Funeral for murderer hanged in 1821

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. 

Its front was embossed with a skull and crossbones at each corner and the words Cutis Vera Johannis Horwood (‘The Skin of John Horwood’) were added in gilt letters.
Dr Smith kept the skeleton, complete with a noose round the neck, in a cabinet at his Bristol home, showing it off to guests, until it was moved to Bristol University.
Yesterday, it was transported along Hanham High Street in a black coffin and buried in the village graveyard after a funeral attended by more than 50 mourners.

Mrs Halliwell, who lives in Leigh, Lancashire, with husband David, 66, said: ‘The ceremony was wonderful, and it’s very humbling that so many people came to pay their respects.’
In the condemned cell, Horwood did admit to having violent intentions towards his former sweetheart, writing: ‘Lord, thou knowest that I did not mean to take away her life but merely to punish her, though I confess that I had made up my mind, some time or other, to murder her.’

However on the day of his execution, he left behind a poignant verse which read: ‘John Horwood is my wretched name and Hanham gave me birth. My previous time has been employed in rioting and mirth.
‘Eliza, oh Eliza dear! Thy spirit, oh, is fled! And thy poor mangled body lies now numbered with the dead.
‘Curs’d is the hand that gave the blow. And curs’d the fatal stone, which made thy precious life blood flow. For it has me undone.’



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