The noose of samuel burr.., p.1
The Noose of Samuel Burrows, page 1
For my loving family
First published in Great Britain in 2025 by
PEN AND SWORD TRUE CRIME
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire – Philadelphia
Copyright © Nick Kevern, 2025
ISBN 978 1 03611 070 3
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Chapter 1The Hangman’s Burden
Chapter 2Life Before the Noose
Chapter 3The Men Who Dropped Twice
Chapter 4A Done Deal
Chapter 5Rage Against the Machines
Chapter 6A Very Public Ordeal
Chapter 7The Tragedy of Miss Porter
Chapter 8This Time It’s Personal
Chapter 9The Devil’s Bank Notes
Chapter 10The Road to Near Ruin
Chapter 11Five Days Racing and a Hanging
Chapter 12On the Road Again
Chapter 13Dead Man’s Clothes
Chapter 14The Changing Tide
Chapter 15The Curious Case of Charles Burrows
Chapter 16The Hangman’s Idle Hands
Chapter 17Tears of the Hangman
Chapter 18When the Hangman Came to Beaumaris
Chapter 19The Hat on the Wye
Chapter 20The Swinger Rioters
Chapter 21The Final Dance of Death
Chapter 22Fading Away
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
I WOULD LIKE to sincerely thank everyone who has been a part of this book in one way or another. The staff at the Chester Record Offices have been faultless in their desire to help me gather as much as they possibly could relating to the life and times of Samuel Burrows. Without your professionalism and enthusiasm, this would not have been possible. I would also like to thank the staff at the British Library, National Archives, North East Wales Archives and Shropshire Archives for all their help in gathering the necessary records for me.
The support of Trevor Summerhill at Ye Olde Cottage in Chester will never be forgotten during this time and I have enjoyed all of our talks regarding the book. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Steve Howe and Rob Hayes for their constant support and efforts in helping me to ensure that this book was completed. I would also like to thank the staff at the Cross Keys who hosted the event that led to the writing of this book.
Writing a book is far from a straightforward affair. For this reason I am indebted to Amy Jordan at Pen & Sword books for commissioning The Noose of Samuel Burrows. Your guidance and support has been greatly appreciated throughout. I am also grateful for the work of Jon Wilkinson who has produced an amazing and eye-catching cover and Paul Middleton, my editor, for going through this book with a fine toothcomb.
Finally I would like to thank my family and friends who have supported me throughout the writing of this book and helped to keep me sane, especially Gracie Clarke. Without the love and support of Gracie, this book would simply not have happened in the first place. Your constant encouragement has meant everything to me.
Author’s Note
IF THE NAME of Samuel Burrows is unfamiliar to you then don’t despair. You are not alone.
Samuel Burrows did nothing significant. He never won major battles, never held a high office, and never made decisions that impacted a country. In the era of Georgian Britain, he was simply no one. Like many, his primary aim was to survive by any means necessary as inflation and war ravaged the country. With the whiff of revolution in the air, it would be men like Samuel Burrows who were used as a weapon of fear to those contemplating a revolt. For hardened criminals, his pounding footsteps would be the last they would hear. For the innocent, caught up in the legal wranglings of the country’s ‘Bloody Code’, his face would be the last that they would see before they were blinded by the hood he placed over their head.
Burrows would often state that it was nothing personal as he pulled the lever that would send many into eternity. Their crimes meant little to him so long as he got paid. Soon, like most things in life, the money became all that mattered to him.
As an early nineteenth-century hangman, Burrows witnessed change at first hand and those that he executed ranged from those who committed a simple mistake of desperation to those who murdered for love. Those who revolted against the excessive changes to the country and the highwaymen who stole from others.
It was also a time of judicial progress that affected Burrows directly. The so-called ‘Bloody Code’ ensured that nearly 220 crimes were punishable by death, which meant that Burrows was a busy man. However, he would see his profession suffer as reforms were introduced to reduce the need for his grizzly rope.
In many respects, this is the Georgian world that you may not have come across. The gala balls where the rich danced and ate heartily are not to be seen here. Instead, the working-class Georgian story is one about survival where sometimes the reward of criminality outweighed the risk.
As the Georgian era came to an end, so too did the era of public execution and before long the hysteria of crowds gathering to watch someone die vanished. For the men who completed this horrific task, the burden was great but the riches were greatly received. The work would see Burrows perform executions not only in his home town of Chester but travel to Beaumaris, Carnarvon (now Caernarfon), Hereford, Shrewsbury and Ruthin.
Despite this, Burrows is rarely mentioned even in the city which he once called home. For a man who enjoyed his own celebrity, the city hardly recalls his name. It would be in the archives where this man would see out his memory, waiting for the moment for someone to remember him and remind people of who he really was.
While a biography of Burrows is all but impossible, it is feasible to look at his life in considerable detail through the stories of those who faced him during their final moments on the earth. From the surgeons who performed dissections, to the public houses who regularly served him, it is possible to reveal more about Georgian Chester through the eyes of those who called the place home.
You might not have known who Burrows was before you opened this book but soon you will know him, and those who he condemned, in ways you never imagined. History might have forgotten about Samuel Burrows for so long but now is the time to reawaken a story from the past.
Chapter 1
The Hangman’s Burden
Brook Street, Chester, October 1835
SAMUEL BURROWS WAS all alone. The flickering embers of his fireplace were his only companion as the crackling flames filled the room with its only noise. His wife, Mary, had passed away months earlier and with this firmly on his mind, he knew that it was only a matter of time before he would be joining her. The abdominal pains that he was feeling had intensified due to a liver complaint that he was experiencing and were made even worse as he began to drink himself into oblivion.1 While it was indeed true that Samuel had spent the vast majority of his later life in a state of inebriation, he had recently taken it to a whole different level since his wife’s passing. Like the fire that lay in front of him, he knew everything would eventually fade over time and eventually burn out. Samuel was no different.
The intense pain had left him practically bed bound in his Brook Street abode as the world continued to turn around him. While he could still move around, he did so sparingly in order to preserve any remaining energy that he still had. The fatigue had taken its hold on him once again as the last life of the fire was beginning to burn out. Above the fire was his only portrait. It was a portrait of himself from what he perceived to be better times. Rather than an old man in poor health struggling to stay warm on the chilly October night, it reminded him about how proudly he once stood. It
was a time when his name was known throughout the county of Cheshire as the people of the City of Chester eagerly watched his every move.
In Samuel’s eyes, he was an important man within Cestrian circles. It was why he had his crude silhouette portrait made in the first place. Looking at his portrait, he remembered heading to 51 Bridge Street Row in order to have it made. It was here where a small group of artists from London had arrived creating what they called ‘likenesses’; a silhouettebased drawing using the side of the sitter’s face. Once that silhouette was drawn, the artist would then add further details but on the whole it gave the sitter a crude likeness to take away for themselves.2
The portrait had cost Burrows 1 shilling and came complete with glass and frame, which he mounted proudly on the wall of his Brook Street residence. Burrows recalled the excitement on the faces of the artists when he revealed who he was. Knowing that a local celebrity was in attendance, the artists asked for his consent for the image to be used for some further promotion of their tour schedule. Needless to say, the thought of his image being used in the local press filled Burrows with joy. Of course, they could use it.
His image would later appear in the Chester Courant on 29 August 1826, in order to promote the artist’s visit to the city. Burrows loved nothing more than seeing his face, albeit the side of his face, in the papers. Underneath his image, it simply stated ‘Sammy Burrows, the Executioner of the City’.3
For Samuel, it was one of the few times that people did not recoil in fear when he stated what he did for a living. Many around him knew exactly who he was. He was the ‘finisher of the law’ who unleashed the ultimate punishment on condemned criminals. He was loathed and feared in equal measure by the general public, but in Samuel’s eyes he was simply a cog in the wheel of the kingdom’s system of justice. Yet, it was a job that he fulfilled brazenly and without remorse. The law was the law in his mind and he gratefully received the riches of his hangman’s wage.
The younger man who he remembered as the flames were slowly dying was far from the man he was at this particular moment of time. Now he was beginning to wonder what was to become of him. Questions surrounding forgiveness began to race around his mind as this once notorious, hardened man was clinging to life. His approaching demise had made him think about his life in ways he had never thought of it before. Would the gates of heaven be open to him or would the eternal damnation of the flames that he was currently staring at take his soul?
He felt yet another throbbing in his stomach. The pain was so intense that he huddled over, eager to vomit yet nothing was coming from his mouth. He reached over for some ale and gulped it down. The thirst grew ever more and no matter how much he consumed it couldn’t be fully quenched. Drinking had always been a part of Samuel’s life, and now it was helping to end it too.
There was a loud crackle from the fire as the remaining wood began to split. In his mind, it sounded similar to the crowds that used to attend his executions at the New City Gaol. Burrows closed his eyes in a vain attempt to visualise them. Crowds stretching in their thousands would come from all around the county of Cheshire to see him at work. Some of his performances he could remember vividly, while others were blurred by the alcohol he consumed prior to the execution.
As he stood on top of the gates of the New City Gaol he could hear the wood wince beneath his feet with every step he took. Looking around him he could see the multitude of people. He remembered the look on their faces as the condemned dropped beneath him. While some were shocked by the events happening before their eyes, others cheered, almost salivating with joy at the macabre performance that they were witnessing. Burrows began to chuckle as he remembered placing his own head in the noose and mimicking the impending death of the condemned. While some would laugh as he did this, others were quick to show their disdain for him. Seeing this in his mind, it finally dawned on him that he was an acquired taste.
The portrait above the fire was beginning to fade out of his sight as the flames were quickly running out of oxygen. It was something that would eventually happen to us all, Burrows thought to himself, as he began to wonder more and more about his final breath. Burrows began to think about those who he took that final breath away from. As the condemned dropped, Burrows would encourage even more cheers as the crowd went wild. The aim was that the fall and the placement of the noose behind the head of the victim would see an instant death, but Burrows did not always allow that to happen. For him, sensationalism was all part of the performance. For many of those he executed, it would be a slower, more agonising death as their neck failed to break. Instead, they would find themselves slowly strangled and struggling high above the crowd in a futile effort to prolong their life. Once the final shake was complete and their soul departed their body, Burrows would leave them there for up to an hour. When it came to professionalism, Burrows was the kind of man who saw the satisfaction of the crowd as more important than the condemned’s final moments of humility.
Burrows remembered the reprimands that he received. The calls for more professionalism were not restricted to the powers that be but also from the press and the crowd itself. Burrows, however, laughed them off; after all, the criminals were dead and therefore he had completed his job.
Another drink was needed to ease his prolonged cough. He reached around but the dying flickers of the fire had brought the room to near darkness. Burrows let out a curse as he knocked his drink over. As it spilled into the wooden beams, he knew that he would have to go without until the morning. But he still was not ready to sleep no matter how tired he was.
Somehow his life had always revolved around the idea of death. Whether it was to execute condemned criminals or during his previous life as a butcher. The carcass, the stillness of it all. Although the animal was already dead, there was a striking similarity to those who he saw hang after the last ebbs of life frittered away. Butchery ran through his veins. It had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember ever since he served as an apprentice in Ravensmoor. Moving to Chester in the late eighteenth century, he quickly found work in the Shambles area of Chester on Northgate Street working in the makeshift wooden shacks that filled the area around the Exchange in Market Square. It was hard, gruelling work with long hours. The money that he made was simply not stretching far enough anymore as his family grew.
His family had become a distant shadow and yet he began to think of them right now. There was, of course, a reason as to why no one was there for him when he needed them the most. From the moment Mary passed away, he knew he was all alone. His oldest son Henry had died in service in the East Indies but he had a feeling that his youngest son Charles was still alive and well. There was, however, no time for Charles to see his dying father. He was in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) on the other side of the world. Charles would be another consequence that Samuel now had plenty of time to think about.4
The darkness had finally arrived. With it came the shadows of the fifty-three souls that Burrows had joyfully sent to meet their maker.5 Each one had their own stories to tell, their own reasons for walking up the rickety steps and up the gallows to face the man who would soon send them into eternity. While Burrows cared little to hear them, the darkness heightened his senses and it consumed him. He clung to the notion that they were destined to face him due to the crimes that they had committed, but in reality even Burrows knew that it really was not that simple. No matter how he tried to justify it, he had still taken a life and for that reason he needed to repent.
Thankfully he knew that once the morning arrived the Reverend William Clarke would be here. Only then could he find the Lord’s forgiveness. Until then though, he needed to sleep, no matter how much the shadows of the condemned wouldn’t let him. Hopefully, in repenting his sins, the Lord would release the hangman from his burden.6
It was all but dark in Samuel Burrows’ bedroom by the time the Reverend Clarke arrived. Prompt as always, he arrived ahead of time, much to Samuel’s annoyance. Burrows had left the door unlocked for his arrival and as Clarke opened the bedroom door he could see the state that Burrows was in. He went to open the curtains to let the morning sun in and as he did he saw the disturbed dust dance around the room. Burrows remained in bed but as Clarke ventured towards him he knocked Burrows’ chamber pot and stale urine spilled on to the floor. As he looked around, he could clearly see the room was in much need of a clean but knowing that Burrows’ wife had passed away the previous March, he realised there was little anyone could do for him. For now, all Clarke could do was to provide a little Christian charity, empty the chamber pot, and fetch some much-needed water. Burrows let out a groan as his intestinal pain once again resurfaced. Clarke wouldn’t be long gathering some essentials for the sickly man that lay before him.
