Michael Barrett - England’s last public hanging.

Michael Barrett - England’s last public hanging.

27 year old Michael Barrett was a Fenian from Co. Fermanagh, Ireland and was convicted of blowing up the wall of Clerkenwell House of Detention on the 13th of December 1867 in an attempt to free Richard O'Sullivan Burke, an Irish Republican Brotherhood member.  

This was unsuccessful but the explosion caused by detonating a barrel of gunpowder killed at least six people and injured many more. The deceased victims were Sarah Ann Hodgkinson, age 36, 47 year old William Clutton, 7 year old Minnie Abbott, Martha Thompson age 10, Martha Evans, age 67 and Humphrey Evans age 66.

This was one of the first Irish bombings on English soil. Six people were arrested but Barrett was the only one to be found guilty at his trial at the Old Bailey, that ended after seven days on the 27th of April 1868 before the Lord Chief Justice.  Barrett was tried on a specimen charge of murdering Sarah Ann Hodgkinson who lived a 4 Corporation Row off Corporation Lane in Clerkenwell and who’s house was the most severely damaged by the blast.

There was considerable controversy over the case and the execution was postponed twice while a Government Commission made a full examination of his alibi.  He had claimed to be in Glasgow at the time of explosion but this was disproved.

It was common knowledge that this would almost certainly be the last public hanging in England so it drew a very large crowd, some of whom had travelled by the newly opened underground train service.

Barrett was put to death by William Calcraft shortly after 8.00 a.m. on Tuesday, the 26th of May 1868, dying without a struggle. It was reported in The Times newspaper that there were a great many members of the lower classes, including young women with children present at this execution and that the crowd stretched past St. Sepulchre’s Church and almost into Smithfield, such was the interest in it.  The Times celebrated the fact that this hanging would be the last such vulgar public display (their editorial opinion).

His body was buried that evening under the flagstones in "Birdcage Walk", the corridor linking the Old Bailey to Newgate and later reburied in a mass grave in the City of London Cemetery in 1902 when Newgate closed.

Three days later on the 29th of May 1868, the Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act came into force ending public hanging as such, and requiring all future executions to be carried out within prisons.  It further required that the sheriff or under sheriff, the governor, the prison doctor and such other prison officers as were needed had to be present.

Five men were convicted at the Guildhall Police Court at the beginning of June, of picking pockets during the hanging and each received a sentence of six months in prison with hard labour.