Devonport Gibbet Finally Blown Down
The following article was originally published in the
Devonport Telegraph
then reproduced by
The Times newspaper on 27 Sept 1827. The military hospital
that is referred to is today the home of Devonport High School. The gibbet, occasionally mentioned in Devonport local history books, stood
for 39 years and was visible from Stonehouse Creek (now infilled and a playing field).
It was also visible to persons leaving Stonehouse and entering Devonport through
the Mill Bridge Toll Gate.
QUOTE: The gibbet which was erected in the year 1788, at the foot of the south wall of
the Military Hospital, near Stoke church, and which has so long remained a conspicuous
object of terror and interest, from the tragic circumstances connected with its erection,
was blown down on Tuesday last, the wood being in a state of decay. On this gibbet
the bodies of two malefactors, named Richardson and Smith, were hung in chains,
in the month of March, 1788, in pursuance of their sentence in Exeter, where they
were tried, condemned, and executed, for the murder of Mr. Smith, a clerk in the
dockyard, whom they waylaid close by this spot, at nine o’clock in the evening of
the 21st of July, 1787, and cruelly murdered, out of revenge, it was supposed, for
some supposed injury received by Richardson, who was previously a labourer in the
yard. The body of Smith dropped within a few months, but that of Richardson hung for
nearly two years.
UNQUOTE:
Source
The Times, Tuesday, Sep 25, 1827; pg. 3; Issue 13393; col D - Accessed 14 April 2012.
(Available online from the
Times Digital Archive, freely accessible from UK libraries)