The Last English Gibbet
In March, 1856, the last Gibbet erected in England was demolished by the workmen employed by the contractors making docks for the North-Eastern Railway Company upon the Tyne. The person who was gibbeted at that place was a pitman, convicted at the Durham Midsummer Assizes of 1832. So great was the horror and disgust of all parties with the sight of the body of the poor wretch dangling in chains by the side of a public road, that great gratitude was expressed when the pitmen took it down one dark night. It is a gratifying fact, showing the progress of civilization among the mining population, that, though there have been several strikes among them since 1832, none of those strikes have been marked by a repetition of the fearful acts of violence of that year. At one of the great meetings of pitmen held in the spring of 1832 the Marquis of Londonderry attended on horseback to remonstrate with them. But he had a company of soldiers with him, which were hiding in the valley. This was known to the pitmen, and the pitman that held his horse’s head as he spoke had a loaded pistol up his sleeve, in case the Marquis should wave the soldiers to come up, to blow the Marquis’s brains out. Fortunately, the good feeling and kind heart of the nobleman prevailed, and that emergency did not arise.