In the background is St. Mary's Church where the victims were buried and on the
left of the photo the 'Goosebeck' can be seen flowing along the street and the Lynn Morris
Men are dancing.
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On Monday August 10th 1835, two Burnham Market women were hanged for murder outside
Norwich Castle. "Vast numbers of people", wrote a local reporter,
"flocked early into the city to be present at the sad spectacle. All the
avenues leading to Castle Hill were thronged with persons of various ages, the weaker sex
being the most numerous".
A few minutes before noon, as a death knell began to toll from St.
Peter Mancroft's Church, the prison gates opened. Leading the procession came the
Sheriff and his attendants; then, the two prisoners: Fanny Billing, 46,
walking steadily and wearing a brightly coloured dress; Kate Frary, 40, in her
widow's weeds had to be dragged the short distance between the assembled magistrates and
reporters from the local and national press. With them was Norwich Prison Governor
John Johnson and the Public Executioner, Calcroft. The Prison Chaplain read the
funeral service as the gloomy procession moved slowly towards the scaffold which had been
set up at the top of the bridge over the moat not, as was usual on these occasions,
between the two stone lodges overlooking the Market.
Fanny Billing scrambled up the steps to the scaffold. She
reached back for Kate Frary who clutched her hand and would not let go. Calcraft and
his assistant slipped the white cloth bags over their heads, swiftly adjusted the nooses
and the trapdoor opened beneath them. "The silence which had hitherto perverted
the immense concourse who stared intently gazing on the dreadful exhibition was broken by
a piercing shriek when the drop fell, then all was still again."
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Among the spectators was Peter Taylor,40, friend and
neighbour of Fanny and Kate. He had been arrested and charged with the same killings
but the Grand Jury had issued no indictment against him. Released after their trial
on the previous Saturday, he had spent the weekend celebrating in Norwich. According
to one report: "He expressed great satisfaction at witnessing the shocking
exhibition". As well he might: what sort of case could the prosecution
make against him now, with the corpses of Fanny and Kate dangling in front of him?
Fanny had died quickly, her sturdy neck snapped; Kate had choked to death slowly,
struggling for several minutes, gasping in the still August air. |
Their death masks, preserved in the grim dungeons
below Norwich Castle Museum, reflect the two deaths; Fanny looks peaceful, but
Kate's face is distorted, teeth and tongue protruding through thick lips twisted into a
savage, suffocated smirk.
The bodies were left hanging for an hour, the heavy cloth of their
skirts dripping with the dreadful incontinence of the newly hanged, before Calcroft cut
them down.
Peter Taylor's confidence proved wrong. He was recognised by
several people from Burnham and the crowd, in ugly mood, showed every sign of setting the
Grand Jury's verdict summarily aside. Taylor escaped, scuttling away down Castle
Hill.
Back in Burnham, he was hounded from the village and re-arrested a
few days later at his native Whissonsett. This time, the due process of law ran its
full course and on Saturday April 23rd 1836 another crowd watched Peter Taylor take the
same final walk as Fanny Billing and Kate Frary. "He appeared to be shabbily
dressed and struggled but slightly after being turned off".
"The County of Norfolk has seldom
been in a greater degree of alarm and excitement" |
The story of The Burnham Murderers had excited local
and even national interest, the Times reported, "The County of Norfolk has
seldom been in a greater degree of alarm and excitement than has lately been experienced
in the town of Burnham Market and its immediate neighbourhood". This at the
time of stack burning and farm machine-breaking riots. And, writing about the
village at the turn of the century, W.A. Dutt commented "Its associations are not
edifying".
Fanny Billing who was born in Blakeney, Kate Frary from Wells and
Peter Taylor were convicted of poisoning Kate's husband and Peter's wife (both from
Burnham). Several other deaths occurred in suspicious circumstances and other
murders were attempted. A key witness who was lucky not to accompany the murderers
to the scaffold was Hannah Shorten, a 'cunning woman' (a euphemism for 'witch') from
Wells. She had been implicated in another poisoning at Wighton a few years earlier.
Another 'cunning woman' involved in the story came from Docking and Salle.
The murderers and their victims lived in a row of three cottages
standing at right angles to what is now North Street. Bob and Kate Frary and their
three children lived in the one near the road above Thomas Lake's carpenters shop.
Next to them were Mary and Peter Taylor who both worked for Anderson the shoemaker (near
where Abbotts now stands). The last housed the Billings family, Fanny and Jim and
their fourteen children. The arsenic used in the poisonings was purchased from the
shop which is still The Pharmacy today.
Continued on Next Page
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