The Family – Bosnia 94-96 In Memory of these lovely people

The Family

It’s dark & silent on a starless night,

I can’t hear a sound, though try as I might,

a solitary moth feeds to the flame

as another patrol looms in this hollow game.

Our footsteps crunch on the gravel & sand,

as we find the family killed by “the man”.

He sent in his men to torture their souls,

destroy their being, their life, their whole,

their bodies splayed out, their blood up the walls,

showing their ending when his men came to call.

Mama lies curled up tightly down on the floor,

her daughter left hanging up on the door,

Gran she lies desecrated as they lost control,

& the men of the family prayed for their all,

but nothing could help them in their hour of need,

as the rebels they raped, tortured to bleed,

ending this family life as they knew it,

& trampling out history with each little bit,

a scene such as this one I’ll remember

as it’s etched on my heart within me forever,

I hope in their death they found some solace in peace,

as we buried the dead & their God will receive …

Humbled – Bosnia 94-96 In memory of lives lost

Humbled

The air is charged it goes higher and higher,

as the death toll rises with the sound of gunfire,

an alarm bell rings, a harbinger of death,

a family massacred left with no breath,

a child taken down, killed in her prime,

an unseen assassin not brought to time,

a door closed firmly, slammed in the face,

another mass grave, the holocaustal race,

yet onwards they go and wave as we pass,

a smile and a promise, a token at last.

These people they humble me deep down inside,

sharing their love with arms opened wide,

when only hours earlier their family laid dead,

taken down in execution, a gun to the head.

They know how hard their own lives can be,

yet they take the time to offer comfort to me,

& I cry in the darkness feeling their pain,

& another day dawns & it all starts again.

Mary Ann Cotton

“Mary Ann Cotton,
She’s dead and she’s rotten
She lies in her bed,
With her eyes wide open
Sing, sing, oh, what can I sing,
Mary Ann Cotton is tied up with string
Where, where? Up in the air
Sellin’ black puddens a penny a pair.“

The words above refer to murderess Mary Ann Cotton from the North East of England, who is alleged to have murdered at least fifteen people comprising of her husbands and children. However, she was only charged with one murder in the end, that of her stepson Charles Edward Cotton and sentenced to hang for the crime. Death became her on 24th March 1873.

Mary Ann Robson was born in Low Moorsley County Durham in October 1832. This area is what is now Sunderland, predominantly the area of Hendon. When she was a girl of 8, her family moved to Murton near Seaham, where her disciplinarian father was a miner. Not long after their relocation to the pit village, Mary’s father Michael fell to his death down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery. When she turned 14 Mary’s mother remarried to Robert Stott. Mary and Robert didn’t see eye to eye and had many a confrontation, so much so that when Mary turned 16 she left the family home and became a nurse in the nearby village of South Hetton, where she remained until she was 19 when she returned to the family home and became a dressmaker.

When Mary turned 20 she met and married a miner called William Mowbray, and soon after they headed south to Plymouth in Devon. William and Mary had five children, four of whom died from gastric fever. Amongst all this angst the couple decided to head back north again where William took a position as Foreman of South Hetton Pit for a while before becoming a fireman onboard a steam vessel. The couple gave birth to another three children who also passed away from gastric fever. In 1865 William died from an intestinal disorder and Mary collected his life insurance of £35 which was quite a sum in those days.

Shortly after Williams death, Mary moved to Seaham Harbour and became close to a local man named Joseph Nattrass, who was engaged to be married. Mary attended Nattrass’ wedding and then moved into Sunderland itself, taking up a post at Sunderland Infirmary, in the House of Recovery for Contagious Disease. During this time Mary’s youngest child died leaving in her care one out of the nine children to which she had given birth. Mary sent this child, Isabella, to live with her mother. Mary became friendly with one of her patients George Ward and they married in August 1865. Throughout their short marriage George was consistently ill with intestinal problems. Upon his death Mary again collected a nice sum of life insurance.

James Robinson was a shipwright in Sunderland, and he had recently suffered the death of his wife Hannah. Mary became his housekeeper in 1866 looking after his children as well as his house. Less than a month later James’ baby died from gastric fever and in his grief he turned to Mary who quickly became pregnant. After discovering she was pregnant, Mary’s mother took seriously ill so Mary rushed to her side in Seaham Harbour. Although Mary’s mother seemed to be getting better she suddenly died at the age of 54 complaining of stomach pains. Mary took her child Isabella back to the Robinson household with her but she died a few weeks later, along with the remaining two children of James’. All three children were buried together in April 1867. A few months later James married Mary and she gave birth to their daughter Mary Isabella. Mary Isabella died four months later with stomach problems. After the death James discovered Mary had run up debts and threw her out of the house.

Mary was living on the streets when her friend Margaret Cotton introduced her to her brother Fredrick who was a miner who had recently become widowed. He lived in Walbottle, Northumberland and had also lost two of his children. Margaret had become carer for the other two, until a few weeks later when she passed away. Mary consoled Fredrick and soon became pregnant with her eleventh child. Fredrick and Mary were wed in a bigamous ceremony in 1870 and their son Robert was born in 1871. Not long after his birth, Mary discovered her lost love Joseph Nattrass, newly single, was living in the village of West Auckland nearby. They rekindled their romance and she persuaded her family to move near to him. Fredrick died soon after and Mary inherited yet more insurance money from the lives of Fredrick and that of his sons before him.

Nattrass became Mary’s lodger, and Mary worked as a nurse to a Customs Officer who was recovering from smallpox, by the name of John Quick-Manning. Mary quickly became pregnant with her twelfth child, Quick-Manning being the father. Two more infant deaths followed, that of Mary’s two boys, Fredrick Jnr and Robert, closely followed by the demise of Nattrass. All from stomach related problems. Mary was asked by a local council official if she could assist the recuperation of another smallpox sufferer. Mary still had one surviving child, her stepson Charles Edward, and Mary requested that he be sent to the workhouse. Five days later the boy was dead.

By this time officials were suspicious and decided to investigate Mary and the series of suspicious deaths surrounding her. Mary tried to cover up by saying she had given Charles Edward arrowroot to help his stomach problems, this made the doctor question the deaths and Mary’s frequent moving around the country and around the North East of England. A forensic investigation was carried out and traces of arsenic were discovered, this prompted the police to exhume some of the other bodies. Arsenic was found in other bodies but because they had been buried it couldn’t be proven that it had been administered or come from the ground. Mary’s defence claimed that Charles Edward had inhaled the poison from fly paper, but the jury saw through this and Mary was sentenced to death.

Mary was executed at Durham Gaol on 24th March 1873 by William Calcraft.

Mary Ann Cotton is a name that many people in the North East know, not everybody knows the story, but almost everybody knows of her. Her spirit has been seen in a myriad of places including Holy Trinity church in Hendon, Sunderland, also near a new apartment block in Hendon, which is built on the site of a old police station where Mary Ann was held for a while, and also The Featherbed Rock Cafe at Seaham Harbour, opposite the war memorial. When the current proprietor took over, a postcard and a baby swaddling shawl, believed to belong to Mary Ann were discovered. Staff claim to have seen her and heard her whisper in their ears.

As the rhyme states, “Mary Ann Cotton, she’s dead but not forgotten”, and she may well have been possibly Britain’s first female serial killer, but her spirit will live on until she feels it is time to move on.

William Calcraft Executioner

In 1800 in Little Baddow in Essex, a sadist was born. His name was William Calcraft and he was to become one of the Uk’s most notorious executioners, favouring the short-drop method of hanging.

Calcraft started his working life as a cobbler and a night watchman at Reid’s Brewery in Clerkenwell before being employed by Newgate Prison in London as a flogger, meting out punishment to juvenile offenders. Calcraft was forced to take this position in exchange for a pardon from the Crown after being charged with a felony. His mentor was none other than the infamous hangman “Old Tom” Thomas Cheshire, who taught Calcraft the ways of the rope. Upon Old Toms death in 1828, Calcraft was offered the position of public executioner by the Corporation of London and Middlesex.

Although Calcraft was predominantely based in the Borough of London and Middlesex, his expertise was also required at various locations around the country, including Leeds, Newcastle, Maidstone, Manchester, Reading, Surrey, Durham, Derby, Bodmin and even as far as Dundee in Scotland.

His method of short-drop hanging was quite a macabre method, sometimes resulting in long drawn out deaths due to the trapdoor only being approximately a three foot drop, not anywhere long enough for death to be instantaneous nor enough to break the prisoners neck, hence death by strangulation and suffocation. At a large amount of Calcrafts executions it has been recorded that Calcraft had to actually go down below the trap and hang onto the prisoners legs in order to make his death quicker. Such was this method disliked by the officials and public alike, Calcraft received death threats before the execution of William Bousfield. This execution was a sham from start to finish. After Calcraft released the trapdoor he ran off, leaving Bousfield dangling, still alive. A few moments on and Bousfield managed to steady himself by resting his feet on the platform, although Calcrafts’ assistant pushed his feet off. This debacle carried on for a number of minutes, with Calcraft in hiding, fearing for his life, until the overseeing Chaplin forced Calcraft to return and complete his duty. Calcraft employed the method of swinging from the hanged mans legs and the force of his weight killed Bousfield by strangulation.

Calcraft was the executioner for a number of well known cases over the years including “The Manchester Martyrs” (William Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O’Brien all Fenians – early day IRA) All three were hanged together by Calcraft, for the murder of a police officer in 1867. Unfortunately the executions did not go to plan, Allen died instantly from a broken neck, but Larkin and O’Brien weren’t so lucky. The Catholic priest officiating, Father Gadd was quoted as saying:

“The other two ropes, stretched taut and tense by their breathing twitching burdens, were in ominous and distracting movement. The hangman had bungled!…Calcraft then descended into the pit and there finished what he could not accomplish from above. He killed Larkin .”

Father Gadd wouldn’t allow Calcraft to finish off O’Brien in such a masochistic way, holding the mans hand for 45 minutes as he died a slow and agonising death. This is the man said by neighbours to be kind and gentle and an animal lover. Another high profile case he took on was the execution of Mary Ann Cotton in Durham. Cotton was sentenced to death by hanging for multiple murders of various members of her family, husbands and children respectively.

Two prolific cases he was involved in were two hangings at Norwich Castle. William Sheward murdered his first wife Martha Sheward, and got his second wife to write during his trial pretending to be Martha in order to get him pardoned, the jury saw through this guise and sentenced him to death by hanging. Sheward murdered Martha and dismembered her body, distributing various parts around the city and outskirts, including Thorpe, the Catholic Cathedral and Norwich Guildhall (where they are said to still remain buried). Sheward thought he had gotten away with the murder as 18 years had elapsed, and it seemed forgotten, but he decided to confess out of the blue, hence his execution on 20^th April 1869 by Calcraft. Almost twenty years to the day, on April 21^st 1849 Calcraft executed James Rush (who’s death mask remains in the dungeons of Norwich Castle) who was charged with the murder of his landlord and family.

Calcrafts first solo execution was at Lincoln castle and was Thomas Lister, charged with housebreaking, subsequently followed by the execution of highwayman George Wingfield at Lincoln Beastmarket. He is reported to have executed approximately 450 people, 34 of these being women including Esther Hibner accused of neglect of a young girl, and also the high profile case of 17 year old Sarah Thomas, in public, in Bristol, charged with the murder of her mistress who allegedly mistreated her. Calcraft was said to have found this execution particularly disturbing due to Thomas’ youthful age. He was also the officiate for the last public hangings, a woman called Frances Kidder at Maidstone who drowned her step daughter, and Michael Barret who was a Fenian and executed for his part in the Clerkenwell explosion which killed 12 people and injured 100. However, his last London hanging was that of John Godwin at Newgate.

Calcraft retired in 1874 on a pension of 25 shillings (£1.25) per week, before passing away five years later in his home in Essex.

William Calcraft is definitely a colourful character and has been described in many different ways by colleagues and neighbours alike, but no two descriptions remain the same.

From a paranormal perspective our team has been unlucky enough to encounter him on a number of occasions at different locations. Whilst this may seem a strange coincidence there are various links within each location, making his presence appropriate.

Our first place of encounter I didn’t actually realise who it was I was seeing, he had been affectionately christened “Mallam” by the team and I witnessed him pick up a six foot chap, in front of 30 people, and throw him across the kitchen at The Schooner Hotel in Alnmouth. I was then reading a book on Newcastle Murders and turned the page to find “Mallam” staring back at me, only he had been identified as William Calcraft in the book. Whilst it was good to have an ID, it didn’t please him as he hadn’t revealed his identity to anyone who had come across him. When we returned to The Schooner Hotel for another public night, which incidentally was Halloween, we were all congregated at the back of the kitchen when there were screams and a very strong breeze felt, people parted like the Red Sea for Moses and Calcraft came charging through the throng towards me and another investigator and we both saw him and ran to another part of the hotel. Us being seasoned investigators and all that (Scooby Doo has nothing on us!)

Calcraft made various appearances at The Schooner whenever our team frequented, but not of a threatening manner again, more observing. As my future within the field of paranormal changed, I formed my own team with friends of mine and we conducted an overnight investigation at Holy Trinity Church in Hendon Sunderland. Whilst this may seem an unlikely location to come across a hangman, it soon became apparent why he was milling around. Mary Ann Cotton one of his executions was at the location, so he also made his presence known. Nothing of any substance occurred that evening, we were merely aware of their presence.

The other location where I became aware of Calcrafts presence was upon a guided tour of the dungeons at Norwich Castle. I had never visited this location before and knew no history of the place having just relocated to Norfolk. I became aware of him as the guide was telling us about the death masks housed there, when suddenly he sat between me and my partner, and I refused to acknowledge him, and for my insolence I received three scratches across my cheek. I asked the guide if Calcraft has ever conducted executions in Norwich, she wasn’t sure. I left the castle and forgot all about it until I started writing this article and did a bit of research, and found he had.

My opinion is that Calcraft was a slightly sadistic man with psychotic tendencies, but this is merely my opinion and may not be correct. One thing I am certain of is that as an investigator I know there is much more to come from Mr. William Calcraft, executioner for 45 years.