example has led many into Sin, I hope these, my Dying Words, may lead many to Repentance
D. T. Myers
Signed in Peterborough Gaol, 2nd of May 1813 in the presence of
J S Pratt, Vicar of Peterborough
John Atkinson, Clerk of the Peace
Thomas Atkinson, Attorney, Peterborough.”