Modes Of Punishment

On 22nd August 1878, Mr. W.W. Ravenhill Esq., gave a lecture to the Wiltshire Archaeological Society at Warminster. His subject was ‘Justice In Warminster In The Olden Time’ and he not only included references to assizes and sessions in the 17th century but also listed the names of Justices of The Peace for the County of Wilts and serving jurors in 1659.

Prior to concluding his lecture with some examples of law-breaking ‘men and events’ he spoke of the ‘modes of punishment’:

“Modes of punishment. Warminster deserves honourable mention. There were only the stocks: two in front of the old Town Hall, one on Bell Hill, one at Upton Scudamore. These, at least in more recent years, were chiefly used for those who would not go to Church.”

“There were no branks or ducking-stools for scolding ladies!”

“There was no prison, merely a lock-up or blind-house, and prisoners during the quarter sessions were kept in a malthouse, near the Town Hall.”

“The old Town Hall, in which the assizes of 1666 were held, was where the King’s Arms stands now, but it has entirely disappeared.”

“In later years, possibly 1711, a building was erected in the mid-street, near the Chapel of St. Lawrence. More of a market than a court, a block to traffic. It was removed in the year 1831, when the present building was erected at the sole expense of that munificent nobleman, Thomas, Marquis of Bath. The foundation stone of it was laid on the same day as that of Christ Church, Warminster, by Thomas Phipps, Esq., Chairman of Quarter Sessions.”

“It was the custom formerly to hang people publicly near the scene of their crimes.”

“The Lord of Warminster had a gallows here in 1275. Position not known.”

“One great solemn spectacle of death there was on the 15th of March, 1813, when George Carpenter and George Ruddock, two agricultural labourers, aged twenty and twenty-one years, were hung on the mound at the back of Frying-pan Clump, Warminster Down, for the murder of Mr. Webb, a farmer of Roddenbury, near Longleat. They had at the same time murdered his maid-servant in a very brutal manner. The ceremony began with a great procession of Wilts Yeomanry Cavalry; two hundred peace officers, with white wands, commanded by Captain Charles L. Phipps; the sheriff’s officers; the bailiff of Warminster; the under-sheriff and magistrates of the division, and one hundred gentlemen on horseback; the Vicar of Warminster (whose sermon in Warminster Church first induced the criminals to confess) following the coffin and the cart containing the criminals; the county gaoler, sheriff’s officers, and javelin-men; the Yeomanry closing the long procession, whilst detachments of the same corps kept the line of march. The stump of the gallows will be remembered by many present.”

“Warminster was the last place in the county where a public whipping took place. This was in 1838, George Ruddock, for deserting his wife and family. The sentence was ‘that he be made fast to the breech of a cart and stripped naked from the waist upwards and whipped through the market place from the one end to the other and so down again until his body be bloody and soe to be discharged.’

“We cannot be too thankful that an end has been put to these revolting and brutalizing exhibitions.”