British Miner and General Newsman : — 1862-11-22 (London, England)

EXECUTION AT THE OLD BAILEY.  ON Monday morning Robert Cooper, recently convicted at the Central Criminal Court of the murder of Anne Jane Barnham, by shooting her in the head with a pistol, at Isleworth, on the evening of Thursday, the 7th of August last, was hanged in front of the gaol of Newgate, in which he had been confined since his trial. The convict was a house painter by trade, and had also served in the 15th Regiment of Hussars, from which, however, he deserted. In 1851 he was under training as a schoolmaster in the Military Normal School at Chelsea, but was discharged from there for some act of indecorum or insubordination, and after that he appears to have led an irregular life. About 13 years ago, at Burnley, in Lancashire, he married one Ellen Buchanan, who is still living, and about four years ago, in the feigned name of Charles Copeland, he contracted a bigamous marriage with the woman Barnham, with whom he cohabited for upwards of two years afterwards, and had two children by her, one of whom is living. On discovering that he had a previous wife living she refused longer to cohabit with him, and returned to her friends at Isleworth. There he was still in the habit of visiting her, but much against the wish of her relatives, and on her refusing to renew her intercourse with him he murdered hem in a fit ofjealousy and revenge. To prove that the crime was premeditated evidence was adduced on the trial by a sister of the deceased, to the effect that three days before the murder he produced three bullets, one of which he said was for the deceased, another for her mother, and a third for the man who should attempt to arrest him. Since his trial he has always denied the truth of that statement, and has said again and again that he bought the pistol in the Westminster-road on the day before he shot the deceased, and the bullets later in the same day at a shop in Fleet-street. This contradiction was of little consequence, and there was proof of premeditation in either case. After his conviction, as indeed before, he was exceedingly docile. He was at times much depressed, and to the last he clung to the hope that his life would be spared. Some people in Brentford, where he was known, memorialised the Home Secretary for a commutation of his sentence, but in vain, and it was carried into effect yesterday morning in the presence of Alderman and Sheriff James Lawrence, and Mr. Sheriff Jones, Mr. Mackrell and Mr. Deputy Farrar (the Under Sheriffs), the Rev. John Davis, the Ordinary, Mr. Jonas, the Governor, and Mr. Gibson, the surgeon of Newgate. The crowd outside was the smallest that has assembled in the Old Bailey to witness an execution for years past. When the convict appeared on the scaffold repeated shouts were heard above the hum of the multitude, "The Sweep; the Sweep ! " alluding, of course, to the convict Gardner, whose sentence had been respited. The convict walked from his cell to the press room, and thence to the gallows, with little or no assistance. On the way he handed to Alderman and Sheriff Lawrence a written document, the contents of which did not transpire, the sheriffs and under-sheriffs, after consultation, not thinking it desirable to publish it. After hanging an hour the body was removed, and Mr. Wilson, the prison surgeon, having certified that life was extinct, it was buried within the precincts of the prison in presence of the under-sheriffs in the course of the afternoon. It may be mentioned that the present sheriffs and under-sheriffs are understood to be desirous to change the day of executions in London from the Monday, holding that the present arrangement tends to the needless desecration of the Sabbath among a numerous class of the population, and to public demoralisation. They hesitate, however, to interfere with an immemorial custom, though the circumstances which originally led to the selection of Monday no longer exist, and they believe the proposed innovation might well be justified on public grounds.