Yesterday, I sent a message to the list about an article in Tuesday's Evening Post concerning John HORWOOD, from Hanham, who was the first person to be executed at the New Bristol Gaol in 1821. http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/want-burial-denied/article-2852289-detail/article.html My message hasn't come back to me yet, after yesterday's rootsweb close down, but it obviously reached some of you as I had a private response to it and I also saw it in the B & S archives. Anyway, the surname HORWOOD had me rooting around in my notes for my husband's family as I was wondered if his possible HORWOOD ancestor was related to the John HORWOOD who was executed. However, it doesn't appear, at the moment, that there was a direct link between the Hanham HORWOODs and Ian's possible ancestor, Elizabeth HORWOOD, who is likely to have been the daughter of Henry and Elizabeth and whose baptism took place at St. George, GLS on 22nd. July 1802. Last night I traced the St. George HORWOODs back to the marriage, by licence, of Henry HORWOOD and Martha PHELPS, who were married on 5th. September 1762 at St. George. Interestingly, the occupation of Henry HORWOOD was recorded as a mariner. I have mariners in my tree, but this is the first one I've found for Ian. This couple may have been Elizabeth's grandparents. The HORWOOD link with Ian's family is that a marriage between a John HEARNIMAN and an Elizabeth HORWOOD took place at St. George, Bristol on 20th. November 1827. Ian's 3x grest-grandparents were John HERNIMAN and wife, Elizabeth. This marriage is the best match I can find for the couple who lived with their young family in West Street, Bedminster at the time of the 1841 census. -- Josephine Jeremiah www.ianandjo.dsl.pipex.com

On 11 Nov 2010 at 15:33, Josephine Jeremiah wrote: > Yesterday, I sent a message to the list about an article in Tuesday's > Evening Post concerning John HORWOOD, from Hanham, who was the first > person to be executed at the New Bristol Gaol in 1821. > > http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/news/want-burial-denied/article-2852289 > -detail/article.html > I find this story quite bizarre and I am afraid I am not in agreement with the attitude of John Horwood's living family who have apparently won the right to have his remains buried! I appreciate there will be some who will not agree with me, but in my book political correctness - and this is what this is - has no part in family history. We should accept the events of the past, however unfortunate and sad they might be, and to try and rewrite history and correct perceived wrongs almost 200 years later seems to me rather pointless and over-emotional. It also seems to me we are going down a very dangerous path if the descendants of people who were seen as being wrongly executed can demand the right to sue in today's climate - HM The Queen, for instance, would never be out of the courts once the principle is established, considering the vast numbers executed by her ancestors !!! I also don't believe the descendant Mary Halliwell (actually she's a collateral descendant of John Horwood, not a direct one) is thinking very straight when she talks about: "I am angry that a human being, Dr Smith, could do something so barbaric to another person. It is terrible and certainly wasn't very dignified." Of course it was barbaric by today's standards but in the early 19th century it was very common, routine practice for people who died on the gallows for murder to have their bodies given over to a hospital or the surgeons for dissection and medical research. I am extremely familiar with another famous case, that of Mary Bateman, known as the Yorkshire Witch (which I have researched extensively, written and lectured about) who was hanged at York in 1809 and whose body was also dissected and her skin tanned and sold as souvenirs. Leeds Infirmary made around £30 from this unusual fund- raising and by selling places at threepence each to fashionable ladies and gentlemen to view the dissection. Mary Bateman's skeleton too still exists in a medical museum in Leeds. Mary Halliwell obviously doesn't understand that according to the mores of the time it was quite a normal thing and she has fallen into the common trap of many beginners to family history by applying modern judgements and a mindset of 21st century values to something that happened two centuries ago. It's like apologising for slavery - we mustn't do it because there's no-one alive today who can possibly be blamed for it! I have not looked at the original trial reports but it seems very likely that the order for the body to be given to a hospital for dissection was part of the sentence under the law as it stood AT THE TIME. Thus, the family could no longer claim ownership of it and, in my view, that would be the case still today. Trying to correct the perceived wrongs of history by applying today's standards makes a complete nonsense of history and family historians are the very first people who should recognise this. In any event, were it my family I would take a (probably perverse) pleasure in knowing that my ancestor's skeleton still existed after he was hanged for murder and want it to remain publicly available! Especially as the fact that John Horwood was apparently the first to be executed at New Bristol Gaol is of important historical significance and of wider interest beyond any descendants. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE