Volume IV
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torturing her Female Apprentices to Death Brownrigg, a plumber, who, after being seven years in Greenwich, came to London and took a house in Flower- de-Luce Court, Fleet Street, where he carried on a consider- able share of business, and had a little house at Islington for an occasional retreat. She had been the mother of sixteen children, and, having practised midwifery, was appointed by the overseers of the poor of St Dunstan's parish to take care of the poor women in the workhouse; which duty she performed to the entire satisfaction of her employers. Mary Mitchell, a poor girl, of the precinct of White- friars, was put apprentice to Mrs Brownrigg in the year 1765 ; and at about the same time Mary Jones, one of the children of the Foundling Hospital, was likewise placed with her in the same capacity; and she had other apprentices. As Mrs Brownrigg received pregnant women to lie-in privately, these girls were taken with a view of saving the expense of women-servants. At first the poor orphans were treated with some degree of civility; but this was soon changed for the most savage barbarity. Having laid Mary Jones across two chairs in the kitchen, she whipped her with such wanton cruelty that she was occasionally obliged to desist through mere weariness. This treatment was fre- quently repeated; and Mrs Brownrigg used to throw water on her when she had done whipping her, and sometimes she would dip her head into a pail of water. The room appointed for the girl to sleep in adjoined the passage leading to the street door, and, as she had received many  wounds on her head, shoulders and various parts of her body, she determined not to bear such treatment any longer if she could effect her escape. Observing that the key was left in the street door when the family went to bed, she opened the door cautiously one morning and escaped into the street. Thus freed from her horrid confinement, she repeatedly inquired her way to the Foundling Hospital till she found it, and was admitted, after describing in what manner she had been treated, and showing the bruises she had received. The child having been examined by a surgeon, who found her wounds to be of a most alarming nature, the governors of the hospital ordered Mr Plumbtree, their solicitor, to write to James Brownrigg, threatening a prosecution if he did not give a proper reason for the severities exercised towards the child. No notice of this having been taken, and the governors of the hospital thinking it imprudent to indict at common law, the girl was discharged, in consequence of an application to the Chamberlain of London. The other girl, Mary Mitchell, continued with her mistress for the space of a year, during which she was treated with equal cruelty, and she also resolved to quit her service. Having escaped out of the house, she was met in the street by the younger son of Brownrigg, who forced her to return home, where her sufferings were greatly aggravated on account of her elope- ment. In the interim the overseers of the precinct of White- friars bound Mary Clifford to Brownrigg; it was not long before she experienced similar cruelties to those inflicted on the other poor girls, and possibly still more severe. She was frequently tied up naked and beaten with a hearth broom, a horsewhip or a cane till she was absolutely speech- less. This poor girl having a natural infirmity, the mistress would not permit her to lie in a bed, but placed her on a mat in a coal-hole that was remarkably cold; however, after some time, a sack and a quantity of straw formed her bed, instead of the mat. During her confinement in this wretched situation she had nothing to subsist on but bread and water; and her covering, during the night, consisted only of her own clothes, so that she sometimes lay almost perished with cold. On a particular occasion, when she was almost starving with hunger, she broke open a cupboard in search of food, but found it empty; and on another occasion she broke down some boards, in order to procure a draught of water. Though she was thus pressed for the humblest necessaries of life, Mrs Brownrigg determined to punish her with rigour for the means she had taken to supply herself with them. On this she caused the girl to strip to the skin, and during the course of a whole day, while she remained naked, she repeatedly beat her with the butt-end of a whip. In the course of this most inhuman treatment a jack-chain was fixed round her neck, the end of which was fastened to the yard door, and then it was pulled as tight as possible without strangling her. A day being passed in the practice of these savage barbarities, the girl was remanded to the coal-hole at night, her hands being tied behind her, and the chain still remaining about her neck. The husband being obliged to find his wife's apprentices in wearing apparel, they were repeatedly stripped naked, and kept so for whole days, if their garments happened to be torn. Sometimes Mrs Brownrigg, when resolved on uncommon severity, used to tie their hands with a cord and draw them up to a water-pipe which ran across the ceiling in the kitchen; but that giving way, she desired her husband to fix a hook in the beam, through which a cord was drawn, and, their arms being extended, she used to horsewhip them till she was weary, and till the blood flowed at every stroke. The elder son one day directed Mary Clifford to put up a half-tester bedstead, but the poor girl was unable to do it; on which he beat her till she could no longer support his severity; and at another time, when the mother had been whipping her in the kitchen till she was absolutely tired, the son renewed the savage treatment. Mrs Brownrigg would sometimes seize the poor girl by the cheeks and, forcing the skin down violently with her fingers, cause the blood to gush from her eyes. Mary Clifford, unable to bear these repeated severities, complained of her hard treatment to a French lady who lodged in the house; and she having represented the im- propriety of such behaviour to Mrs Brownrigg, the inhuman monster flew at the girl and cut her tongue in two places with a pair of scissors. On the morning of the 13th of July this barbarous woman went into the kitchen and, after obliging Mary Clifford to strip to the skin, drew her up to the staple; and though her body was an entire sore, from former bruises, yet this wretch renewed her cruelties with her accustomed severity. After whipping her till the blood streamed down her body she let her down, and made her wash herself in a tub of cold water, Mary Mitchell, the other poor girl, being present during this transaction. While Clifford was washing herself Mrs Brownrigg struck her on the shoulders, already sore with former bruises, with the butt-end of a whip ; and she treated the child in this manner five times in the same day. At length the parish authorities were persuaded to take action, and Brownrigg was conveyed to Wood Street Compter; but his wife and son made their escape, taking with them a gold watch and some money. Mr Brownrigg was carried before Alderman Crossby, who committed him, and ordered the girls to be taken to St Bartholomew's Hospital, where Mary Clifford died within a few days. The coroner's inquest was summoned, and found a verdict of wilful murder against James and Elizabeth Brownrigg, and John, their son. In the meantime Mrs Brownrigg and her son shifted from place to place in London, bought clothes in Rag Fair to disguise themselves, and then went to Wandsworth, where they took lodgings in the house of Mr Dunbar, who kept a chandler's shop. This chandler, happening to read a newspaper on the 15th of August, saw an advertisement which so clearly described his lodgers that he had no doubt but they were the murderers. A constable went to the house, and the mother and son were conveyed to London. At the ensuing sessions at the Old Bailey the father, mother and son were indicted, when guilty of murder, and ordered for execution; but the man and his son, being acquitted of the higher charge, were de- tained, to take their trials for a misdemeanour, of which they were convicted, and imprisoned for the space of six months. After sentence of death was passed on Mrs Brownrigg she was attended by a clergyman, to whom she confessed the enormity of her crime, and acknowledged the justice of the sentence by which she had been condemned. The parting between her and her husband and son, on the morning of her execution, was affecting. The son fell on his knees, and she bent over him and embraced him; while the husband knelt on the other side. On her way to the fatal tree the people expressed their abhorrence of her crime in terms which testified their detestation of her cruelty. After execution her body was put into a hackney-coach, conveyed to Surgeons' Hall, dissected and anatomised; and her skeleton was hung up in Surgeons' Hall. |