REGULAR FEATURES
EPISODE 2 - The By: Al Finegan n 14th January 1789, eleven-yearold Mary Wade and fourteen-yearold Jane Whiting were in a state of shock, horror and confusion. They sat shackled inside a prison carriage on the way to Newgate Gaol, a place they knew was notorious for its overcrowding, unhealthy environment, lack of air and water, and epidemics. On arrival they were pushed into a reception room where a pompous man told them that his Instructions were that they were, ".. to be hanged by the neck till you be dead”. They were led away, stripped, given a tepid bath, all their hair cut off, and dressed in prison clothes. Placed again in chains they were taken to a dungeon beneath the keeper’s house, an especially squalid, dirty place reserved for those sentenced to death. It was essentially an open sewer lined with chains and shackles to encourage submission. The dungeon was filthy and unlit, and so vile smelling that physicians would not enter. It was alive with lice, and rats ran about with impunity. As the girls were roughly pushed to the wall to be chained, their feet crunched on a layer of insects and bedbugs. When their eyes had adjusted to the darkness they could see a line of grimy women, faces dead of expression staring fixedly at nothing. Like all Londoners, the girls knew that Newgate became a sea of spectators on execution days, with a grand stage erected 36 www.thebribieislander.com.au
Floating Brothel to give the huge crowds the best view possible. Spectators would happily rent out upstairs rooms overlooking the scaffold to watch the hangman go about his work. It was great entertainment, especially if women were to be hanged. Those condemned who could pay the hangman well, died from a long drop, snapping their necks, and dying instantly to the boos of the crowd. The poor remainder were left dangling, slowly strangling to death, kicking about, while losing control of bowels and bladders to the great cheers of the crowd. It would normally take twenty minutes or so before their “dance of death” ended. Mary and Jane languished on and on in their hellhole, living in constant pain from bites, cold and hunger, each day hoping more that it would the day they would be told of their execution date. Death being now preferable to their current existence. King George III, the current king, had been suffering from a degenerative mental disease for some time. On 11th March 1789, he was suddenly proclaimed cured of his unnamed madness. The whole country rejoiced. Then in a moment of celebration on 17th April, the king decided to revoke all current death sentences. On 22nd April 1789, the women on death row were surprised and alarmed when they were all ordered out of the dungeon and into waiting prison carriages. Twentytwo chained and bewildered prisoners
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faced a judge in the Old Bailey who told them they had all received a royal pardon, reprieving them from the final indignity of a public hanging. He then offered them a choice of transport to NSW for the terms of their natural lives, or incarceration for life. One at a time they answered. Five women refused transportation, but without hesitation, the other sixteen women prisoners, including Mary and Jane, accepted transportation. Soon after the sixteen were taken to the docks and ordered up a gangplank onto the Lady Juliana, where they were immediately released from their chains. The guards on board were kindly and ushered them quietly to their quarters to be greeted by a welcoming government agent introducing himself as Lieutenant Thomas Edgar. It was like stepping out of hell and being delivered to heaven. To their amazement the quarters were clean, and they all had been allocated their own bunk. In much appreciated contrast to the prison food of dry bread and thin soup they were presented a hearty meal of meat and vegetables. Later that day Lt Edgar, who they were told had sailed with James Cook on his last voyage, introduced the ship’s surgeon, Dr Richard Alley, who made a physical examination of each girl, treating their rat and insect bites with soothing creams. There were already about a hundred young women on board and each day more would arrive, and all were astonished
