Sarah Lloyd - A tragic tale
The only memorial to Sarah Lloyd is a fading stone attached to the Charnel House in the Bury St Edmunds' cemetery. She is presented to the world as a wronged but contrite felon and whilst the stone hints at the strange nature of her demise, it does not tell her story or explain how she was caught between the forces of reaction and progress at the turn of the 19th century.
Sarah Lloyd was a 22 year old maid who worked for Sara Syer in Benton Street. She was small, dark-haired, with large child-like eyes and treated as such in the households that she served in.
On the night of 3rd October 1799, she let her boyfriend Joseph Clark into her mistress's house. They proceeded to rob the household and before they left it is alleged that they set a fire in a stairwell below her mistress's bedroom. The neighbours intervened before the fire took hold.
Sarah and her boyfriend were arrested and taken to Bury assizes, where they stood trial in April of the following year. She was not tried for arson or attempted murder and she was acquitted of burglary. However, she was found guilty of the theft of trinkets to the value of 40 shillings. Clark was acquitted.
At the time theft was one of 200 crimes which carried the death penalty and she was sentenced to hang.
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| Capel Lofft | John Orridge | Duke of Portland |
Her case was pleaded by Capel Lloft, a radical, magistrate and poet, who raised a petition which was sent to the Tory Home Secretary, the Duke of Portland.
Lloft, who had witnessed the trial and visited her in prison, found her to be a decent individual, of otherwise good character. He cited that she brought out parental feelings in her gaoler John Orridge. Lloft pleaded that all the extenuating circumstances should be taken into account at her trial and that her sentence was inappropriate. He claimed that her actual age was only 19 and not 22.
However, the mood of the moment may well be summed up in the words of the Times of 11th April: "The circumstances attending the case of Sarah Lloyd are perhaps unequalled for the atrocious intentions of the perpetrator". The petition also seems to have enraged the trial judge, Sir Nash Grose.
Sarah was due to be executed on 9th April, however Orridge received a respite for "S. Hop" and as he had no prisoners of that name in his cells, postponed Sarah's execution until he received notification from the Duke of Portland.
No clemency was shown. A King's messenger was despatched to inform the authorities. In the words of the Duke of Portland, "the great object of punishment is example".
On the night before the execution, she said that she eventually fell asleep. She awoke and said her farewells to her fellow inmates. It was a windy and rainy day and Lloft travelled the mile or so from Bury gaol to her place of execution and despite being manacled she was able to hold his umbrella over her own head.
Lloft, for whom this was his first execution, reported that the executioner seemed nervous and took his time over the proceedings. Sarah's last actions were to calmly pull back her hair to allow him to apply the noose.
She was hanged on April 23rd 1800; one of seven women who were executed that year.
Upon hearing the news, her mother hanged herself in her Hadleigh home.
The author of the words on the memorial stone is not unsympathetic to her plight, seeing her as the victim. However, he perpetuates the belief in Tory circles that she committed crimes for which she was never tried or convicted. As well as libelling Joseph Clark.
Lofft was summarily dismissed as a magistrate for his impassioned attack on the Home Secretary at the execution.
