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The last public hanging in Cardiff took place on July 25, 1857, when some 12,000 people watched John Lewis of Merthyr being hanged for the murder of his wife who he had killed when he “was in a drunken stupor”.

Lewis, who had protested his innocence right up until the end, was hanged in the Cardiff County Gaol.

After a long trial at Swansea, the jury could not agree whether he was innocent or guilty so he was tried again at Cardiff where this time he was found him guilty.

Between 1808 and 1921 some 16 people were hanged in Cardiff Prison. Perhaps the most famous of these executions was that of Dick Penderyn (William Lewis), who was hanged in 1831 for his alleged part in the Merthyr riots.

The only woman to go to the scaffold during this time was in 1907 when Mrs Leslie James, sometimes known as Willis, was hanged for the murder of a baby at Cardiff.

However, the last woman hanged on what was known as the “Heath Oak”, which local legend says was situated in Heath Park Avenue, was Catherine Griffiths, a servant aged 30, who was hanged on October 7, 1791, for robbing her former employers.

In 1808, William Williams, aged 19, of Llantrisant, was found guilty of murdering a boy named David Williams. When the boy’s body was found there were eight wounds on it, said to have been inflicted by a sharp instrument.

He was executed “on the new drop at Cardiff amidst a great concourse of people assembled for the occasion”.

In 1822, Tom Pain, who had killed a man in a fight outside the Rose and Crown, which some Cardiffians will remember was in Kingsway, was hanged at Cardiff by Mr Williams commonly known as “Hangman Williams” who was paid five shillings for hanging and burying him afterwards.

Law breakers in Cardiff in those far off days certainly paid for their crimes. In 1753,William Thomas was convicted of stealing several sheaves of wheat and was transported to “some of His Majesty’s plantations in America”.

In the same year, Ann Harris stole four shillings from Isaac Bowen and was ordered to be stripped to the waist and whipped from the County Gaol to the Western Gate of the town and back!

It didn’t pay to be a vagrant either. In 1573, Thomas Ap Howell was charged with being a vagrant with no visible means of subsistence. After a recital of the then Act of Parliment, he was sentenced to be branded with a hot iron through the gristle of his right ear.

Three Cardiff labourers in 1587 found guilty of a felony were sentenced to death by hanging. However, one of them claimed “benefit of clergy” on the grounds that he was able to read and so escaped the death penalty.

Meanwhile, the last execution to take place in Cardiff Prison was in 1952 when Mahmood Mattan went to the scaffold. His conviction would be set aside in 1998.

:: You can send your letters/pictures to Brian Lee, Cardiff Remembered, Front Office, South Wales Echo, Six Park Street, Cardiff, CF10 1XR. or email him at brianlee4@virginmedia.com.uk