Sarah and her daughter were milliners in Bruton
Street, London. They took to beating the apprentices that were sent to
them from the workhouse and several of them died. In 1758, one of
them, thirteen-year-old Anne Nailor, was battered with a handle of a
broom and deprived of food and water after trying to flee from the
house. Four days later she died and the body was stuffed into a trunk
and placed in the attic. The body began to decompose, and after two
months the smell got too much. The corpse was dismembered and after
deciding that the smell from burning the body would arouse suspicion,
the body parts were thrown into a sewer in Chick Lane, Farringdon. The
apprentices were not the only ones to suffer at the hands of the
tyranical mother. The daughter was also given a good thrashing on any
pretext.
About two years after the murder a Mr Rooker took
up lodging with the family. After a few months he was sickened of
seeing the cruelty meeted out and he left. Mr Rooker then rented a
house and asked the daughter to come and work as a servant. This was
more than the older Sarah could stand and she regularly turned up at
the house in Hill Street and created a disturbance, demanding that her
daughter be returned to her.
Mr Rooker was fortunate in being left an estate in
Ealing and, to escape the almost daily disturbances, he moved there
with young Sarah. Sarah senior was not going to be put off by distance
and continued to turn up and make trouble. In June 1762 she forced her
way into the house and cornered her daughter in the kitchen, beating
her and threatening her with a knife. Mr Rooker managed to eject the
woman but not before young Sarah had said one or two things that
aroused Mr Rooker's suspicions. He demanded an explanation from young
Sarah and the whole sorry story came out.
Mother and daughter were arrested and appeared for
trial at the Old Bailey on 14th July 1762 on two counts of murder, as
they were both charged with the murder of Mary Nailor, Anne's
eight-year-old sister who had also died in the household. But it was
unnecessary to proceed with this case as they were both found guilty
of the murder of Anne Nailor. Both women were hanged at Tyburn on 19th
July 1768.
Murder-UK.com
SARAH METYARD AND SARAH MORGAN METYARD, HER DAUGHTER
Executed at Tyburn, 19th of July, 1768, for the Cruel Murders of
Parish Apprentices
The Newgate Calendar
SARAH METYARD was a milliner, and the daughter her
assistant, in Bruton Street, Hanover Square, London. In the year 1758
the mother had five apprentice girls bound to her from different
parish workhouses, among whom were Anne Naylor and her sister. Anne
Naylor, being of a sickly constitution, was not able to do so much
work as the other apprentices about the same age, and therefore she
became the more immediate object of the fury of the barbarous women,
whose repeated acts of cruelty at length occasioned the unhappy girl
to abscond. Being brought back, she was confined in an upper
apartment, and allowed each day no other sustenance than a small piece
of bread and a little water.
Seizing an opportunity of escaping from her
confinement, unperceived she got into the street, and ran to a
milk-carrier, whom she begged to protect her, saying that if she
returned she must certainly perish, through the want of food and
severe treatment she daily received. Being soon missed, she was
followed by the younger Metyard, who seized her by the neck, forced
her into the house, and threw her upon the bed in the room where she
had been confined, and she was then seized by the old woman, who held
her down while the daughter beat her with the handle of a broom in a
most cruel manner.
They afterwards put her into a back room on the
second storey, tied a cord round her waist, and her hands behind her,
and fastened her to the door in such a manner that it was impossible
for her either to sit or lie down. She was compelled to remain in this
situation for three successive days; but they permitted her to go to
bed at the usual hours at night. Having received no kind of nutriment
for three days and two nights, her strength was so exhausted that,
being unable to walk upstairs, she crept to the garret, where she lay
on her hands and feet.
While she remained tied up on the second floor the
other apprentices were ordered to work in an adjoining apartment, that
they might be deterred from disobedience by being witnesses to the
unhappy girl's sufferings; but they were enjoined, on the penalty of
being subjected to equal severity, against affording her any kind of
relief.
On the fourth day she faltered in speech, and
presently afterwards expired. The other girls, seeing the whole weight
of her body supported by the strings which confined her to the door,
were greatly alarmed, and called out: "Miss Sally! Miss Sally! Nanny
does not move." The daughter then came upstairs, saying: "If she does
not move, I will make her move"; and then beat the deceased on the
head with the heel of a shoe.
Perceiving no signs of life, she called to her
mother, who came upstairs and ordered the strings that confined the
deceased to be cut; she then laid the body across her lap and directed
one of the apprentices where to find a bottle with some hartshorn
drops.
When the child had brought the drops, she and the
other girls were ordered to go downstairs; and the mother and
daughter, being convinced that the object of their barbarity was dead,
conveyed the body into the garret . They related to the other
apprentices that Nanny had been in a fit, but was perfectly recovered,
adding that she was locked into the garret lest she should again run
away; and, in order to give an air of plausibililty to their tale, at
noon the daughter carried a plate of meat upstairs, saying it was for
Nanny's dinner.
They locked the body of the deceased in a box on
the fourth day after the murder, and, having left the garret door open
and the street door on the jar, one of the apprentices was told to
call Nanny down to dinner, and to tell her that, if she promised to
behave well in future, she would be no longer confined. Upon the
return of the child, she said Nanny was not above-stairs; and after a
great parade of searching every part of the house they reflected upon
her as being of an intractable disposition and pretended she had run
away.
The sister of the deceased, who was apprenticed to
the same inhuman mistress, mentioned to a lodger in the house that she
was persuaded her sister was dead; observing that it was not probable
she had gone away, since parts of her apparel still remained in the
garret. The suspicions of this girl coming to the knowledge of the
inhuman wretches, they, with a view of preventing a discovery, cruelly
murdered her, and secreted the body.
The body of Anne remained in the box two months,
during which time the garret door was kept locked, lest the offensive
smell shouild lead to a discovery. The stench became so powerful that
they judged it prudent to remove the remains of the unhappy victim of
their barbarity; and therefore, on the evening of the 25th of
December, they cut the body in pieces, and tied the head and trunk up
in one cloth and the limbs in another, excepting one hand, a finger
belonging to which had been amputated before death, and that they
resolved to burn.
When the apprentices had gone to bed, the old woman
put the hand into the fire, saying: "The fire tells no tales." She
intended to consume the entire remains of the unfortunate girl by fire
but, afraid that the smell would give rise to suspicion, changed that
design, and took the bundles to the gully-hole in Chick Lane and
endeavoured to throw the parts of the mangled corpse over the wall
into the common sewer; but being unable to effect that, she left them
among the mud and water that was collected before the grate of the
sewer.
Some pieces of the body were discovered about
twelve o'clock by the watchman, and he mentioned the circumstance to
the constable of the night. The constable applied to one of the
overseers of the parish, by whose direction the parts of the body were
collected and taken to the watchhouse. On the following day the matter
was communicated to Mr Umfreville, the coroner, who examined the
pieces found by the watchman; but he supposed them to be parts of a
corpse taken from a churchyard for the use of some surgeon, and
declined to summon a jury.
Four years elapsed before the discovery of these
horrid murders, which at length happened in the following manner.
Continual disagreements prevailed between the mother and daughter;
and, though the latter had now arrived at the age of maturity, she was
often beaten, and otherwise treated with severity. Thus provoked, she
sometimes threatened to destroy herself, and at others to give
information against her mother as a murderer.
At last information concerning the affair was given
to the overseers of Tottenham parish, and mother and daughter were
committed to the Gatehouse. At the ensuing Old Bailey sessions they
were both sentenced to be executed on the following Monday, and then
to be conveyed to Surgeons' Hall for dissection.
The mother, being in a fit when she was put into
the cart, lay at her length till she came to the place of execution,
when she was raised up, and means were used for her recovery, but
without effect, so that she departed this life in a state of
insensibility. From the time of leaving Newgate to the moment of her
death the daughter wept incessantly.
After hanging the usual time the bodies were
conveyed in a hearse to Surgeons' Hall, where they were exposed to the
curiosity of the public, and then dissected.