sitE of last execution and George bryce
WARNING, THIS POST IS VERY GRUESOME AND AT PARTS UPSETTING.
Very surprisingly, we couldn't find out much about the site of the last execution in Edinburgh. It has it's own plaque, it's an important part of the city's history, and yet there wasn't a lot to know. We do know that the last man executed here was George Bryce, but again couldn't find much.
The site, marked by two plates, one on the wall and another on the pavement, held the last public execution on the 21st of June 1864. The man hung? One George Bryce. His crime? Murdering Jeanie Seaton.
Now this execution, while the last so naturally due to have a large audience, was actually sought after for a different reason. Jeanie Seaton's murder was so brutal and so blatant that the local community took it as a personal attack and by the time Bryce was to be hung they were baying for blood.
This soon changed when it came to the act itself. It was customary for the gallows to have it's trapdoor screened off so when the body dropped it couldn't be seen by it's morbid voyeurs. In the case of Bryce, the hangman failed to measure the rope properly, some citing he was drunk, some that he was cruel to the murderer, but regardless the outcome was that when the trapdoor dropped Bryce only fell two feet and he strangled to death in full view. The audience were horrified, and Bryce died very slowly, so the mob of onlookers started to get angry. They weren't angry at the man dying in front of them anymore, no, they were angry at the authorities for allowing such a cruel death to take place, completely ignoring the fact they'd come to watch a man die as a grand day out, and his horrific crime to begin with.
Now thanks to Maggie Dickson who we covered on Valentine's day, the law had been changed so that any death sentence had to be carried out until death, so no one could intervene until Bryce was dead. It took 40 minutes. In those 40 minutes it took George Bryce to die for the brutal murder of Jeanie Seaton, the authorities fled as the mob who had come to enjoy a public execution had instead turned on them. A riot broke out and spread among the streets of the gallows, Thomas Askern, the hangman, barely escaped alive once the mob swarmed him. He fled to Waverly and boarded a train but the mob still chased him, he had to hide in a compartment to get away!
The press all covered up the incident, siding with the authorities to depict Edinburgh as the perfect city rather than- at the time- an authority challenging hub of resentment. The fall out from this was huge and so the powers at be had to do something to ensure this could never happen again, and thus George Bryce was made the last public execution in Edinburgh. The public didn't know it at the time, but they'd seen their last execution. It was from then that any further scheduled executions took place in Calton Jail instead and these weren't drawn out, no, these were done quickly and efficiently, with some degree of mercy. Regardless, it was without spectators. Bryce wasn't the last public execution in all of Scotland though, just Edinburgh. The very last one in Scotland as a whole came three years later and was of one Robert Smith for robbing, raping, and murdering a nine year old.
So what do we know about the man who holds the title for the last execution in Edinburgh? Not loads. He wasn't a special man, just a bloke from outside of the city who worked as a carter. People of the time called him 'simple' which is how he got by. He took a new job in 1863 where he met a young girl who worked as a cook, her name was Isabelle. He began an affair with her, which was widely disapproved of, especially by her friend Jeanie Seaton who was a 23 year old nursery maid that also went by the name of Jane. She told her young friend that Bryce was a drunk and she should leave him for her own good, which is exactly what Isabelle did and she didn't hold back. Isabelle told him he was a drunk, no good for her, and that her friend Jeanie disapproved.
Well Bryce didn't take kindly to that, and from that moment onward Jeanie's fate was sealed. He returned to the house late at night, broke in, and attacked her in the nursery. They struggled, and then the entire household woke and intervened where they managed to restrain the feral man. Jeanie then escaped. Unfortunately, Bryce broke free and followed her, he caught her outside the door of a cottage nearby and slit her throat with a razor before running off. He was caught the next morning and did not resist arrest. Word spread, as they do in small villages, and before long he was dubbed the Ratho Murderer (as this all took place in Ratho just outside of Edinburgh), by then even Bryce realised that with so many witnesses he had no chance of escaping justice so he pled guilty and plead for leniency due to his reduced mental capacity but the court still ruled for him to hang.
Thousands came to watch the brutal Ratho Murderer hang for his crime and the pelted him with stones and rotten food. They screamed abuse, the continued to throw what they could, it was unrelenting. How strange it is for their minds to switch so quickly once the streets rang silent and the order was given for Bryce to die.
So that is the history on the last PUBLIC execution held in Edinburgh, as the last actual execution in the city was in the 50s! So within living memory for some. However the most interesting fact we found out about the gallows that used to stand here is this: The first public execution at these gallows was on the 1st of October 1788, twas William Deacon Brodie who was the first to hang here. Incidentally, the very same man had designed and funded the building of said gallows the year before. He was killed by his own gallows, irony at its best we think.
Undoubtedly haunted, we wouldn't want to hang around this site for too long after dark. Hundreds of people dropped to their deaths at this very spot, some innocent, some not, some for quite petty crimes. Regardless, there is no doubt in our minds that something still lingers here, and those gruesome enough must add this site to their must see list when visiting Edinburgh.
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