Lamentation & Farewell to the World of John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence Ann Lawrence
A poor unhappy man and woman,
Does in agony bewail,
Sentenced to die, alas for murder!
In separate cells, in Maidstone gaol.
Ann Lawrence aged eight-and-twenty,
For the wilful murder of her child,
And John Fletcher, only twenty,
For the dreadful murder of James Boyle.
In agony, now lies lamenting,
John Fletcher, who is frenzy wild,
In Chatham prison killed the warder,
And Ann Lawrence her own darling child.
Ann Lawrence is a married woman,
Who with a man named Highams did dwell;
He also had a wife still living,
Highams and Lawrence lived at Tunbridge Wells,
They lived unhappy, often quarrelled,
Faults on both sides we may see,
Ann Lawrence in a fit of frenzy,
Overpowered with jealousy.
Determined was to kill her offspring,
Revengeful, shocking to unfold,
To aggravate her own paramour,
Her little boy but four years old;
At Tunbridge Wells she basely murder’d.
Wickedness ran in her mind,
When her child she’d slain, said with disdain,
The innocent child was killed by Highams.
The little boy named Jeremiah,
Looked in his mother’s face with tears
When her little boy she did destroy,
Aged only four years;
Her counsel for her pleaded clever
To free her every way he tried,
When the Judge the sentence passed upon her,
The dreadful murder she denied.
John Fletcher who must die beside her,
A convict was for seven years,
He in Chatham prison killed the warder,
To give the blow he was prepared,
He says the warder did illuse him,
And tantalized him day by day,
And in a fit of desperation,
He with a hammer did him slay.
At Maidstone they were tried and sentenc’d
To die a murderer’s death of scorn,
In youth and health they are lamenting,
In grief and agony forlorn;
The awful moments are approaching,
And there is nothing can them save,
They soon must leave this world of sorrow,
And sleep within a murderer’s grave.
Oh male and female curb your passions,
Think and consider ere too late,
Passion, jealousy, and vengence,
Has caused those wretched person’s fate;
Let their fate be an example,
Oh! pray be guided one and all,
Think of John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence,
Remember what caused their downfall.
Passion, jealousy, and vengeance,
Was the cause, we plainly see,
Of bringing John Fletcher and Ann Lawrence
To die on Maidstone’s dismal tree.
Disley, Printer, High street, St. Giles, London.