The Executions of James Pratt and John Smith
There appears to be a correlation between the value of human life and the degree to which society has advanced. I mean, it used to be that the government would execute just about anyone for just about anything.
Hello, and welcome to On This Date, Some Years Back. Today is November 27, 2017, and on this date, 182 years back, in 1835, James Pratt and John Smith were the last two men to be executed for the “crime” of sodomy in England.
William Bonill had rented a room in London for about a year before his landlord grew suspicious of his frequent male visitors, who often came to the room in pairs. In August of 1835, the landlord spotted James Pratt and John Smith entering Bonill’s room, and allowed his suspicions to get the better of him. First, he climbed atop a stable adjacent to the room’s window and peeked inside, but soon went back into the building and spied on the men through the keyhole. Bonilla was nowhere to be found, but the landlord allegedly saw Pratt and Smith having relations. He fetched his wife, who backed up his allegation. They then found a policeman and the men were arrested. Bonilla, the boarder, was arrested a short time later as an accessory.
Pratt, who was married with children, had numerous witnesses attest to his good character at the trial. Nevertheless, all three men, Pratt, Smith, and Bonill, were found guilty of the charges against them based on nothing more than the highly questionable claims of the landlord and his wife. Pratt and Smith were both sentenced to death by hanging. Bonill was sentenced to fourteen years of penal transportation, the official sounding term for being shipped to some far flung prison colony. In Bonill’s case, he served about five years of his sentence in Tasmania before dying.
The courts had seventeen death sentences to carry out during the September and October sessions. Along with Pratt and Smith, the other crimes included burglary, robbery, and attempted murder. About a week before the scheduled executions, all of the prisoners except for Pratt and Smith had their executions stayed by Royal Prerogative. Pratt and Smith were the only “criminals” executed. Their hanging was the first public hanging at Newgate Prison in two years, and as such, it drew a large crowd.
Giving credit where it is due, the magistrate who actually ordered the men to be tried did appeal for mercy on their behalf. He wrote to the Home Secretary, urging him to commute the executions on the basis that the law was unfair towards poor men. Wealthy men could afford private chambers with discrete neighbors, and ran no risk of getting caught performing the same acts that these working class men were alleged to have done. Had they not been spied on by a nosey landlord, it would have been as if no crime was ever committed at all.
The Home Secretary did not heed the urgings. He gets no credit at all.
It is my position that any relatively safe activity performed between two consenting adults cannot be considered a crime. I’m thankful that the world is catching up to my beliefs, but there are still huge gains yet to be made. Homosexuality, in some form or another, is still criminalized in many areas of the world. There were still enforced anti-sodomy laws in the United States of America until a 2003 Supreme Court decision invalidated them all.
On the bright side, though, despite the draconian laws, Pratt and Smith were in fact the last men to be executed for sodomy in the United Kingdom. While that’s not a ringing endorsement of acceptance, and hate crimes still persist all over the world, it was a step in the right direction. And for that, it deserves some recognition.
Thanks for reading, and be sure to check back tomorrow for a working class tragedy that begs many questions about energy production.
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