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escotregen wrote:Lordseek. I'd like to know if you come across anything about the legend of the Sparrow Tree and the condemned man in Duke Street prison.
Susan Newell, hanged by John Ellis at Duke Street prison, Glasgow on Wednesday, the 10th of October, 1923.
Susan Newell, aged 30, strangled newspaper boy John Johnston who would not give her an evening paper without the money. Having killed the boy, she wheeled his body through the streets on a handcart accompanied by her 8- year old daughter, Janet, whose evidence helped to convict her.
She was the first woman to hang in Scotland since Jessie King in 1889 and on the gallows, refused the traditional white hood
Wednesday 27th of October 1915 MacLean was brought before the Summary Court in Glasgow charged under the "Defence of the Realm Act" with "uttering statements calculated to prejudice recruiting", and remitted to the Sheriff on the 10th of November. He was brought before Sheriff Lee and defended by Mr Cassels. Long before the proceedings were due to begin a large crowd of workers from all over the Clydeside had assembled in support of MacLean. The Sheriff and Officers were overwhelmed by the numbers and the proceedings had to be suspended for ten minutes to allow the crowd to settle. Dispensing with court formalities, MacLean loudly stated, "Do you want me to repeat again what I said at the meeting. I have been enlisted for fifteen years in the socialist army which is the only army worth fighting for; God damn all other armies! I have already said so, haven't I? Did you not hear me? The Sheriff sentenced him to a £5 fine or five days imprisonment. After the case MacLean was dismissed from his post as a teacher. On his day of release from Duke St. Prison, a large crowd gathered to greet him, the authorities however, to avoid a demonstration had released him earlier. A delegation of South Lanarkshire miners arrived at Central Station and marched through the streets, on learning of his early release they marched to Pollokshaws to make sure for themselves. Later they made their way to Fairfield Shipyard where a massive workers meeting was held.
A possibly exaggerated account of conditions at Duke Street Prison is commemorated in a Glasgow street song:
There is a happy land, doon Duke Street Jail, Where a' the prisoners stand, tied tae a nail. Ham an' eggs they never see, dirty watter fur yer tea;There they live in misery - God save the Queen!
The first prisoners were incarcerated at the House of Correction in Duke Street in 1798, and various extensions were built between then and 1872. Conditions were notoriously poor with chronic overcrowding. The Prisons (Scotland) Act of 1877 transferred responsibility for prisons from local authorities to the State. Although Barlinnie Prison, opened in 1882, was intended to supersede Duke Street Prison, the latter remained open until 1955.
Copies of the as-yet unpublished manuscript of Helen Crawfurd are held in the Gallacher Memorial Library at Glasgow Caledonian University and in the Marx Memorial Library, London. The 90,000-word work, written towards the end of Crawfurd's life in the early 1950s, includes details of her suffrage activities and her imprisonment, including major acts of militancy such as her journey south as part of Scotland’s window-smashing cohort in spring 1912. The People’s Palace collection includes some papers relating to Crawfurd. Her WSPU illuminated address is with Argyll & Bute Council archives. Details of her convictions in 1913-14 are in the NAS criminal case file HH 16/45, which includes reports, correspondence, newspaper cuttings and Temporary Discharge documents, mostly relating to her 10-day sentence in Duke Street Prison, Glasgow for breaking two windows of the local army recruitment centre. It also includes a typically-worded letter from Mary Allen of the WSPU demanding to know if Crawfurd was being forcibly fed.
http://www.womenslib.org/index_files/Page338.htm
At this time the National Insurance Board was moved from Scotland to Newcastle and Wendy refused to pay her National Insurance and was duly charged. She was offered sixty days in prison or a £15 fine. Wendy returned the £15 cheques that supporters were sending in and chose to go to Duke Street Prison in Glasgow. On leaving prison, Wendy set to work on the Prison Commissioners and she eventually received a letter saying that Duke Street Prison was to be demolished and that a new Womens Prison was to be built at Greenock.
http://www.siol-nan-gaidheal.com/wendy.htm
It was almost by chance that William Brebner came into contact with this unfortunate section of the community when he took a post as clerk at the South Prison (now demolished) in Glasgow. What motivated him to a lifetime of dedication none can tell for sure, but contemporary society owes a considerable debt of gratitude, not only for his pioneering works in prison reform but for the inspirational example of humanitarianism with which he carried out his work. Of his passing, undoubtedly he was held in the highest esteem. The Glasgow Herald of Friday 10th January 1845 reported him as being fondly addressed as Maister and that, "He was regarded not as jailer and taskmaster but as a father and friend".
http://www.electricscotland.com/history ... rebner.htm
The prison regimes in the so-called "developed world" have much to thank the city of Glasgow for and more specifically one William Brebner (1783-l845) who hailed originally from Huntly in Aberdeenshire. Brebner put into practice a system at the Bridewell, on Glasgow's Duke Street, which was to spread quickly through Europe and North America. The Bridewell, governed by Brebner from 1808 until his death, was regarded as a model institution, indeed a House of Commons Select Committee on Scottish Prisons reported in 1826 that "The prisoners are kept silent, and at constant work from six o'clock morning till eight at night."
http://www.variant.randomstate.org/8tex ... guson.html
11 August 1905
Larkhill, Lanarkshire, Scotland
Mrs Walsh was seen being attacked by Negro Pasha Liffey, a circus boxer from South Africa. He cut her throat from ear to ear. He narrowly escaped being lynched by local women the next day. During the trial witnesses described him as "drunk with uncontrollable excitement." The prosecutor described him to the jury as "practically of savage race." Found guilty he was hung by Henry Pierrepoint in Duke Street prison, Glasgow.
-female-24.Died March 12, 1855 at North Prison, 72 Duke
Street, Glasgow of Typhus Imasculated-ill 11 free days as cert by David
Gibson MD. Buried Sighthill Cemetery, Glasgow as cert by Thomas Cowan,
Supt. Signed June (El?), Nurse, North Prison
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/SC ... 1027887714
John Ellis was a notably mild mannered man who ultimately committed suicide possibly through the stresses incurred by his job as hangman and possibly through the effects of the slump on his business as a barber. He had a particular dislike of hanging women for reasons that will become apparent.
Ellis and Baxter also hanged Susan Newell at Duke Street prison Glasgow on the 10th of October 1923
http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.c ... ngmen.html
In February 1883, a farmer's wife taking a short cut home through a field at Port Glasgow, discovered the bodies of two gamekeepers. They had been shot dead at such close range that there were powder burns on their faces. Many local poachers were questioned before one. a man named Kyle, turned informer. On his evidence Henry Mullen and Martin Scott were soon arrested and charged. They were convicted at Glasgow Circuit Court on 25th April, and sentenced to be hanged on 17th May. The executions had to be put back until 23rd May because Marwood had an engagement in Dublin with the Phoenix Park murderers. They were the first men to be hanged in Glasgow at Duke Street prison. The sentence was carried out on the 23rd May 1883.
http://www.real-crime.co.uk/Murder1/PARTNERSHIPS.HTML
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