Hanged at Durham

By Steve Fielding

For decades the high walls of Durham gaol have contained some of the countrys most infamous criminals. Until hanging was abolished in the 1960s it was also the main centre of execution for convicted killers from all over the north east. The history of execution within the walls of Durham Gaol began with the hanging of two labourers side by side in 1869, by the notorious hangman William Calcraft. Over the next ninety years a total of seventy-seven people took the short walk to the gallows - including poisoner Mary Cotton, who for over a century was the worst mass murderer in Great Britain, Gatesheads copycat Jack the Ripper, William Waddell, army deserter Brian Chandler, nineteen-year-old Edward Anderson, who murdered his blind uncle, a Teeside dock worker hanged on Christmas Eve, Carlisle muderer John Vickers, the first man hanged under the 1957 Homocide Act, and a South African sailor who preferred death to ten years in prison. Infamous executionors also played a part in the gaols history - Calcraft, who preferred slow strangulation, Marwood, the pioneer of the 'long drop', bungling Bartholomew Binns, the Billingtons, the Pierrepoint family, and Doncaster hangman Stephen Wade. Steve Fielding's highly readable new book features each of the seventy-five cases in one volume for the first time and is fully illustrated with photographs, news cuttings and engravings. It is bound to appeal to anyone interested in the darker side of County Durhams history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9780750953368

Book preview

1868.

1

A FATAL DECISION

John Dolan, 22 March 1869

Catherine Keeshan ran a lodging house on Union Lane, Sunderland. She shared the house with her lover of the previous three years, 37-year-old Irish labourer John Dolan, and two lodgers, Hugh Ward and Edward Collins. Ward had taken lodgings there in October 1868 and seemed initially to be on good terms with Dolan.

On 8 December, Dolan and Ward went out drinking, and during the night their discussion turned to Dolan’s paramour, with Ward apparently making some comment about Catherine to which Dolan took exception. They returned to the house in the early hours and Dolan gave Catherine money to go out and buy some ale. When she returned, Ward poured himself a drink but Dolan refused, saying he had to be up early for work on the following morning. Ward then poured a glass for the woman, at which point Dolan jumped to his feet and dragged Catherine out of the room.

They went to their bedroom, where her screams brought Ward running to the room. Dolan pacified him, saying he would not cause any more trouble and Ward went back to his drink. Moments later, more screams rang out and Ward returned to the room and began to fight with Dolan.

Catherine rushed out to find a policeman and in the company of four constables she returned to the house, whereupon the situation calmed down. No sooner had the police departed than Dolan locked the door behind them and started causing trouble. Catherine jumped through the window and called for the police to return, asking them to arrest her drunken lover. They again warned Dolan, who was clearly drunk and aggressive, about his conduct and when Dolan lunged at the woman, he was restrained and hit twice by a policeman. Still they refused to take him into custody, despite her pleas. It was a fatal decision that was to cost two men their lives.

The police finally left the house after Dolan told them he was going to bed, but as Catherine watched him go upstairs she sensed it was not the end of the matter. Following him to the bedroom she could see he was rummaging through a bag. She knew he kept a shoemaker’s knife in it and shouted to Ward to watch out. She rushed out to find the police but before they could return Dolan had viciously stabbed Ward in the stomach and face. The first wound tore open his stomach, the second blinded him in the left eye. Ward died from his injuries a few days later.

Dolan was tried before Mr Justice Lush at Durham Assizes on 24 February 1869; his defence was manslaughter through provocation. The jury took just minutes to find that there was no provocation for a brutal attack and return a verdict of guilty of wilful murder.

2

THE DARLINGTON FENIAN

MURDER

John McConville, 22 March 1869

Late on the night of Saturday 30 January 1869, Philip Trainer, an Irish labourer, entered the Allan Arms at Darlington. He stayed for twenty minutes, but no sooner had he left the building than a shot rang out. When witnesses went outside they found him lying in a pool of blood in the adjacent alleyway. He had been shot in the left eye, the bullet penetrating the brain and killing him instantly.

The police were called and, arriving at the public house, they found that although several people had apparently witnessed the attack, nobody was talking. Following several days of enquiries, police eventually arrested John McConville, a 23-year-old Irish furnace puddler, on suspicion of being involved. He denied shooting Trainer but police soon gained enough evidence to charge him with murder.

At his trial before Mr Justice Lush, it was learned that Trainer had previously been a member of a Fenian gang but had begun to distance himself from their subversive activities to the extent that he announced he was leaving the society. On the night of his murder he had gone into the pub for a drink and happened across several members of the gang already drinking there. A scuffle broke out, at which the landlord asked them to leave and it was at this point that McConville had taken out his pistol and fatally wounded