GEORGE FOSTER
Executed at Newgate, 18th of January, 1803, for the
Murder of his Wife and Child, by drowning them in the
Paddington Canal; with a Curious Account
of Galvanic Experiments on his Body
GEORGE FOSTER was put upon his trial, on the
horrid charge above mentioned, at the Old Bailey,
14th of January, 1803.
The Chief Baron, in summing up to the jury, said that
this was a case which almost entirely depended upon
circumstantial evidence, but in some cases that might be
the best evidence, as it was certainly the most difficult, if
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not impossible, to fabricate. The jury, after some con-
sultation, pronounced a verdict of guilty.
The recorder proceeded to pass sentence upon the
prisoner; which was, that he be hanged by the neck until
he be dead, and that then his body be delivered to be
anatomised, according to the law in that case made and
provided.
This unfortunate malefactor was executed pursuant to his
sentence, 18th of January, 1803. At three minutes after
eight he appeared on the platform before the debtors' door
in the Old Bailey, and after passing a short time in prayer
with Dr Ford, the ordinary of Newgate, the cap was pulled
over his eyes, when, the stage falling from under him, he was
launched into eternity. He had fully confessed his having
perpetrated the horrible crime for which he suffered.
After hanging the usual time, his body was cut down
and conveyed to a house not far distant, where it was sub-
jected to the galvanic process by Professor Aldini, under
the inspection of Mr Keate, Mr Carpue and several other
professional gentlemen. M. Aldini, who is the nephew of
the discoverer of this most interesting science, showed the
eminent and superior powers of galvanism to be far beyond
any other stimulant in nature. On the first application of
the process to the face, the jaws of the deceased criminal
began to quiver, and the adjoining muscles were horribly
contorted, and one eye was actually opened. In the subse-
quent part of the process the right hand was raised
and
clenched, and the legs and thighs were set in motion.1
Mr
Pass, the beadle of the Surgeons' Company, who was
1 An experiment was made on a convict
named Patrick Redmond,
who was hanged for a street robbery, on the 24th of February,
1767,
in order to bring him to life. It appeared that the sufferer had
hung
twenty-eight minutes when the mob rescued the body and carried it
to an appointed place,where a surgeon was in attendance to try
the experiment bronchotomy, which is an incision in the windpipe,
nd which in less than six hours produced the desired effect. A
collection was made for the poor fellow, and interest made to
obtain his pardon, for it will be remembered that the law says
the condemned shall hang until he be dead; consequently men
who, like Redmond, recovered, were liable to be again hanged
up until theywere dead.
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officially present during this experiment, was so alarmed
that he died of fright soon after his return home.
Some of the uninformed bystanders thought that the
wretched man was on the eve of being restored to life.
This, however, was impossible, as several of his friends, who
were under the scaffold, had violently pulled his legs, in order
to put a more speedy termination to his sufferings. The
experiment, in fact, was of a better use and tendency. Its
object was to show the excitability of the human frame
when this animal electricity was duly applied. In cases of
drowning or suffocation it promised to be of the utmost use,
by reviving the action of the lungs, and thereby rekindling
the expiring spark of vitality. In cases of apoplexy, or dis-
orders of the head, it offered also most encouraging prospects
for the benefit of mankind.
The professor, we understand, had made use of gal-
vanism also in several cases of insanity, and with complete
success. It was the opinion of the first medical men that this
discovery, if rightly managed and duly prosecuted, could not
fail to be of great, and perhaps as yet unforeseen, utility.
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