Events | 2009.11.24
From the archive: Execution of the murderers of Brett
Originally published on 25 November 1867
[The three are commemorated in the city as the Manchester Martyrs, Brett as the first of its policemen to be killed on duty.]
On Saturday morning, at eight o\'clock, three of the men convicted at the recent special assizes of the wilful murder of Police Sergeant Charles Brett, on the 18th September, namely, William O\'Meara Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O\'Brien, alias William Gould, suffered the extreme penalty of the law in the centre of the east wall of the New Bailey, Salford.
The enormity and daring of their crime, and the connection with the Fenian brotherhood, invested their fate with unusual interest; the fact that three murderers were to be hanged together for participation in the same crime – an unprecedented event in this locality – was alone sufficient to create all the excitement that occupied every mind for the previous 24 hours, nearly to the exclusion of ordinary business.
The whole street area was protected by strong barricades. [On] the parapet walls of Albert Bridge (which were very seriously endangered when Burrows was executed in August, 1866), barricades were constructed between the footpaths and carriage way. The following morning workmen began to construct the scaffold, the building of which could be heard by the convicts.
To avoid any attempt to carry out the threats that had been made to fire both Manchester and Salford, men were stationed to watch the sources of the water and gas supply.
The composition of [the] crowd was no credit to the place or places whence the people came. Some spectators were pitmen, others were mill hands, there were a few factory girls and women. All were dirty. The keen, pallid faces, and spare and ragged clothing of some exhibited deep traces of hard working or hard drinking.
As [Allen] ascended the staircase, he seemed to summon all Irish courage, and confronted the crowd with an unshrinking countenance. Larkin seemed about to faint. Gould calmly took his place upon the drop.
Calcraft at once placed the white cap over [Allen\'s] face and adjusted the rope. Then followed Gould, and the executioner was proceeding to put the cap upon him, when he leaned slightly aside, shook hands with Allen, and kissed his right cheek.
Allen\'s response was of the most affectionate kind. This painful incident being over, Gould was capped and placed in the noose; he prayed in a loud voice. Larkin was last to mount the scaffold, which he did and, indeed, with a smile upon his face, and, like the others, he submitted unresistingly to the hideous toilette.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov[...]yrs-execution-murder-policeman
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