Petitions For Pardon/Commutation of Death Sentence?

[Penelope]

Redacted

[Olde Crone Holden]

Penelope

I don't have any practical experience of this, but reading around the subject has led me to believe that all but murderers were more or less routinely reprieved and transported - the colonies were hungry for men.

So it may just have been a rubber-stamp thing, but I don't KNOW that.

OC

[Penelope]

Redacted

[JulesSmith]

I've got a similar case with my gg grandfather. He was sentanced to death by hanging for murder in 1904 according to the calendar of prisioners. He was not executed though, and I know the assizes papers are at Kew, so I'm hoping all the info is there in one place.
The jury recommended him to mercy. Off up there next month to see what I can find.

If you get all the info together I can look to see if it is there for you, however, because I've got so much to do I might not be able to actually get the info for you, depending on how much searching I have to do, but at least you will know whether it's worth the trip or not.

EDIT* pm me the details and I will see what I can do, although it won't be for a few weeks yet if you can wait that long.

[Margaret in Burton]

I would imagine the paperwork will be at Kew.

My 2 x great grandfather was supposed to be transported for stealing fowls but after 3 years on a prison ship in Portsmouth he was given a Royal Warrant and released.

The paperwork was at Kew. (thanks to FTF member Ann Swabey for getting them for me)

[KiteRunner]

I think ancestry might be working on a database with that kind of info in it - the Criminal Registers - but not sure when it will come online.

[Olde Crone Holden]

A twiglet of mine (oh, the shame!) has the dubious honour of being the last woman to be hanged at Lancaster Castle, in 1834(?).

She murdered her husband by slipping arsenic into the teapot. The trial was a hurried farce. She was never asked her motive for doing the deed and she comes across as either simple or mentally ill. Her only defence was that she ONLY put the arsenic in the pot, it was he who drank it himself!

The victim was from a once-great family of Holdens in the area who were living in much-reduced circumstances, due to their dogged adherence to the Roman Catholic faith down the centuries, but they still had a great deal of local clout and an ability to pull strings in high places.

They didn't lift a finger to help her and indeed there was no outcry at all, the general feeling being that she was getting her just desserts. She was only a young woman, and had she mentioned at the trial that her husband was in the habit of taking arsenic daily "for his health" she might have got away with it and been transported instead of being hung.

OC

[Georgette]

These pages from TNA website give lots of information about what you can hope to find. I've looked at the criminal registers for Newgate and Millbank as well as one of the Hulk registers, they make for fascinating if slightly gloomy reading!

The first link mentions petitions which can be found in HO 17-19 with HO 19 acting as an index to the petitions held in 17 and 18.

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