John Horwood

John Horwood (1803 – 13 April 1821) was a miner's son convicted of murder in Bristol, England, and executed in 1821. He was the first person to be hanged at Bristol New Gaol.

Life John Horwood was born in Hanham, the fifth son of Thomas and Phoebe Horwood, one of six boys and four girls in the family. Raised in a mining community before the Mines Act introduced a minimum age of ten for children working in mines, John worked in local pits as a child. He refused to continue working in the mines after a series of accidents, including the death of one of his brothers along with three other workers.

He subsequently worked with his father at a local spelter, most likely the Hanham Spelter Works, but was laid off due to his bad behavior, including mischief and vandalism, in 1819 when he was only 16. These papers are held in a single volume, the Horwood Book in the Bristol Archives. A subsequent review of the papers and examination of Eliza's skull was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in 1869, raising questions about medical procedures and the validity of the trial for murder. much to John's regret. Papers in the Horwood Book suggest that John remained infatuated and continued to seek Eliza, turning to harassment and greater violence when he was spurned.

"It appears that Horwood for some time past, teased the girl with proposals, which she had uniformly and indignantly refused: and having lattlerly endeavoured to intimidate her with his threats, she became alarmed at his conduct, and took every means of avoiding him.”

This newspaper report included in The Horwood Book goes on to document multiple attacks on Miss Balsom by Horwood through 1820 and 1821 including throwing oil of vitriol at her, although this is disputed in subsequent research. notorious for being violent troublemakers.

On a date around the 25 January 1821, he saw Eliza Balsom with another boy (William Waddy ) and threw a stone which struck her on the temple. The stone appears to have caused only a minor injury initially, but she was treated at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. The exact date of the incident was disputed by various witnesses, ), Eliza Balsom's wound was greatly infected so that Dr Richard Smith needed to clear the infection from inside the skull.

Dr Smith performed a trepanning procedure to cut away the bone. In the original papers, it is stated that he discovered an abscess under the surface of the skull which caused the death of Eliza Balsom. However, the subsequent BMJ paper suggests that the trepanning may have been the cause of the abscess and death, rather than the initial contusion. on 17 February 1821.

Dr Smith gave Horwood's name to the police, so police officers, sheriff's yeomen and members of the public went to Hanham to detain him.

“The villain guessed their errand, and tried to jump out from a bedroom window in his shirt… he seized a quarryman’s hammer, and placing himself on the top of the stairs, threatened, with horrid oaths, the destruction of all who approached… The villain made a great many blows with his hammer… The Officers closed upon him, knocked him down and after a desperate conflict, at last handcuffed him and dragged him to the carriage. to attempt to prove Horwood's guilt by the shape of his skull. This claimed that his chief mental characteristics were 'combativeness', 'self-esteem', and 'hope', however the 'bump of murder' which was supposedly a cranial characteristic of all murderers was not present. The strongest point in Horwood's defence was that the abscess on the brain might have been caused by the unclean dressings on the wound, which is worth approximately £130 in the 21st century.

This book is held in the collections of Bristol Archives (Ref. 35893/36/v_i) (online catalogue) and is currently on display at M Shed museum in Bristol, alongside a contemporary dissection table, donated by Dr Richard Smith junior, which was used for surgical operations until 1890 when it was removed and re-used as a sideboard until 1999. The skin on the front cover of the book is embossed with a gallows motif and skulls and crossbones, with the Latin words Cutis Vera Johannis Horwood which translates to 'The True Skin of John Horwood'. The practice of anthropodermic bibliopegy is known to have been practised since the 17th century, and it was common to use a murderer's skin in this manner during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Smith kept the skeleton at his home until his death, when it was passed to the Bristol Royal Infirmary and later to Bristol University. The funeral was arranged by Mary Halliwell, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Horwood's brother. The coffin was draped in velvet and carried on a wheeled bier in the manner of elegant funerals of the period of his death.