AMAZING TRUE STORIES OF FEMALE EXECUTIONS
administered to her patients and partners in such ‘health
restoring’ drinks as brandy, wine, or tea. This damning evidence
was given to the court at her subsequent trial at the Old Bailey,
Catherine Wilson listening apparently unconcerned; not a flicker
of emotion betrayed her feelings, even when the judge donned
the black cap and sentenced her to death.
On execution day, 20 October 1862, 20,000 spectators
crowded the area around Newgate to watch a woman who had
committed so many horrific crimes receive the justice she so
richly deserved, but she ignored the jeers and catcalls as hangman
William Calcraft placed the noose around her slim neck.
Catherine Wilson had needed several drops of colchicum to
dispatch her victims – the executioner required only one drop
to dispatch his.
Hangmen were usually the target of public abuse and even their wives
were reviled by spectators and neighbours, one being Ann Cheshire, wife
of executioner Thomas Cheshire. So infuriated was she in August 1829
when four small children shouted ‘Jack Ketch!’ after her, that she promptly
picked them up and dropped them into a cellar area ten feet deep, fortunately
without hurting them to any great extent. Although in court she claimed
that it was all an accident, nevertheless she was bound over to be of good
behaviour in future.
WOOD, Margaret (Scotland)
One way of making a witch confess her association with the
Devil was to torture her with the boots, of which several types
were in existence (see Appendix 1). These were sometimes
known in Scotland, where she lived, as ‘bootikins’, ‘caspilaws’,
‘cashielaws’ or ‘brodequins’. Regardless of which name or variety,
the end result of their application to one’s legs was sheer and
unrelieved agony, as Margaret found out on 2 February 1631,
after the seventeen members of the Privy Council, meeting the
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