Executioners and Executed

Join Mel and Perry as they talk to Director of Archives and Collections, Linda Romeril, about a list people who were executed and the executioners themselves- a document that covers crimes and executions of the 14th – 18th centuries.  Who were the executioners and who were they executing and why? 

This podcast episode contains discussions on sensitive topics which could be distressing to some listeners.

The Executioners List is held at Jersey Archive.  If you'd like to discover the history of Jersey then become a Member.  If you'd like to start your own research project, subscribe to our Archives and Collections online.

Transcript

Perry (00:02):

Welcome to the Jersey Heritage Podcast,

Mel (00:06):

The Small Island Big Story Sessions.

Perry (00:08):

You are listening to Melon Perry.

Mel (00:11):

In today's episode, we are going to be talking about the executioners list, a document that covers crimes and executions of the 14th to 18th centuries.

Perry (00:20):

Who were the executioners and who were they executing? We are welcoming back, Linda Rore, our archives and collections director who'll be sharing her research.

Mel (00:28):

This podcast episode contains discussions on sensitive topics, which could be distressing to some listeners. We're going to be talking about quite a special document. So what is it that we're going to be looking at today?

Linda Romeril (00:40):

So this is a document, we call it the Executioners list. And it's a document we, we actually bought back in the early two thousands. So it's been in the collection of the archive for about 20 years and 'cause we bought it from a, basically an auction house. We dunno an awful lot about the provenance of the document. So it's very much, it's a standalone and you can see it's just two sides of a piece of paper, but it's the title at the tops, it's written in French and it basically says the names of the executors of criminal sentences for justice and hanging in the island of Jersey from 1331 to 1721. So when we look through, we can see it's a list of both executioners people who were carrying out the sentences, but also the people who were being executed.

Perry (01:28):

Do we have a guess of when this was written? I mean, was it 1331 that they started writing this or is this a copy of a, a previous

Linda Romeril (01:36):

Document? I think it's later. I think it was probably written right at the end. So probably just in the 1720s. I think somebody's writing it then and looking back at previous records to get the earlier information. Certainly the type of writing is consistent with that sort of time period. So sort of early 18th century handwriting. One of, one of the things we can see, if we look at the last entry it's for a hangman or an executioner called Guillaume Frito. And he has actually signed the document, so it must be contemporary with when he was alive, which would've been in the 1720s.

Perry (02:15):

They must have had access to earlier documents then that we must not have anymore, I would've thought,

Linda Romeril (02:20):

Which is really interesting. Yeah, and that's one of the things I've been trying to do is find out a little bit more information about these crimes and certainly for the relatively more recent ones. So the sort of 17th century, we can find records in, in the courts, which we can talk about today. But for these earlier ones there mu there must be some sources for that information. We don't hold them in Jersey. My thought would be potentially there in the national archive, possibly the British Library. But somebody in the 17 hundreds must have had access to this information and it would be really fascinating to find out a bit more about those earlier cases.

Mel (03:00):

Absolutely. And so where did, where did these documents come from?

Linda Romeril (03:03):

The list itself as they came to us from an auction house, we don't know where they got it from. Probably a private collection, why it was put together. We, we don't know somebody who was interested in the subject back in the 1720s. The actual court records themselves. We have the official court records of the island at the archive going back to the early 15 hundreds. I think 1502 is about the first one. So what we can then do is try and cross reference with the court records and see if we can find a bit more information.

Perry (03:33):

If you know any like inconsistencies between the records we hold at the court, that might go, okay, well maybe the person who copied this down was actually getting stuff wrong or vice versa.

Linda Romeril (03:44):

There's a little bit of inconsistency in spelling, which is not uncommon <laugh> when you're looking at documents from this state. So certainly names some of them I just haven't been able to find, which is interesting whether they've got the date wrong and so I'm looking in the wrong place. So I think that's yeah, definitely where we could have a little bit more information. Sometimes they've, so this example here, so if I show you what I suppose the first thing I really did with this was actually do a transcription. So right out all the information, it's all in French and the handwriting's not too bad, but it's a little bit tricky. So I've typed it all out and translated it so you get a better idea of the names of the people, what's, what's been happening. And then the dates. So we've got some examples here. So we've got at the bottom of the pager, Thomas Lasette, who was from sarc, and all it tells is he, he punished someone called ette. That's quite difficult. We don't have a date. Yeah. So actually finding that case and finding out a bit more is really tricky.

Perry (04:45):

It's interesting that it's a list of executioners and executed people. What do we know about the executors?

Linda Romeril (04:54):

So about the people who carried out the crimes, <laugh> carried out. Sometimes we do. So for the later crimes, we can definitely look at some of the stories behind them. For the earlier ones, if we think we're going right back to sort of 13 hundreds, we really know very little about them at the moment. I mean, one of the interesting things is sometimes it's quite difficult to work out which one they are, whether they're yeah, the person who's carrying out the crime or carrying out the sentence. Some of them, I mean we've got here one of the transcriptions says Roland Bader was killed by Francois and was there so almost like he was in post, but if he's been killed, he can't be in post <laugh>. Yeah, of

Mel (05:33):

Course. Yes. It's quite confusing, isn't

Perry (05:34):

It? It's a confusing, I wonder if, so it was there until, until when did, did it say

Linda Romeril (05:39):

Until 1516?

Perry (05:41):

Does that mean they like left the body there or something? Maybe was that part of the punishment that you just got left to be viewed or, it's hard to know what they were trying to say, isn't it? And we kind of mentioned this before we started recording, but it seems like the public didn't know the, the identities of the executioners. Is that, is that like a common thing?

Linda Romeril (06:02):

Yeah, in some cases I think that is true. Doing some research in England and France, I think it is a sort of misconception that you have your masked execution and nobody knows who it is. But from, from what I was reading actually, most people did know who the executioners were and they were probably quite infamous. I think they used to have like circuits that they went on right. In France and England. So you'd almost have your visit from the execution. That is terrifying. Which is, that is horrible. Quite a horrible concept. Yeah, obviously it didn't work like that in Jersey unless, I mean we do have quite a few of them listed as being from France particularly. So whether we were part of that circuit or whether it was people from the local community. But we do have evidence that people did wear masks and weren't identified in Jersey. So we've got in 1584, we've got Edward Soel was there, so presumably was the executioner for three years. And then it says then there were three masks in a row who were not discovered,

Perry (07:03):

Which kind of implies that these, these are secret people and maybe, maybe strangely so in Jersey compared to France. Whereas I can imagine the mask being kind of almost like a ritualized thing, even if everybody really knew who it was, it was kind of separating the

Linda Romeril (07:18):

Just part of the process.

Perry (07:20):

Yeah, it is like separating the person behind the mask from his actions in a sense.

Linda Romeril (07:24):

Absolutely. You know? Yeah. I suppose it's that concept, isn't it, of they're carrying out the sentence of the court. Yeah. Almost like blind justice, isn't

Perry (07:32):

It? Yeah. He's in in the guise of the executioner rather than the

Linda Romeril (07:35):

Person John,

Perry (07:36):

Whoever, whoever it was, you know? Yeah,

Linda Romeril (07:37):

Absolutely.

Perry (07:38):

That's interesting. And so how were they killing people and how did this change over the period? So

Linda Romeril (07:43):

As far as I can see, I mean it doesn't actually tell us on the list. Yeah. But I think it would've been the court records I found definitely talk about people being hung and strangled. So it would be hanging rather than sword or a ax or like some sort of guine tends to you think? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that would be, that seems to be the main Mm, certainly in the cases that I found that's, that's what it is. It would be being hung or strangled. But again, there's a little bit of ambiguity there. So it's, is it being hung and as a result of that you would obviously be strangled or is it the executioner strangling the person? So there's a lot bit, it seems very personal, doesn't it? It does, isn't it? And I would imagine it's not that. Yeah, because I, I think it would be a sort of more of a dividend noose hanging. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that would be my interpretation.

Mel (08:34):

And do we know where these people were essentially killed in Jersey?

Linda Romeril (08:39):

It doesn't say necessarily in the court records. I mean, we do know looking at records from England and France and, and from from Jersey as well, that they were certainly public occasions. I mean we know from the witch trials that certainly the executions of people accused of witchcraft were very public. They were in the royal square which would've been the marketplace at the time. You'd have crowds of people turning up. So I suppose there's no reason to believe that, that this would've been the same. I mean one of the really interesting things about the list is obviously it covers the period of the witch trials, but none of them are included. So it's almost like it's a selective list. I don't know whether there's other people who weren't included or, but somehow somebody's gone through and these are the people they've decided to record.

Mel (09:29):

That is strange. Really strange. I wonder if it's be, maybe 'cause these crimes were maybe more maybe seen as more common crimes opposed to the witch trials, which are kind of more specific.

Linda Romeril (09:41):

They almost their own thing. Yeah. Like their

Mel (09:43):

Own, it's like its own kind of hunt. Right. So, or even

Perry (09:47):

The tastes of people in the 18th century that maybe they didn't want to Yeah. Deal with such kind of,

Mel (09:53):

Yeah, I just didn't wanna dive into that kind of round. Didn't wanna talk about it, you know. Yeah. So what are some of the most interesting cases on this list?

Linda Romeril (10:01):

So maybe if we have a look, so some of the ones for the 17th century I have been able to find some more detail about. So certainly we can have a look at those and have a look at the court records, the earlier ones from the 14th, 15th century. As I said, much more tricky to find out more information, but we do know from the list itself what people were being accused of and what people were, I mean, effectively capital punishment. So we do have of the list for the first three, first five on the list, three of them are for theft. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So that's something. Now we would never imagine that penalty being carried out. I mean, we wouldn't imagine that penalty being carried out at all. But theft seems really minor. We've also got a Hamill in 1350 and it just says for having broken and massacred, so broken into a house maybe.

Perry (10:57):

Yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it?

Linda Romeril (11:00):

Or

Perry (11:00):

Broken a person. Yeah. A massacring.

Linda Romeril (11:02):

You know, we, we do have trials which we would now consider to be sexual assaults. So we have one in the 14 hundreds of a Robert Le Lure and it's basically just says for having beaten and mistreated several females. And that seems to be over a period of time. Right?

Mel (11:22):

So more than one crime.

Linda Romeril (11:24):

More than one crime. So, you know, it's interesting, these crimes still happen in society today, but obviously the way we treat them is very different. The way we punish people is very different. You know, we've got, again, some theft, people breaking into different houses, somebody having broken into a ship in the harbor of St. Oin, which again just seems quite a minor crime, a big deal doesn't it? Whether it was a a Navy ship maybe. And so it's seen as a crime against the Navy possibly, or the crown. So it's that kind of nuance that I think we're probably missing slightly from the list.

Mel (11:59):

Yeah. Or like personal vendettas in the community. It must be like maybe somebody was just really not liked or you know, it seems like there must be more to that than just that one thing. Yeah.

Linda Romeril (12:10):

And that's, it

Perry (12:11):

Seems like such a small community that even people in positions of power and justice could have their own opinions that seem to seep very heavily into the justice then, you know. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>.

Linda Romeril (12:25):

One of the interesting things when we look at the list, I think I'm right in saying there's only actually one woman who is listed as committing a crime on this list. Bertha Grandin deet Marie, which is really interesting because Grandin's one of the big witch family names. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. She's hanged for theft in 1648, which again is around the time where there were a lot of witch trial cases. As we said, none of those are included on here and she is the only woman who's on the list.

Perry (13:01):

Yeah. So it seems interesting, it's like women, if they are being executed, they're being accused of witchcraft crimes most of the time. And men being accused of these more kind of mundane crimes. Most of the time though, there is a little bit of bleed over between those two things. Research your family history at the Jersey Archive, dive into our vast online catalog or visit in person. Our expert staff await to guide you on your journey. We are open Monday to Thursday, nine to one and then two to five subscribe today.

Mel (13:34):

So moving on to some of the cases then, Linda, what, what can we talk about in terms of what you've discovered?

Linda Romeril (13:40):

Okay, so we've got a few cases that I've been able to find out, find out a little bit more about. So one of them is a case where we've actually, interestingly we've got the name of the executioner and also the person who was executed. So both of them are called Nicholas, which makes it a little bit confusing. Yeah. <Laugh>. But we've basically got Nicholas Voda was the executioner who carried out all of the different criminal sentences at the time. And the person who actually carried out the crime was a guy called Nicholas Daggle, which is not, and I do wonder with some of these cases, it's not a terribly jersey name and it might well be some of them. And one of the examples isn't Monka Castle, that they were soldiers who came over to the island at the time. So maybe you're seeing a bit of external influence.

Linda Romeril (14:31):

But anyway, Nicholas Boden has taken the oath as executioner. So we obviously had to go to court and take his oath to be the executioner to carry out the criminal sentence on Nicholas Dagger. He was condemned for the crime of murder and also insults injuries and other bad behavior against people. Again, it seems to show there's a bit of a pattern of Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> criminal behavior. The court records seem to indicate that he confessed and he basically confessed to killing somebody called Aaron Boda with a stroke of a sword. And the court record says that basically he cut Bo down with his sword after he had spoken provocative words to him. Yeah. So they obviously had a bit of a a row. Yeah. And then

Perry (15:19):

You'd imagine a lot of kind of murders like that happen when everybody's walking around swords on them. Yeah. Or some people walking around with swords on them at the time.

Linda Romeril (15:26):

Yeah. So again, you sort of think potentially he is one of the soldiers who was over here at the time, if he's walking round with a sword. So then the court goes on and says that the death of Aaron Boash should be considered as murder and they condemn dangle and they basically say to be led to the place of execution and be hung and strangled by the hands of the executioner. So it's quite chilling. Wow. Even, even just saying those words.

Mel (15:53):

Yeah. That is very intense.

Linda Romeril (15:54):

Quite chilling. So whether, again, whether it means the hands as in he's a person who's putting the noose around the neck we're not quite sure. And then in all these cases, the criminal, all of their goods, all of their property is forfeit to the crown. So basically the crown will receive any money, shares any land that they own would go to the crown

Mel (16:19):

Wouldn't go down to the next of kin or next in line.

Linda Romeril (16:22):

Well that's, I mean that's really interesting in one of the cases. So one of the cases, and this is quite an unpleasant case to talk about, but is interesting particularly from that point of view. And this is a case relating to the death of a lady called Maryella Plus she was the wife of Josu and there's a big inquest. She dies and the inquest finds she died from three sword blows to the breast. So there's an inquest and then we have the court record and the court shows us that it was actually her husband who used his sword to make the three cuts to her breast. So it's, again, it's really hard for us to read this and to try and understand it's so the court records are so brief and factual. Yeah. And of course life isn't no

Mel (17:14):

Like that. They're missing all the nuance that goes with that.

Linda Romeril (17:17):

So, and we know there were other cuts to her body and of course, I mean the worst thing is that she was pregnant at the time.

Mel (17:26):

I had a feeling you were gonna say that. Yeah.

Linda Romeril (17:28):

So really sad case. I think what makes it even more upsetting is that they already had six children. And of course as we were saying before, all the property gets for footed to the crown. So they haven't got the mother, they haven't got the father. And all of the family property

Mel (17:50):

Now has

Linda Romeril (17:51):

Gone, has gone.

Mel (17:52):

So what happens to these kids? I guess we dunno,

Linda Romeril (17:55):

We dunno, we can only guess they, the children aren't the, the six children they had are not even mentioned in the court records. The only way I found out was to do a little bit of looking in marriage registers 'cause I just wanted to see a little bit more had it had they only just got married, try and find a bit more about what was going on. But no, I mean, they'd been married for over 10 years. They had these six children, but we don't know what happened to them.

Mel (18:22):

So we know what, we know what the out, what the outcome to that was, but we don't understand anything about the context, which is such a shame.

Linda Romeril (18:31):

Yeah. So it's a really, that

Mel (18:32):

Is really tragic.

Linda Romeril (18:33):

A really tragic, really difficult case. And it just leaves us with so many questions.

Mel (18:39):

Absolutely.

Perry (18:39):

You know, you mentioned before that it, it's people sometimes that are, have immigrated to the island or maybe passing through. Are there kind of families, you know, that that, has there been kind of relations of people executed or like with witchcraft for example, we talked about there were, there were whole families that were being kind of persecuted in the same way. Have we seen anything like that with these executions?

Linda Romeril (19:03):

Interestingly, it's, it's a little bit more on the other side. So it, it seems, and I think again was the case in England and France, the actual role of executioner potentially passes through a family. Well that makes sense. So we do have two people, Jean and William Kristen who were both carried out the role of executioner in Jersey and I think they were a later part of the same family. So it's almost like a, a job that's

Perry (19:31):

Family

Linda Romeril (19:32):

Business passed from father to son. So, so that's interesting. Other than that it's a relatively small list. So it doesn't seem to be those kind of that same thing as we have with the witches where the families are Yeah. Are sort of persecuted 'cause they've got a bit of a bad name.

Mel (19:47):

So what other, what other cases do we have here and that we can look into?

Linda Romeril (19:51):

So we talked about the soldiers and that sort of influence of having the army on the island. And we do have one case where we have a Robert Ware and William Curry who are both soldiers and they are accused of having broken into a house along to Jack Remmel. Robert Ware is very much the principal instigator and he seems to have encouraged and persuaded William Curry and also seven other men, presumably from the castle to carry out the crime. So we've actually got quite a good account of what happened in the court records. So they tell us that Robert Ware left the sally port of the castle, which I'm presuming must be Montega. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> 1694. I'm thinking that's the castle we're talking about. He had left before he'd actually made a fake key so that he could get out of the castle at night. And then he met others at the castle and they went to Jack reel's house with the intention of entering, breaking and entering effectively.

Linda Romeril (20:58):

When they entered the house, they went round downstairs, they took some silver cups and then they went upstairs to the bed chamber where Jack and his wife were fast asleep. The court record tells us that they broke the door down and into the room, which must have been terrifying for the people in there. And, and then it does give us quite a graphic description of, of what happened next. The court basically says that one of the two men threw reel's wife to the ground. He obviously woke up. Some of the men threw themselves at reel holding him and placing a pillow over his head. He was cut with a Bayer in his side. And then the men broke several chests and cupboards with an ax and stole and carried away a considerable sum of gold and silver. They came out the house with a pair of pistols and then they reentered the castle with all of their loot.

Linda Romeril (21:51):

The court doesn't actually say what happened to Jack and his wife. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. But I think because they are the crime is theft, my assumption would be that they must have been probably horribly shaken up. But, but nothing happened to them. Nothing happened to them. What basically happened is, as I say, Robert and William were seen as the principal instigators. So both of them were condemned to death. But the seven other men who got involved to carry out the crime, they were sentenced to death. But then they were pardoned and actually instead sent to Guernsey. Right. To go to prison

Perry (22:24):

Or exiled.

Linda Romeril (22:25):

Oh, exiled. Yeah. Why Guernsey? Why would they not just do it here from doing a little bit of reading? I think prison sentences weren't so now if somebody does something wrong, they would, you know, if it was a serious theft crime, they would go to prison. Whereas I think this sort of period, it's more about the punishment. Right. So there weren't long prison sentences. It was more about you are punished by ultimately the, you know, capital punishment or being put in the stocks or being banished. Whereas prison wasn't the sort of long-term place for punishments to be carried out. There was somewhere to, for people to be held as they were waiting for trial. Right. But not really like we would see prison now Mm. As somewhere to go to carry out your sentence.

Perry (23:10):

This, this guy that they broke into the house, they'd broke into. He sounds like he was probably quite a wealthy guy. And I'd be interested to know if it's people breaking into wealthy people's homes, that gets more punishment than, than not. You kind of assume So actually you

Linda Romeril (23:27):

Would

Perry (23:27):

Than if we can actually find that out. But

Linda Romeril (23:30):

I mean, I'd be really fascinated to know Yeah. A bit more about him. 'cause If we are talking about, you know, him having gold and silver in his bedroom, I mean that's quite, yeah. And even to be honest, a two story house, he's quite well off. It'd be fascinating to find, try and find out where the house was. Yeah. And a little bit more about Jack and his family. But I think you're right. And I suspect in terms of status, that probably had something to do with the punishment. I don't know if they'd broken into somebody's house who was maybe not quite so wealthy quite so well to do. Yeah. If

Mel (24:01):

It would've had such an, an impact

Linda Romeril (24:03):

I think would've had such a impact. 

Perry (24:05):

Is there a lot more work to do looking into all these people? I mean, I know you, you've, you've spent a lot of time looking into this and transcribing it, but there's so many names to go through. How much more information do you think we can get off the records?

Linda Romeril (24:17):

I think we, I think we really could. I mean, I think yeah, absolutely. Jack reel, we could have a little look and see. I suppose you've got to assume if we're assuming they're coming from gory castle on a guy and then going back there, it's gonna be probably in that area of the island. So we could start looking. I mean certainly we'd have family records that we could look at from that date. See if we can find out a bit more about them. I'd say if we could find the house, it'd be amazing. But yeah, I think each one of these cases you could really dig a bit deeper. Mary's children, it would be fascinating to see if we could find out what happened to them. Yeah, I think the trouble always when you're looking back this far is it's just tantalizing because we have some records, but clearly not the records we'd have for 19th or 20th century.

Mel (25:07):

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Perry (25:20):

So it's, it is a little bit off topic, but we've got the executions up to 1721. Obviously executions continued in Jersey until relatively recently. I mean when, when's the, the most recent execution that we can talk about?

Linda Romeril (25:34):

So there really is a case of a gentleman called Alan Norton, which people may have heard of. I think the case was from memory serve sort of 1950s. He actually became the first man sentenced to death in the British Isles since hanging had been outlawed the previous year in England. But because it hadn't been outlawed in Jersey, once he was found guilty, that was the only sentence that the Jersey courts could pass. But my understanding is it was commuted to life imprisonment.

Perry (26:11):

Okay. So he wasn't, so

Linda Romeril (26:12):

He wasn't actually hung, but at the time that was the only option available to the court. Yeah. Because he'd been found guilty of murder

Perry (26:20):

In, in the witch trials episode we talked about like where these ex these executions happen. We also talked about how they, they seem a little bit different to the, the normal execution. I know that one of the witches was killed on the lands of one of the, was it Sam

Mel (26:36):

Was at Sam Manor

Perry (26:36):

Wasn't it? Yeah. where were these, were these executions mainly all done in one place or could they be done like at Sam Ray on the

Mel (26:45):

Land of the as insane example for the community?

Linda Romeril (26:48):

I would think the Seia would have the same Right. To ask for their sentence to be carried out on their land. Unfortunately the list doesn't tell us. Yeah. The court cases, the ones I found, they all say taken to the place of execution. So whether from that we would infer it is a single place. Obviously more recently it was West Mount and then we moved to being, it was when there were still public executions. So we're not quite sure whether these early ones potentially they might well have been carried out on the different fiefs again as setting an example for people.

Mel (27:30):

You've also got here, Linda, some other crimes. So there's one here of the case of Jonathan Penny.

Linda Romeril (27:37):

Yes. So this is, whilst I was looking for the crimes that are on the list in the court records, I just came across a few other ones which also involved the executioners. So it was quite interesting that they weren't just there to administer capital punishment. They were also there to administer other punishments as well. And we've got a couple of cases here. We've got the case of Jonathan Penny who came before the courts in 16 4 16 94. He was stealing against theft from the house of Catherine Fallough and stole a pair of shoes from Edward de Lako. The court condemns Jonathan to be taken into the hands of the executioner of criminal sentences. And then it says he has to be taken from the door of the court to the cemetery. So whether this was St. Hella cemetery, which obviously be very close to the court. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And then the wording is return him to the cage and I dunno whether that's the stocks or the pilly. And then it says until there is bloodshed,

Mel (28:42):

Wow. What does that mean? Maybe

Perry (28:43):

Throwing things. Throwing things

Linda Romeril (28:44):

Like how you imagine throwing. That's how you'd sort of imagine. Yeah,

Mel (28:47):

That's gruesome.

Linda Romeril (28:48):

Yeah. So, and then it sort of gets a little bit more gruesome in that. So in Jonathan's case, he actually has his ear cut off by the executioner and then is banished from the island never to return again. Goods are confiscated and they go to the crown. So it's pretty, pretty grim justice, stealing a pair of shoes, doing

Perry (29:09):

A pair of shoes, you know, but

Mel (29:10):

That's what then makes me think that there's more to that story. 'cause There must have been other things going on. Surely that can't just be the only thing he did or there must be some sort of to know. Right. There

Perry (29:24):

Are still places where you can get your hand cut for stealing.

Mel (29:27):

Yeah, this is true. But we are talking about Jersey Channel Islands. It just feels a bit strange.

Perry (29:34):

No, I guess, I guess, I guess they kind of thought it was a deterrent, you know, and we know that usually isn't always the case to be honest, but the deterrent of having such a horrible thing happen to you.

Mel (29:43):

Yeah. Just people setting an example. Yeah.

Perry (29:47):

They didn't really seems crazy. They didn't really have a sort rehabilitative idea about anything then, you know. No. Which is interesting because, you know, at what point do we know that people's opinions and and views on the death penalty changing? Like was there early cases of people arguing that, you know, we we shouldn't be doing this in Jersey Or was it only until fairly recently that people really went, we shouldn't be executing

Linda Romeril (30:13):

People? I mean, I suppose you start to get, 'cause I suppose we, like we were saying these early days, it's, it's more about physical punishment for a crime rather than prison sentences. Yeah. and then you sort of evolve into the 19th century Victoria period where you have the big prisons being established in England and then you get that period of prison reform where actually prisons aren't, I mean some of them were awful institutions at that period. So people start looking at, okay, there needs to be a better place and a better way of doing that. I mean certainly that happened in Jersey. We had the prison moved to Newgate Street in the 19th century, but then still I can't imagine was a particularly pleasant place for sure. And I think probably it's only really the 20th century when you start to see the majority of people looking at capital punishment as something that is wrong. I mean, you've gotta think back in this time period, people would go and watch.

Perry (31:10):

Yeah.

Mel (31:11):

It was their entertainment.

Linda Romeril (31:12):

Entertainment. Yeah.

Perry (31:13):

I suppose, you know, in the absence of prisons marking someone permanently by, you know, cutting their ear off shows, you know, this person is a person to avoid or whatever, at least in their, you know Yeah.

Linda Romeril (31:26):

Their point of view. And it's that kind of public in humiliation of sitting in the stocks and getting pelted with all sorts of things. Yeah. I mean we've got another case here. The lady Jan Deme in the 1690s as well, she's also sent to, again it says the cage, but I'm guessing it's like the stalks. She was taken to court by the centen of St. Helia. And it says she was living a lascivious, debauched and boardy life as a prostitute. She's trying to conceal a pregnancy. She's taken to the stocks for a, a bit of a, a lesson and told to go and live a decent life going forward. I can't imagine there's any support helping her live that decent life going forward. Absolutely not. Because we are in the 1690s,

Mel (32:10):

But nothing else happened to her. There was no kind of other marking or banishment. It was just, she was made like a public spectacle,

Linda Romeril (32:16):

Public spectacle. And then told to,

Mel (32:19):

To sharpen up her ideas. And

Perry (32:22):

I guess it, I guess it, they, they let her go on with it until she probably offended someone in the community and then they decided to chase her for it. You know, at least that's how I'd imagine it.

Mel (32:33):

So have we ever had anyone come to the archive to have a look at these documents? Have these documents ever been, been requested to be looked at?

Linda Romeril (32:41):

We, we quite often pick this one as one of our, so we do our meet the collections mornings where we get out these kind of unusual, interesting documents. So we do quite often pick this one to show people and it's one of those that every time we get it out, I think really must find out a little bit more about the people on the list. So it's been great to have an opportunity to do a little bit of that with some of the later cases. But absolutely, if anyone wants to come and see it and do some digging, that would be

Mel (33:12):

Fantastic. Yeah. Again, another research project for anyone out there who's interested in doing some, some archive work

Linda Romeril (33:19):

So much to dig into. So there is all the, all the help I think. Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to have it. You know? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's the kind of thing I'd love to spend my days doing, but unfortunately <laugh>

Mel (33:29):

There is other business to attend to. No, but that's, that's great. Thank you so much for all the information that you've found on these and for all the work you've done. I know it would've taken a long time to just, just to find out the information that we've covered in today's episode. So really, really appreciate that. And let, who knows, we might be able to do a part two, part two if there is any more information that comes out of it. Thank you very much, Linda.

Linda Romeril (33:50):

Thank you. Thank you. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to click on the subscribe button for more.