Some Distinguished Victims of the Scaffold

Narrow escapes were inevitable. On one occasion he was handing over a power of attorney for the transfer of stock to one of the clerks in the Consols Office at the Bank of England, when the person whose name he had forged entered the room. Yet Fauntleroy’s aplomb did not fail him. As soon as he perceived the new-comer, he requested the clerk to return the document, with the excuse that he wished to correct an omission. Then, having secured the paper, he went to greet the friend whom he was about to rob, and they strolled out of the bank together. Another day, one of his lady clients instructed a London broker to sell some stock for her. Finding no such investment registered in her name, the man called at Berners Street to make inquiries. To his surprise the plausible banker informed him that the lady had already desired him to effect the sale. “And here,” continued the smiling Fauntleroy, producing a number of Exchequer bills, “are the proceeds.” Although his customer protested that she had never authorised the transaction, the matter was allowed to drop. While a friend was chatting in his private office he is said to have been imitating his signature, which he took out to the counting-house before his companion had departed. One of the last occasions when he visited the Bank of England was on the 5th of January, the day on which Thurtell and Hunt were tried for the Gillshill murder. While the clerk was crediting the dividend warrants due to his firm, the banker conversed about the crime. It was noted as a strange coincidence that the same clerk was one of the witnesses against him.

One day in September 1824, Mr J. D. Hulme, an official of the Custom House, wishing to examine a list of investments belonging to an estate of which he had become a trustee, paid a visit to the Bank of England. To his amazement he found that a sum of £10,000 in Consols was missing, and inquiry proved that the stock had been sold by the Berners Street manager under a power of attorney. On the advice of Mr Freshfield, solicitor of the bank, an application was made to Mr Conant of Marlborough Street, who was induced to grant a warrant for the arrest of the suspected man. At last the wily Fauntleroy had been caught napping; for although he was aware that there was a risk of exposure, and had made preparations to reinvest the stolen Consols, he had not yet been able to complete the transaction.

During the whole of Thursday night, Samuel Plank, chief-officer of Marlborough Street, finding that the banker was away from home, paraded Berners Street watching for his return. On the next morning, the 10th of September, at his usual hour, the grave, neatly dressed forger walked into his place of business. A mean trick marked the arrest. Mr Goodchild, the other co-trustee of the plundered estate, entered the counting-house a few moments before Plank, and proceeded into the private office, while the constable, pretending to cash a cheque, remained at the counter. When through the half-closed door of the inner room he saw that the victim and decoy were closeted together, the police-officer pushed past the astonished clerks, explaining that he wanted to speak to their employer. As Fauntleroy raised his eyes from his desk, and saw a warrant in the intruder’s hand, he realised that the visit of his friend was merely a device to place him in the hand of the law.

“Good God!” exclaimed the doomed man. “Cannot this business be settled?”

And tradition relates that he offered Plank a bribe of ten thousand pounds to allow him to escape. But the officer proved incorruptible, and soon the banker was standing in the presence of his astonished friend, Magistrate John Conant, who, though sore distressed, was compelled to commit him to Coldbath Fields prison.

“I alone am guilty,” cried the wretched Fauntleroy, in a burst of penitence. “My colleagues did not know!”

Like the great model whom he had striven to emulate, the vain man had found his Moscow. No longer was he the dandy banker of Berners Street, whose friendship had been sought by so many rich men from the City. The days of the lavish Corinthian, the associate of ‘bang-up pinks and bloods’ had passed away for ever, and he had become a criminal, standing beneath the shadow of the gallows!

While Mr Freshfield, with the aid of the constable, proceeded to execute his right of search, the members of the firm were summoned to town. At first the catastrophe was not appreciated to the full extent. On the following morning the bank opened its doors, and customers paid and drew their cheques as usual. However, before the close of the day the proprietors sent an announcement to the press that “in consequence of the extraordinary conduct of their partner,” they had determined for the present to suspend payment.

During the whole of Monday, the 13th of September, an excited throng took possession of Berners Street – neighbouring tradesmen trembling for their deposits; men from the City dismayed by the wildest rumours. A force of police was deemed necessary to prevent a riot. “Arrest of Mr Fauntleroy, the well-known banker!” The amazing tidings was upon every lip. A similar sensation had not been experienced in the memory of man. Since the days of Dr Dodd, half a century before, none so high in the social scale had been accused of such a crime. All the week, panic reigned in business houses. It was whispered that the defalcations would reach half a million pounds: that the greatest commercial scandal of the age would be disclosed. One day, it was said that Fauntleroy had arranged a plan of escape; on another, that he had cut his throat with a razor.

In the presence of a crowd of his creditors, the forger – crushed, despairing, overwhelmed with the deepest shame – was brought up for his first examination at Marlborough Street on the following Saturday. Although not more than forty, his hair, prematurely grey, made him look much older. During ten long years of torture the slow fires of suspense must have burnt deep into his soul, and the reality of this fatal hour would seem less cruel than the dreaded expectation. One observer states that “his expression is of pure John Bull good-nature”; another declares that he had “a mild Roman contour of visage”; while his dress was the inevitable blue tail-coat and trousers, with half-boots and a light-coloured waistcoat – the morning attire of all gentlemen of the period from Lord Alvanley and Ball Hughes down to Corinthian Tom.

On the Friday week following his first examination, the forger stood once more in the dock at Marlborough Street. Two maiden ladies, Miss Frances and Miss Elizabeth Young, whose small fortune had been stolen, gave testimony against the prisoner. Pained to see the man whom they had honoured and trusted in this terrible position, the tender-hearted women were tearful and distressed. Since the maiden name of Mrs Henry Fauntleroy was the same as theirs, rumour leapt to the conclusion that these witnesses were the sisters of the prisoner’s wife. When the unfortunate banker was seen to flush deeply as Miss Young appeared in the witness-box, the error was confirmed.

It was not until the 19th of October that the accused went through his third and last examination. Although well-groomed and immaculate as ever, he was a mere shadow of the placid, inscrutable man of business who had borne his guilty secret so boldly and so long. There was “rather a ghastly than a living hue upon his countenance,” remarks the stylist who reports for The Times. All the necessary charges being proved, he was committed to Newgate, his removal being postponed until Thursday, the 21st of October, on the application of his solicitor.

Meanwhile the London press had revelled in the case. Scarcely a day passed without a reference to the forger or to the forgery, and there was the greatest strife among the various newspapers to secure the most lurid reports. Many times we have the amusing spectacle of two journals belabouring each other like the envious editors in Pickwick. Even the recent crime of John Thurtell – for in this wonderful fourth year of his Gracious Majesty King George IV. the lucky public was satiated with melodrama, while Jemmy Catnach’s pockets were overflowing with gold – did not offer such chances of sensational reports. It was announced to an amazed public that Fauntleroy had squandered the proceeds of his forgeries in riot and dissipation. One-half of his private life was disclosed to public ears; and though some of the newspapers were merciful, just as others were hostile to the prisoner, one and all, with very few exceptions, probed deep into his murky past.

Happily, there is no evidence to justify the supposition that the partners in the Berners Street bank – and in particular Mr J. H. Stracey, who thirty years later succeeded to the baronetcy held in turn by his father and his two brothers – were responsible for the dastardly attacks upon the defenceless man. Even had he given no public denial to the charge, such an assumption is impossible in the case of an honourable man like the late Sir Josias Stracey. Moreover, the identity of the person who inspired the disgraceful accounts in The Times and other journals is easy to discern.

This spiteful enemy bursts upon the stage of the sad tragedy of Fauntleroy like the comic villain of melodrama – too contemptible to hate, but with a humour too crapulous for whole-hearted laughter. Joseph Wilfred Parkins – elected Sheriff of London on the 24th of June 1819 – appears to have been one of the most blatant humbugs that ever belonged to the objectionable family of Bumble. Tradition relates that he was the son of a blacksmith who lived on the borders of Inglewood Forest in Cumberland; but Parkins, too proud to know from whence he came, preferred to pass as a bastard of the Duke of Norfolk. In his early youth, we are told that “he was apprenticed to a breeches-maker in Carlisle, but his dexterity as a workman not being commensurate with his powers of digestion, a separation took place.” Afterwards he sailed to Calcutta, where, assisted by letters of introduction from his patron the Duke, he established a lucrative business. In other ways, according to account, he was a success in India, where he became famous for hunting tigers with English greyhounds, and once shot a coolie for disobeying his orders, two miles and a half distant, right through the head, across the Ganges, and through an impenetrable jungle! On another occasion he claimed to have ridden stark naked in mid-day, on a barebacked horse without bridle, fifty miles in six hours, for a wager, and to have trotted back for pleasure without even a drink of water. When he returned to his native land with the treasures of the East, it was inevitable that such a man should win notoriety. Having failed to gain the affections of Queen Caroline, who preferred Alderman Wood for a beau, he devoted himself to Olive Serres, ‘Princess of Cumberland’ and became her champion and literary collaborator. One of the achievements on which he most prided himself was the refusal to marry a daughter of Lord Sidmouth, who was most eager to become his father-in-law. Sometimes we behold him fawning upon Lord Mayor Waithman and Orator Hunt. At others, no one excels him in hurling abuse at these same celebrities. During a portion of his career a charmer named Hannah White caused him much trouble. Probably he enjoys the unique honour of being the only Sheriff of London upon whom the Court of Common Council has passed a vote of censure for his conduct while in office.

For some years this great Parkins was a familiar friend of Henry Fauntleroy. “I have been looking out for you in town these three or four days,” the banker writes to him in May 1816, “as we have a dance this evening, and lots of pretty girls, and I know you are an admirer of them.” However, just after the arrest, the ex-Sheriff suspected his former associate unjustly of a breach of faith, and thus became his most deadly enemy, placing his intimate knowledge of his friend’s habits at the service of the hostile press. In order to exhibit the bankers depravity, he published a communication from the fair but frail Corinthian Kate, known in real life as ‘Mother Bang’ but the context chiefly serves to indicate that Parkins treasured a grudge because his friend had never introduced him to the lady. Even after the criminal had received sentence his animosity did not cease. “The penalty for forgery should be the gallows,” he declared at a meeting of the Berners Street creditors, “until the law discovered a worse punishment.” When the only son of the condemned man, a youth of fifteen, wrote to the papers, pleading that mercy should be shown to his father, the vindictive ex-Sheriff declared in the columns of the Morning Chronicle (as it proved, falsely) that the boy was not the author of the appeal. Nor did he scruple to print private letters from Mrs Fauntleroy to her husband in order to show that she was an ill-used wife.

Great indulgence was shown to the banker – for a forger always was treated with lenience – during his term of imprisonment at the Old Bailey. The same consideration – which aroused the ire of Parkins to boiling point – had been paid to him while he was under the care of Mr Vickery, ex-Bow Street runner, at that time the Governor of Coldbath Fields bridewell. On this account there arose a very pretty quarrel, at which, of course, the newspapers assisted, between John Edward Conant of Marlborough Street and an elderly magistrate of Hammersmith named John Hanson. The latter was accused of intruding into Fauntleroy’s room at the House of Correction, when the following conversation is said to have taken place:

“You are the banker from Berners Street, aren’t you?” demanded the visitor.

“Yes, I am that unfortunate person, sir,” answered the prisoner.

“Oh, then you’d better look to your soul,” was the reply. “Look to your Bible. Read your Bible.”

Although poor old Hanson, who was struck off the list of visiting justices in consequence of his officiousness, made many earnest protests that he had been misrepresented, and although Fauntleroy acquitted him of all intent to offend, it would appear that his observations were superfluous, whatever their precise form.

At Newgate the kind-hearted Mr Wontner – keeper of the gaol from 1822 till his premature death at the age of fifty in 1833 – allowed the unfortunate banker every privilege that lay in his power. Thus his prison was no gloomy dungeon, but a large and well-furnished room, occupied by a turnkey named Harris, who removed into an adjacent apartment, and who, together with his wife, watched over and attended to the wants of his charge. Convinced that his case was hopeless, it is said that Fauntleroy resolved to plead guilty; but, urged by his friends, and by his solicitors, Messrs Forbes & Harmer, he was induced at last to abandon the intention.

James Harmer, who conducted his defence, was the great criminal lawyer of his day – a prototype of Mr Jaggers – the prince of Old Bailey attorneys. Among his clients were such diametrically opposite characters as Joseph Hunt of Gillshill fame, and lusty Sam Bamford of Middleton. The incidents of Mr Fauntleroy’s case offered many opportunities for his versatile talents; and although he failed to teach good manners to The Times newspaper, he did much service to his age, by means of a side issue, in getting Joseph Parkins indicted for perjury. Yet the greatest abilities could do little to extenuate the Berners Street forgeries. Still, whether or not he had a weakness for scented soap, Harmer never fought in kid gloves, as the unfortunate Messrs Marsh, Stracey, & Graham – whom he was compelled to damage in the interests of the man he defended – found to their cost. Those inclined to accuse Charles Dickens of exaggeration should bear in mind that murderer Hunt, who chose Jaggers Harmer as his solicitor, escaped the hangman’s rope, while Thurtell, who employed another lawyer, was handed over to Thomas Cheshire.

The trial of Fauntleroy on Saturday, the 30th of October, did not attract the mob of respectables that officialdom had anticipated. A guinea entrance-fee proved prohibitive. Press and law students alone furnished their crowds, and the private galleries were patronised but poorly. Joseph Parkins, eager to witness the humiliation of the man whom he had chosen to regard as an enemy, was an early arrival, taking his place at the barristers’ table in front of the dock, where, in full view of the prisoner, he could gloat over his misery. Luckily, Sheriff Brown, whose humanity – like that of his colleague John Key – was in advance of the age, witnessed the manœuvre, and, appreciating the motive of the truculent nabob, sent an officer of the court to tell him that his seat was engaged. Parkins, whose fierce eyes, glaring from beneath bushy, overhanging brows, seemed to inflame his combative features and fiery locks, turned in outraged dignity upon the official.

“Do you know to whom you speak, sir?” he articulated.

“Know you?” was the reply. “To be sure I do. Come, be off!”

So the ‘XXX Sheriff’ was forced to make his exit by climbing ignominiously over seats and benches, to the infinite mirth and advantage of the gentlemen of the press.

At ten o’clock Justice Park and Baron Garrow come into court, followed by the Attorney-General, the great Sir John Copley, soon to be Lord Lyndhurst, who, instructed by Mr Freshfield, solicitor to the bank, has charge of the prosecution. John Gurney, afterwards a judge, who, like Scarlett and Adolphus, is one of the great criminal barristers of his day, defends the prisoner. The buzz of many voices is hushed into silence as Fauntleroy is placed at the bar. Jaggers Harmer accompanies him. For a moment he is dazzled by the glare from the inverted mirror above the dock. Making a feeble attempt to bow to his judges, he almost falls back into the arms of the attendants. With closed eyes and bent head, shrinking from the universal gaze, he stands with trembling fingers resting on the bar – a picture of unutterable shame. Thin and worn are his features, and his face is pale as death, while his hair, thrown into contrast by his full suit of black, has become white as though sprinkled with powder.

The Attorney-General proceeds with the first indictment, that which charges the prisoner with transferring under a forged deed £5450 Three per cent. Consols, belonging to Miss Frances Young. During the speech there comes a disclosure amazing to everyone in court save the man in the dock and those who defend him. In a private box found at Berners Street after his arrest, a document has been discovered containing a list of stolen securities. Upon this paper, written and signed by the hand of Fauntleroy, and dated the 7th of May 1816, are these words, which, as Sir John Copley reads them, bewilder all his hearers: —

“In order to keep up the credit of our house I have forged powers of attorney, and have thereupon sold out all these sums, without the knowledge of my partners. I have given credit in the accounts for the interest when it became due. The Bank (of England) began first to refuse our acceptances, and thereby to destroy the credit of our house; they shall smart for it.”

Attorney-General and rest of the world are much puzzled, concluding that but for unaccountable negligence the prisoner would have destroyed this seemingly incriminating document; as though a forger would not prefer that his frauds should be thought to have been actuated rather by devotion to his business and revenge against the unpopular Old Lady of Threadneedle Street than merely for the sake of self-aggrandisement. “The Bank of England shall smart for it!” Were the story credible – were Fauntleroy, in fact, a small defaulter – we may well believe that another fierce outcry would have arisen against the wicked old harridan of the City.

There is little difficulty in proving the indictment, while the poor wretch in the dock sits huddled in his chair, trying vainly to conceal his face with his handkerchief. A couple of his own clerks swear that the signature to the deed is a forgery. Tear-stained Miss Young, whom most regard as the sister-in-law of the accused man, proves that her slender store of investments has been pilfered. Officials of the Bank show that the unhappy prisoner was the thief. There crops up a curious instance of the naïveté of British jurisprudence. For Threadneedle Street has been obliged to refund the stocks belonging to Miss Young in order to make her ‘a competent witness’ lest it might seem that she has a motive in affirming or denying the forgery of the power of attorney. Thus the Old Lady confesses that she has bribed a witness in order that this witness may not be suspected of trying to obtain a bribe!

When Fauntleroy is called upon for his defence, he manages to stagger to his feet. The law of England will not allow his counsel to speak for him. Drawing a paper from his bosom, and wiping away the tears that stream from his eyes, he adjusts his glasses. Then, in a clumsy, insincere manner, like a schoolboy’s recitation, he begins to read a long apology. It is apparent that he has not written the speech himself, and it makes no impression. Commencing with a complaint against the false and libellous accounts in the press, he sketches the history of the Berners Street Bank in order to show that it has received the benefit of the whole of his forgeries; describing how he alone has borne the burden of the business and the anxiety of perilous speculations, while his partners have given him no assistance. All his frauds were accomplished to cover commercial losses, the withdrawal of borrowed capital, and the overdrafts of two of his colleagues. To every one of the charges of prodigality he offers an emphatic denial. In conclusion, he makes a pathetic vindication of his conduct towards his wife, declaring that not only are the statements published in the newspapers false, but that she has had always the best of feeling towards him.

Although just and merciful, the address of the judge is hostile to the prisoner, and the jury, who retire at ten minutes to three, return in less than a quarter of an hour with a verdict of guilty. Exhausted with his long ordeal, poor Fauntleroy is incapable of exhibiting emotion. A vacant expression is stamped on his pallid features, and when Justice Park tells him that the trial is over he sinks listlessly into his chair. Raising him in his arms, Governor Wontner supports him from the dock.

On the following Tuesday, when the convict is brought up to hear his doom in the New Court, Messrs Broderick and Alley move an arrest of judgment on certain technical points of law. Justice Park, who is said to have been acquainted with the prisoner, does not attend, but neither Baron Garrow nor the Recorder will accept the empty but ingenuous arguments of counsel. The prisoner reads a paper, stating that when he committed the forgeries he had expected to repay the money when his house prospered. Thus he begs for mercy from the Crown. Sentence of death is the reply.

After the publication of Fauntleroy’s defence, the press attacks – as no doubt Jaggers Harmer had foreseen – are turned against the unlucky partners. All the statements of the condemned man find acceptance, like the protests of every criminal, and it is believed that his colleagues must be guilty of complicity in the frauds. From The Times comes a demand that Messrs Marsh, Stracey, and Graham shall be examined before the Privy Council! A petition for reprieve is promoted by the creditors of the Berners Street house, on the plea that Fauntleroy’s evidence is necessary to elucidate the intricate accounts. Another lies at the office of Harmer’s paper, the Weekly Dispatch.

Condemned convicts are quartered still, and for many years afterwards, in the part of the prison known as the Press Yard – a walled quadrangle, where they are allowed to herd together indiscriminately during certain hours, adjacent to a three-storied building containing a day-room and the cells in which they are locked at night. Being a person of consequence, the miserable banker does not share this ignominy, but returns to the same apartment that he had occupied before his trial. Since the use of fetters had been abolished in Newgate, he is not required to endure even the ‘light manacles’ which some of the papers state he is wearing.

Remaining faithful to the end, although so deeply wronged, his poor wife is a constant visitor. His brother John, a London solicitor, and his fifteen-year-old son, reported variously as being educated at Winchester and Westminster (afterwards at Skinner’s, Tonbridge), come frequently to the prison. The beautiful Maria Fox, a mere schoolgirl when first she became his mistress, and who appears to be deeply attached to her protector, brings her two baby daughters to Newgate. Few men in their last hours have witnessed more terrible examples of the ruin they have wrought than the weak and self-indulgent Henry Fauntleroy.