I’m sorta a 19th century history buff and I came across this fascinating story of a man falsely hanged of murder. John Horwood was as much a victim as the girl who really died at the hands of an unscrupulous doctor who was the real monster in this case.
It was good that John was finally given a proper Christian burial.
Daily Mail reports spotting his former sweetheart strolling with a new beau on the hillside near her West Country cottage was too much for infatuated teenager John Horwood.
His emotions in turmoil, the 17-year-old picked up a pebble and hurled it at Eliza Balsum. It hit her on the right temple and she tumbled into a brook, triggering a bizarre sequence of events which led to John being publicly executed for her murder in 1821.
His body was dissected in the name of medical research, and his skeleton ended up in a university display cabinet. The final gruesome twist was that a doctor had his corpse flayed and a book about the dissection bound with his skin.
Had it not been for amateur genealogist Mary Halliwell, this macabre tale would have ended there.
But after finding letters from his bereaved parents pleading for him to have a proper funeral and then proving she was a descendant of Horwood, Mrs Halliwell tracked down his remains and was declared the legal owner of the skeleton.
Yesterday, 190 years after John was hanged before a baying mob, he was finally laid to rest in his home village of Hanham, on the outskirts of Bristol.
Mrs Halliwell, 67, whose great-great-great grandfather was John’s brother, said: ‘My wish was to lay him to rest as his parents wanted, and for him to be buried in a dignified way. It will give me peace of mind that I have put closure to it.’
John Horwood’s story not only shows how harsh the justice system was in 1821, it also reveals that medical techniques were positively barbaric. For Eliza Balsum did not die as a result of Horwood’s moment of impetuosity.
The pebble that struck her as she walked with her new boyfriend, William Waddy, made only a small wound.
She was initially treated at home.
But when she went to Bristol Royal Infirmary to get the wound dressed properly, chief surgeon Richard Smith decreed that it had become infected and decided to operate. That meant trephining – drilling a hole in the unfortunate girl’s head – to relieve pressure. This caused an abscess and seven days later Eliza died.
Dr Smith alerted the police to the stone-thrower’s identity and John was arrested.
The surgeon also formed part of the prosecution at a one-day trial at the Star Inn in Bedminster, Bristol, at which Horwood was condemned to death.
He was hanged at New Bristol Gaol on April 13, 1821, three days after his 18th birthday, and his body was requisitioned by Dr Smith for medical research.
Could he have lobbied for a guilty verdict not only to divert attention from his own disastrous operation on Eliza, but also knowing it would produce a fresh cadaver for his researches?
Horwood’s family pleaded that his body be released to them for burial, but Dr Smith refused. A group of friends and relatives even tried unsuccessfully to hijack the cart taking the body from the prison to the hospital.
Dr Smith dissected the corpse in front of 80 people at one of his medical classes. The findings were then bound with a transcript of the trial in a book. Smith’s final, macabre flourish was to send Horwood’s flayed skin to a tanner, where it was turned into leather and used to cover the book.
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