Ordinary of Newgate Prison:
Ordinary's Accounts: Biographies of Executed Convicts

15th September 1760

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Currently Held: Harvard University Library

LL ref: OA176009156009150004

15th May 1760


ried to Surgeon's hall, in order to be dissected, pursuant to his sentence.

Anne Hullock< no role > This name instance is in set 39944334433. , single woman, was indicted for the wilful murder of her bastard child, April 8 .

It appears, from the presentment of the jury of inquest, and from the evidence given on the trial, that this horrid and most unnatural murder was perpetrated at Paddington in Middlesex , in a necessary, or privy-house, belonging to Mrs. Jane Dudman< no role > , about three or four o'clock in the morning; where, being alone, she brought forth the child, and then cut the throat of it, with a knife, till the head was almost severed from the body, the wound being three inches broad and four deep. That, in the opinion of a midwife, the child came to the birth, and was born alive. She had been about a fortnight in the said house, as a servant to a gentlewoman who lodged there; was observed to be with child a week before the fact, and taxed with it by Mrs. Dudman; on which occation she owned she never was married. The circumstances, after the fact, looked her in the face of plain and strong, that she could not stand out in denying it, but confessed the whole. The bloody knife was found, the murdered infant was pulled out of the soil, and bled afresh: she owned to the constable, "it was born alive; that she heard it cry;" and the reason she gave for murdering it, was, "because she did not know what to do with it." She confessed to the fame purpose before Justice Fielding. And what shews the fact to be, as emphatically set forth in the indictment, voluntary, and of her malice aforethought, not having God before her eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil, she had provided no clothes for it, but owned she intended always to put it in the necessary.?

There aggravations are openly mentioned to deter other sinners, who, by their evil deeds, are, or may be, exposed to the danger or temptation of being betrayed into any like kind, or degree of guilt; demonstrating to them, that it is vain to attempt to hide their guilt and shame, even from the world, much less from the all-feeing eye, by adding one crime to another. The unhappy criminal, thus speedily detected, thus surrounded with the horrors of guilt, was committed to Bridewell . The sessions coming quickly on, before she was able to be brought to trial, it was put off, and she remained there till about May 15th , when she was removed thence to Newgate , in order to take her trial.

The defence she set up at her trial appears to be a kind of retracting what she had consessed when detected and apprehended; for she now pretended she took the knife, not with a design to murder, but to part the burden from the child; and also denied she ever heard the child cry: excuses, which, whether true or false, she did not wholly quit to the last; for, when visited and questioned at the chapel, she used both these pretences, by way of palliation for a crime, which, in its real circumstances, had so monstrous a deformity, so unnatural a horror in it, that she could not bear to look upon it herself, or let it be seen by others in that detestable view.

On this occasion she was warned not to attempt ?to dissemble or cloak her sin before the face of Almighty God," or to deceive herself; attempts equally vain and dangerous.

Being then also asked, whether she believed there was proof and evidence of the charge said against her sufficient to convict her, she freely answered, "she did not know how it could be otherwise." In consequence of this ingenuous confession, which afforded some hope that her future behaviour would be equally sincere and consistent, she was most earnestly exhorted to an unfeigned repentance, being duly visited, and assisted by conversation, proper discourses, devotions, and books; to all which she seemed to give serious attention, so as to become daily more sensible of her crime, and exercise an hearty contrition for it. - Being asked how she spent her time in Clerkenwell Bridewell, she said she had been kindly assisted there by some neighbouring matrons, with good prayers, advice and necessaries, and that they continued to assist her even here; but that there was no regular minister to visit her in Bridewell, none being appointed for that place; nor had she seen one during the five weeks she was there confined; but that




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