On this day 145 years ago, James Caffyn was hanged in the last ever public execution at Winchester prison.
James Caffyn was a 31-year-old illiterate dock labourer. Contemporary newspaper reports described him as 5ft 2 ½ins tall, with a sallow complexion, sharp features, and a sullen disposition.
Caffyn was hanged for the murder of his common-law wife, Maria Barber, on 26th November 1877. On that day, her father John Barber had returned to his home in Elmfield, Ryde where he found the body of 37-year-old Maria lying in the corner of the front room with her throat cut. Beside her body lay a bloodstained axe.
James ‘Jemmy’ Caffyn was the only suspect. He was arrested the following morning. At Portsea police station a witness, who had travelled over from the Isle of Wight, identified him as the wanted man. Later that day, he was charged with murder.
While in custody, Caffyn made statements admitting his guilt:
He said:
“She aggravated me and said she would leave me… I done the deed with an axe. It was all done in a moment.”
However, at his trial at Winchester Assizes, Caffyn pleaded not guilty. He told the court:
“If I had my will no woman should be allowed to cohabit with a man, for it was the cause of all the murders in the country.”
Caffyn’s confession that he had “hit her three times with an axe” left little doubt as to the verdict. The jury didn’t leave the box before finding him guilty.
As the day of his execution drew near, newspaper reports claim Caffyn became penitent and listened intently to the religious advice of the prison chaplain. On the morning of his execution, he was said to have eaten a hearty breakfast.
At 08:00 on 11th February 1878, the hangman placed the noose around the condemned man’s neck and pulled the lever while the chaplain was reciting prayers.
Eyewitnesses claimed Caffyn dropped with a thud but did not die instantly. His hands and feet were said to have quivered convulsively for several seconds.
Death was not confirmed for several minutes.
That’s the way to do it.
Should bring it back might stop some of the crimes that are going on in the world
And it would stop 100% re-offending.
This article is not correct as the last public hanging in England was that of a Micheal Barrett on 26th May 1868 outside Newgate Prison in London. James Caffyn’s execution would have taken place inside the walls of the prison.
He was hanged in public in the prison, meaning other inmates could witness this, rather than than in a special cell in private.
It says ‘the last hanging in Winchester prison’, not the last in the UK…
All good until there is a miscarriage of justice. Since 1973, 198 people have been wrongly executed in the US and later posthumously exonerated. If they are caught red-handed though, or admit it, I’m all for executing the worst of the worst.
Securing a proper conviction for murder nowadays is far more rigourous… You won’t get convicted solely on your confession… It’s so rigourous to the point that someone might just get found not guilty… Child murderers + police murders should be hanged.
Why is someone murdering a police officer any worse than that person murdering any other human being? You can’t decide who gets hanged based on the career choice of the victim.
In the right circumstances, i.e. incontrovertible evidence, I wouldn’t have a problem with capital punishment but I don’t understand how you can justify it based on what job the victim had.
While I, absolutely, do not support the return of the death sentence, it is right and proper that there should be additional protection in law for those who protect us. That is why there are harsher penalties for attacking any emergency worker (not just the police). They put themselves, deliberately, in harms way when the rest of us are running in the other direction.
Incidentally, IMO, the same protection given emergency workers should be given to those assisting them.
Many US states have a mandatory death sentence for “cop killers”. It doesn’t work. Someone who knows he will die if caught will do anything, and kill anyone, in order to escape.
You try telling that to the victims of Sir Roy Meadow.
Three women (Sally Clark 1996, Donna Anthony 1996 and Angela Cannings 1999) wrongly convicted of killing their own children on the basis of Meadow’s expert testimony. Sally Clark was particularly tragic. The gutter press painted her as the devil incarnate. Being a “child killer, solicitor and daughter of a police officer made her a target in prison and she suffered repeated attacks which the prison staff did little to prevent (because, child killer). Her husband blew all they owned on their failed first appeal leaving them penniless.
She was eventually released on her second appeal in 2003. By then she was utterly broken and died in 2007 from alcohol poisoning.
Pictures are hung, people are hanged (although probably not enough of them).
I never talked to my wife for three years…….
As i did not want to interrupt her.