Ashfield / Nott's Execution's

Jeremiah Brandreth (1790 – 7 November 1817) was an out-of-work stocking maker from Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire who was hanged for treason. He was known as "The Nottingham Captain". He and two of his conspirators were the last people to be beheaded with an axe in Britain.

Jeremiah was born in Wilford, a village which is now part of Greater Nottingham, but moved to Sutton-in-Ashfield, where he had a wife and three children.

It is believed that Jeremiah was involved in Luddite activities in 1811.

Jeremiah met William J. Oliver ("Oliver the Spy") in May 1817 and agreed to cooperate in a plan where he would join 50,000 men in London to storm the Tower. It is widely believed that Brandreth was a victim of the then Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, who took severe measures against Luddite rioters.The "revolution" began on 9 June 1817. Brandreth had held a final meeting at a pub in Pentrich where he and his fellow conspirators were to lead a march on Nottingham where "they would receive 100 guineas, bread, meat and ale." They would then lead an attack on the local barracks, overthrow the government and end "poverty for ever".

On the way to the attack Brandreth refused to pay £1 0s 8d (one pound and eightpence) for the beer as the notes would soon be valueless.

They met soldiers near the town of Eastwood in Nottinghamshire.

Thirty-five people were brought to trial and Brandreth and two others, William Turner and Isaac Ludlam, were sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, but the sentence was commuted by the Prince Regent. On the scaffold one of the men claimed that they had been set up by Lord Sidmouth and "Oliver the spy". This was investigated by Edward Baines of the Leeds Mercury and sufficient evidence was found to enable publication. Brandreth was hung however and once dead, he and the other two had their heads cut off with an axe. It has been said by Ivor Smallen that the crowd did not cheer as expected when Jeremiah's head was shown to the crowd as a traitor. Cavalrymen were said to be getting ready to charge.

August 3rd

3/8/1885

Joseph Tucker – Nottingham

“Let the bitch burn!” Joseph Tucker, a 32-year-old shoemaker, shouted as neighbours tried desperately to put out the fire in his home in Trumpet Street, Nottingham. “The bitch” was his girl friend, Elizabeth Williams, 32, over whom he had just poured paraffin before setting her alight.

Tucker and Elizabeth had lived together for nine years and both were alcoholics who were violent when drunk. After their usual Saturday night binge on May 9th, 1885, they returned home to Trumpet Street, where Tucker kicked and punched her before setting her on fire.

The neighbours failed to save Elizabeth, who died in hospital six days later, and Tucker was hanged on Monday, August 3rd, 1885.

August 16th

16/8/1861

George Smith – Ilkeston

The rake was a popular figure of Victorian culture, and George Smith was the perfect rake. His father, thrifty and hard-working, was a successful property developer in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, but George, 20, preferred drink and loose women, whom he generally picked up at the local theatre.

In May 1861, one of his dark ladies claimed she was pregnant by him. George’s friends tried to “persuade” her to drop her claim, but when she stuck to her guns he vowed dramatically that he would flee to France. He got as far as Leicestershire, stayed there two days, and returned to Ilkeston.

Throughout this charade he nursed increasing hatred against his father for not giving him enough money. One night he got very drunk, and when he returned home and found his father dozing by the fire he started an argument. Then he pulled out a pistol he had bought in Nottingham and shot his father dead.

On Friday, August 16th, 1861, a crowd said to be in excess of 50,000, many of them travelling in special trains, arrived outside Derby Prison to see the rake hanged. They witnessed a terrible execution – George Smith took 10 minutes to be strangled to death.

July 31st

31/7/1839

John Driver – Newark

A day at a horse show in Newark, and an evening spent drinking in the village pub at Caunton, Nottinghamshire, was the curtain-raiser for 26-year-old labourer John Driver’s date with the scaffold. After leaving the pub he broke into the village grocery store, and robbed and strangled the owner, Mrs. Ann Hancock, 70. She was found next day naked on her bed, with a piece of linen jammed into her throat.

Driver was interviewed, and police found two watches and some silver stolen from the shop, as well as a heavy walking stick with grey hairs sticking to it, at his home.

He claimed he didn’t intend killing Mrs. Hancock, but the jury took just 30 seconds to decide that he did, and he was hanged on Wednesday, July 31st, 1839, outside Nottingham Prison.

March 27th

27/3/1894

Walter Smith – Nottingham

When Catherine Cross, 25, a Liverpool nurse, went to the home of Mrs. Jane Smith to have her wedding dress fitted, she met Mrs. Smith’s son Walter for the first time. They chatted, and Smith invited Catherine to come and visit the factory where he worked.

The factory was deserted when they arrived, whereupon for no apparent reason Smith shot the nurse three times. She survived for four days – long enough for the police to take her statement accusing Smith, who was duly hanged on Tuesday, March 27th, 1894, at Nottingham Prison.

February 13th

13/2/1878

John Brooks – Nottingham

“I blame it all on drink,” John Brooks, a 31-year-old factory worker, told the court at his trial for the murder of his girl friend, Mrs. Caroline Woodhead, a 23-year-old divorcée. The couple had eloped together and roamed the country before settling in Nottingham. Finally, disaffected with Brooks, Caroline went to live with her mother, hoping that was the end of the affair.

It wasn’t quite. Brooks called on her again in December, 1877, and cut her throat. He buried her body at the bottom of the garden and fled. But he was caught almost at once, and despatched by hangman William Marwood on Wednesday, February 13th, 1878, in Nottingham Prison.

February 22nd

22/2/1887

Benjamin Terry – Nottingham

Everything Mary Terry was accused of by her husband was false. He complained that she had been sleeping with other men, he even complained that she had given him a sexually transmitted disease. Finally her husband of 10 years, Benjamin Terry, 29, a miner, called his children to him one night in December 1886, and said: “Go and fetch the police and tell them I’ve just killed your mother.”

When the police arrived at their home in Old Basford, Nottingham, they found that Mary, 26, had been beaten to death with a poker and strangled.

Terry told the police that he had been intending to kill Mary for some time, but he was always too drunk. He was sentenced to death on February 5th and hanged on Tuesday, February 22nd, 1887, at Nottingham Prison.