Beavan's " Old Bailey "

Criminal London

This Criminal London chapter from "Imperial London", is a unique view of London and its inhabitants, first published in 1901, by Arthur H. Beavan...
The Central Criminal Court - The "Old Bailey"

 

The widening of Ludgate Hill was accomplished in a quarter of a century; and the rebuilding of the Central Criminal Court at one time bade fair to be as dilatory a process.

More than twenty years ago a committee of the Common Council reported that the Central Criminal Court ought to be pulled down and rebuilt, but nothing came of it.

Nine years ago, after periodical discussions, another committee was appointed to decide upon a site, which question it settled; but the first practical outcome of the original report was attained only last year, when Mr. E.W.T. Mountford's designs for the edifice were selected and accepted by the Corporation.

Meantime, the old Court, defiant of improvement and change, still exists, and on the first day of every session the sheriffs in procession escort thither the skilled Rhadamanthus who presides over the dread tribunal of crime, composed of Judges, Recorder, the Common Serjeant, the Lord Mayor, and Aldermen.

No record exists as to when the first trial of criminals took place at the Old Bailey.

Even the origin of the familiar name is open to dispute; it may mean the vallum or ballium, i.e. an open space adjoining the city wall; it may be a corruption of bail-hill, a place of trial by a bailiff.

Anyhow, the "Bailey" has been so called for generations past, and its present designation, the "Central Criminal Court," authorized by Act of Parliament in 1884, has not been readily taken to.

Little less than one hundred years ago, the building as it now stands was enlarged and reconstructed, partly on the site of the old Surgeons' Hall where Oliver Goldsmith failed to pass his examination, replacing a Court which had been seriously damaged, if not destroyed, in 1780, during the Lord George Gordon Riots.

Into its dock, by way of a covered passage leading across the yard from Newgate, with which prison it is so closely connected, a procession of miserable wretches, session after session, has continuously passed; a few to regain their liberty; many to go out convicts for life; a dismal remnant convicted on the capital charge of murder, and, in the past, of highway robbery and much more trivial offences, to return to the condemned cells, thence

.....into the night
Alone with Death to journey; never more
In mortal guise to breathe and see the light.

As an example of an old-fashioned Justice Hall the Central Criminal Court is unique.

Its dreary waiting-rooms, desolate corridors, and vault-like staircases are appropriate environments of the low, gloomy, box-shaped Court itself.

The dock is immediately below the stuffy public gallery, from whose front row only can any view of the prisoners be obtained, and that only a back one.

Jury-box and witness-box are to the left of the dock; counsels' seats facing, not the Judges, but the jury, are to the right; and thus the twelve "good men and true" are able, without turning, to see and identify all the parties concerned.

The Bench is rather an imposing affair, with ample accommodation for its numerous occupants; the chief seat, behind which upon a crimson background a sheathed and gilded sword is suspended, being beneath a wooden canopy surmounted by the Royal Arms.

Although since 1841 a special system of ventilation has been in use, the atmosphere of the Court, especially in damp, warm weather, and when a cause celebre is on, and unwashed, ill-clad humanity pours in and packs itself as close as sardines in a tin, a mephitic vapour arises suggestive of the time when the sweet herbs spread in front of the dock had a utilitarian mission, and nets laid before the Judges were not merely ornamental; and bringing to mind the fact that in the eighteenth century, so awful were the sanitary conditions of Newgate, that the Lord Mayor, two Judges, an Alderman, many jurymen and witnesses, during one session caught the dreaded gaol-fever and died.

Of memorable trials, the annals of the Central Criminal Court are full.

The most notable that have taken place within the walls of the present building, i.e. since 1809, are those of: -

• Bellingham, for the killing of the Prime Minister Perceval
• Thistlewood and the Cato Street conspirators
• Fauntleroy the forger
• Greenacre, for the slaughter of his sweetheart
• Oxford, for shooting at the late Queen
• Courvoisier, for killing Lord William Russell
• Francis, for an attempt upon Her late Majesty's life
• Manning and his wife for murder
• the seven pirates of the ship Flowery Land
• Barrett and others for the Clerkenwell prison explosion
• an Italian for the Hatton Garden fatal stabbing case (when there were three distinct trials, ending in the acquittal of the accused)
• Risk Allah Bey, v. the Daily Telegraph, for libel
• the Stauntons, for the Penge murder
• Madame Rachel, for obtaining money under false pretences;
• George Henry Lamson for poisoning his crippled schoolboy cousin
• the "Cannon Street murder" of Sarah Milson, a mystery still
• the parties implicated in the great Turf frauds (the trial lasting ten days)
• Hannah Dobbs, for the murder of Miss Hacker, whose body was found in a house in Euston Square - another mystery!
• and in more recent years, Milsom and Fowler, between whom, during the trial, a terrible struggle took place in the dock, when Milsom could only be released from his accomplice's murderous grip, by the exertions of eight stalwart warders; and Prince, for the assassination of William Terriss.

The Old Bailey has produced a special class of barristers who seldom practise elsewhere; many have gained their reputation there, and some, the beginning of immense fortunes; among the former being Serjeant Sleigh, Montagu Williams, Q.C., and Serjeants Ballantine and Parry.

But it is not a cheerful place for a career; and an Old Bailey counsel needs to be, if not a cynic, a philosopher.