Legal Texts and Gruesome Crimes from the Lawbook Exchange

Here is a woman who deserved to have the law book thrown at her. Item 19 is The Life of Elizabeth Brownrigg, Who was Executed at Tyburn, for Starving Mary Clifford to Death, One of her Apprentices. Upon Which is Founded the Popular Peice [sic] of “Mary Clifford,” Performed at the City of London Theater. Elizabeth Brownrigg was born to a working class family and married a plumber's apprentice while still very young. However, in time her husband did quite well, they moved to London, and the well-respected Elizabeth became an overseer of women and children at a foundling hospital. Some of the girls were apprenticed out to Elizabeth as domestic servants, the belief being this would be good training for these young ladies whose prospects in life were not that bright. Unfortunately, it turned out she was horribly abusive. Starving was only part of the abuse. The girls under her care were repeatedly chained up and whipped for even the slightest of infractions. Half-starved Mary Clifford was severely beaten when she tried to obtain some food from a cupboard. Despite instances of other girls being abused, the hospital looked the other way, until neighbors' complaints forced them to investigate conditions in the Brownrigg household more carefully. By then it was too late for Mary. Her wounds had become infected, and within a few days, she died. Outrage among the citizenry was enormous. Elizabeth was deservedly despised, and she was convicted and hanged for her crime, though her husband and son, also tried, were acquitted. As the title notes, her notoriety was so great that a play was written about her crime. Published circa 1767. $850.

Next is an account of another murder trial: The Trial of Charles Angus, Esq., On an Indictment for the Wilful Murder of Margaret Burns... published in 1808. Angus was acquitted, and that seems fair enough as it is unlikely he had any wilful intent to murder Miss Burns. She was pregnant with Angus' child and he probably merely wanted to terminate the pregnancy, not Miss Burns. Unfortunately, he did both. He helped provide some “corrosive sublimate of Mercury,” which had the effect of ending the pregnancy and Miss Burns' life. Evidently, the prosecution believed that Angus knew it would end the pregnancy in this manner, but the jury must have been convinced he believed it would achieve the former without doing the latter. Item 115. $1,250.

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