Elizabeth Brownrigg
Elizabeth Brownrigg (1720 - 1767) was an eighteenth-century English murderess. She had whipped a 14-year-old girl, Mary Clifford, one of her domestic servants, repeatedly and so hard that the girl died from her cumulative injuries and associated infected wounds.
Elizabeth Brownrigg had been given custody of several female children as domestic servants from the London Foundling Hospital. She soon began to severely physical abuse her young charges. This often involved stripping the girls naked, chaining them to wooden beams or pipes, and then whipping them severely with switches, bullwhip handles and other implements for the slightest infraction of her rules.
Elizabeth Brownrigg was convicted for wilful murder and executed by hanging on September 14th, 1767, at Tyburn, London. Crowds condemned her on the way to her execution, and even sixty years later, the Newgate Calendar crime periodical still bore testimony to the impression that Elizabeth Brownrigg's crimes had made on Georgian and Victorian England.
Early life: 1720-1765
Born in 1720 to a working-class family, Elizabeth married James Brownrigg, an apprentice plumber, while still a teenager. She gave birth to sixteen children, but only three survived infancy. In 1765, Elizabeth, James, and their son John moved to Flower de Luce Road in London's Fetter Lane. James was prospering from his career as a plumber, and Elizabeth was a respected midwife. As a result of her work, Saint Dunstans Parish appointed her overseer of women and children, and she was given custody of several female children as domestic servants from the London Foundling Hospital.
Foundling Hospital: vocational and educational debate
Since Thomas Coram had founded it in 1739, there had been a constant debate about what the station of the Foundling Hospital's young charges should be. There was debate over whether they were being overeducated, or whether they should be subject to vocational education and trained for apprenticeships, which would lead to future stable lives as domestic servants.
The latter was decided upon, and the Foundling Hospital began to tender older children and young adolescents for vocational training as apprentices in 1759, shortly before the events described in this entry took place. Elizabeth Brownrigg was not the only abusive adult who used hapless children as virtual slave labor, however, as contemporary accounts indicate. After the events described in this entry, the Foundling Hospital instituted greater safeguards of oversight for apprenticeship tendering and reported cases of apprentice abuse dropped considerably.
Abuse of servants: 1765-1767
Illustration of Elizabeth Brownrigg flogging Mary Clifford from the Newgate CalendarThere is little biographical information available to explain her subsequent behavior. However, Elizabeth Brownrigg proved ill-suited to the task of caring for her foundling domestic servants and soon began to engage in severe physical abuse. This often involved stripping her young charges naked, chaining them to wooden beams or pipes, and then whipping them severely with switches, bullwhip handles, and other implements for the slightest infraction of her rules. Mary Jones, one of her earlier charges, ran away from her house and sought sanctuary with the London Foundling Hospital. After a medical examination, the Governors of the London Foundling Hospital demanded that James Brownrigg keep his wife's abusive tendencies in check, but enforced no further action.
Heedless of this reprimand, Brownrigg also severely abused two other domestic servants, Mary Mitchell and Mary Clifford. Like Jones before her, Mitchell sought refuge from the abusive behavior of her employer, but John Brownrigg forced her to return to Flower de Luce Road. Clifford was entrusted to Brownrigg's care, despite the Governors' earlier concerns about her abusive behavior toward her charges. As a result, Brownrigg engaged in more excessive punishment toward Clifford. She was kept naked, forced to sleep on a mat inside a coal hole, and when she forced open cupboards for food because she was fed only bread and water, Elizabeth Brownrigg repeatedly beat her for a day's duration, chained to a roof beam in her kitchen.
By June 1767, Mitchell and Clifford were experiencing infection of their untreated wounds, and Brownrigg's repeated assaults gave them no time to heal. However, Brownrigg's neighbors were beginning to suspect something was awry within her household, and resultantly, they asked the London Foundling Hospital to further investigate the premises. As a result, Brownrigg yielded Mary Mitchell, but Foundling Hospital Inspector Grundy then demanded to know where Clifford was, and took James Brownrigg prisoner, although Elizabeth and John Brownrigg escaped.
Public feeling ran high against the Brownrigg's, ensuring their capture would be swift. In Wandsworth, a chandler recognized the fugitives, and the trio stood trial in the Old Bailey in August 1767.
Trial and execution: August–September 1767
By this time, Mary Clifford had succumbed to her infected wounds, and Elizabeth Brownrigg was charged with her murder. At the trial, Mary Mitchell testified against her former employer, as did Grundy and an apprentice of James Brownrigg. Medical evidence and autopsy results indicated that Brownrigg's repeated assaults and negligence of Clifford's injuries had contributed to the fourteen-year-old Clifford's death, so Elizabeth Brownrigg was sentenced to hang at Tyburn and her corpse be publicly dissected. While awaiting execution she expressed remorse and prayed for salvation. Crowds condemned her on the way to her execution, and even sixty years later, the Newgate Calendar crime periodical still bore testimony to the impression that Elizabeth Brownrigg's crimes had made on Georgian and Victorian England. Both the Newgate Calendar and Old Bailey trial records are available online and are cited below.
See also [ People who made it into the news as a spanker or spankee ]
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Elizabeth_Brownrigg ]
External links
- Portrait engraving of Elizabeth Brownrigg by R. Cooper
- Elizabeth Brownrigg on Capital Punishment U.K. (article)
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