150 years ago this week, the Willington murderer faced the noose

He wrote feverishly religious letters from his condemned cell in Durham jail to his family in Willington, where his mother remained seriously ill having collapsed outside the court when the death sentence was passed upon him.

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A new suit of clothes had been sent into the jail so he could have his dead man’s photograph taken in his cell, his father had visited him and told him to prepare for the worst, and the scaffold was built in the prison yard ready to drop him into the hereafter.

And, on Saturday, July 26, 1873, executioner William Calcraft (above) – nearing the end of his 45 year career in which he hanged about 450 people – arrived in Durham on the 4.55pm train with the expectation of despatching Turnbull, as Durham Assizes had instructed, the following Monday.

Calcraft was a celebrity, and knew well the walk from the station through the city centre over Elvet bridge and up towards the jail as he had only taken it five months earlier on his way execute Mary Ann Cotton, but that July day even he must have been surprised at the reception he was getting.

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The view in Old Elvet, which Calcraft saw as he walked towards the jail (below)

Only when he reached the jail did he learn the reason for the commotion: Turnbull had been sensationally reprieved by the Home Secretary just 48 hours before his death.

“The authorities had immediately telegraphed to Calcraft that his services were not required, but it appears that the ‘finisher of the law’ had started his journey for the north before the message had arrived at his quarters in the metropolis,” said The Northern Echo. “Calcraft arrived in the Cathedral City by the afternoon mail, and his presence in the streets as he passed through the town occasioned not a little surprise.”

As we told last week, Turnbull, an English miner, had been convicted of kicking an Irish miner, Martin Hagan, to death at Willington races on April 21, 1873. At his trial, several witnesses reported seeing Turnbull, wearing a distinctive velvet hat, “dancing upon” the Irishman until he was dead – it was part of a violent feud between English miners and immigrants which rocked the coalfield for several years.

Although Turnbull denied the charge, his defence hadn’t fought very hard for him, and the only factor that could have saved him from the drop was his youth – he was only 21.

But the Durham County Advertiser thundered in its editorial that if a young man were to get a lesser sentence than an older man for committing such a terrible crime, the young would be emboldened to break the law with “the most disastrous effect”.

Yet the vicar of Willington, the Reverend ER Ormesby, had got up a petition signed by 600 people calling for clemency. “This petition was prepared hastely and almost at the last moment,” said the Advertiser, “and it is stated that had time permitted there is not a respectable tradesman resident in the village, where Turnbull has been known to many almost since childhood, who would have hesitated signing.”

Then witnesses came forward to discredit the chief prosecution witness, Margaret Cain, who positively identified Turnbull in his hat. Despite her testimony, she had told many in Willington that “sure enough I was in bed sleeping at the time the man was killed” – a sentence which reflected her Irish origins.

Then Sir Joseph Cowen, the Liberal MP for Newcastle in whose constituency the victim had lived, wrote to the Liberal Home Secretary, Henry Bruce, highlighting Turnbull’s age and pointing out inconsistencies in the evidence. “The brutal injuries which resulted in the death of Hagan were inflicted in a large crowd, and the identity of the worst assailant was not free from difficulty and doubt,” he said.

The Northern Echo's headline, telling of Turnbull's reprieve and Calcraft's wasted journey

Bruce folded, and commuted the sentence to penal servitude for life. Turnbull was too young to hang but would be kept to hard labour for the rest of his days.

Turnbull, said the Advertiser, took the news “calmly” and in Willington “the intelligence that the youth’s life would be spared appeared to be received by the inhabitants generally with apparent pleasure”.

The paper’s editorial switched and it took a less hardline view: “A feeling very generally prevailed that the evidence of the woman Cain was in the highest degree unsatisfactory… Under such circumstances the execution of the convict would have caused pain to very many people who adhere to the old maxim that it is better that 99 guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer.”

So for the finisher of the law, the journey had been wasted. The Advertiser said that “on Sunday afternoon, the veteran executioner attended the service in the cathedral” before catching the evening train south again.

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