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Life and loves of the she-devil of Wrestlingworth
The story of the last woman to be publicly hanged - notorious local poisoner Sarah Dazley in 1843
This year's May Bank Holiday weekend celebrations were a contrast to 150 years ago when attractions of a rather more gruesome kind were being advertised locally as Sarah Dazley of Wrestlingworth became the last woman to be publicly hanged.
Catherine Rose takes a look at this grisly local history story.
Sarah Dazley was born and baptised in the quiet village of Wrestlingworth in 1815.
Her parents were Phillip Reynolds, the local barber and his wife Ann, a dressmaker.
Phillip died following a spell in a debtor's prison when Sarah was 11 and her mother went on to take numerous lovers before re-marrying.
Despite this, Sarah grew up to be a striking and confident young girl, tall with long auburn hair and no shortage of admirers.
In 1835, Sarah married a local man, Simeon Mead at Potton and four years later had a child, Jonah.
Simeon by all accounts worshipped him. However, Jonah died suddenly at 10 months.
Simeon mourned greatly and became a virtual recluse, but those that knew the couple suggested his grief was compounded by Sarah's promiscuity and her numerous affairs around the village.
Then very suddenly in June 1840, Simeon also passed away following a severe bout of sickness. He was 24.
The community was horrified and Sarah was given a lot of sympathy for having to suffer two such devastating losses within a short space of time.
Within weeks of Simeon's death, Sarah had taken up with a 23-year-old labourer, William Dazley, and only four months later the couple were married and moved into a cottage in Wrestlingworth.
Today, that same cottage is a bed and breakfast guest house.
However, the marriage was not a happy one and William was seen drowning his sorrows in the Chequers Inn, said to be out of character.
Sarah confided to people in the village, including William Waldock, believed to have become a lover, that her husband had beaten her, saying she would "do for any man that hit her".
Interestingly, a witness came forward at the trial to say that she had once seen Sarah's first husband Simeon knock her down for a shilling, and overheard Sarah say "Damn him! I'll poison him..."
A few days after William had struck her, he was taken seriously ill, vomiting and complaining of stomach pains.
Doctor Sandell of Potton was called and after being examined, William was given some tablets and appeared to start making a recovery.
William's 14-year-old sister Ann was living with the couple at the time, and caught Sarah making pills in a saucer in the kitchen. She was puzzled but thought no more of it.
Later that same day, Sarah visited a friend, Mrs Carver, in Potton and told her that she was very worried about her husband and that she was going to see Doctor Sandell for more pills.
That evening, when Sarah offered William the pills, he refused to take them, saying they were different to those Doctor Sandell had given him. He accepted them when Ann offered to take one herself.
Both he and Ann were violently ill afterwards.
Ann recovered but William died on October 30, 1842.
Although Sarah had now lost two husbands and a child, there were no suspicions of foul play at the inquest and William was buried in Wrestlingworth Churchyard.
Within weeks, the banns were being read for the forthcoming marriage of Sarah and William Waldock of Cockayne Hatley.
However, many people now doubted Sarah's integrity and William was repeatedly warned not to go through with the wedding.
He broke off the engagement around the same time that news of the suspicions spread to Francis Pym, the local magistrate who persuaded the coroner, Ezra Eagles, to re-investigate the deaths.
William Dazley's body was exhumed and on March 20, 1843, an inquest was held in the Chequers Inn where it was announced that William's body had been found to contain lethal traces of arsenic.
Before she could be arrested, Sarah fled to London in the company of yet another local man, Samuel Stepping.
Following enquiries by Superintendant Blunden of Biggleswade, Sarah was traced and arrested, protesting her innocence.
Meanwhile, the bodies of Simeon and Jonah Mead were also exhumed and traces of arsenic were found in Jonah's body, although Simeon's was too decomposed to arrive at a conclusion.
Sarah initially claimed that William Dazley had poisoned her first husband and child so he could have her to himself, and that she had poisoned William in retribution when she had found out.
However, public opinion was against her and no one believed her story. She was described in the local press as a 'female bluebeard'.
Her trial began at Bedford in July 1843.
By then her defence counsel was saying she had administered the poison to William by mistake.
During the trial, two chemists came forward to bear witness that they had both sold Sarah arsenic.
The evidence was overwhelming. The jury took just 30 minutes to decide her guilt and Judge Baron Alderson sentenced her to death.
On the day of the execution, Bedford was described as swarming with excited spectators. 12,000 people assembled to watch Sarah being hanged, at midday on August 5, 1843, including her ex-fiance William Waldock who had given evidence against her in court.
A stage had been erected for the gallows outside the prison gate. The executioner was William Calcraft.
Here follows an account of her final moments published at the time of her execution:
'...The chaplain read prayers, in which the prisoner fervently joined.
At the conclusion of them, G P Livius Esq, who has been much attended to by the prisoner, asked her whether she had anything to confess.
She said "No; if I confess to the crime, I shall die with a lie in my mouth. I am innocent.... Stay with me but be as quick as you can."
She then ascended the ladder to the drop, when the executioner took off her cap and put a man's night-cap over her head and face, and the rope around her neck, and fastened it to the beam above; when the two officers and the executioner descended the ladder, and the bolts were withdrawn, a shriek from the crowd burst forth as the culprit fell, her arms pinioned and her hands clasped in each other.
She heaved her bosom heavily for several times, her body then quivered. She again heaved her bosom, more feebly than before, and hung DEAD till one o'clock when her body was taken down and carried into the jail, to be interred in the felons yard.
Drunkenness and mirth were the characteristics of the awful ceremony, which we believe will not many more years, as morality is understood, be allowed to be the last penalty of the law; for as the celebrated John Wilks said -
"Hanging a man is the worst purpose you can put him to."
With grateful thanks to Ron Pickford and Wrestlingworth History Society.
This story appeared in Memory Lane on May 7, 2010.
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