Imposing the Royal Pardon: Execution, Transportation, and Convict Resistance in London, 1789

Abstract

Shortly after two o'clock on the afternoon of Saturday, 19 September 1789, the last act of the sessions at Justice Hall in the Old Bailey began. London's accused capital offenders were tried here eight times yearly. Those who were convicted and received sentence of death or transportation remained in nearby Newgate Prison until their sentences could be carried into execution. So, too, did the capital respites: those convicts who were to be spared execution but who would not actually be pardoned until the Recorder of London, the chief sentencing officer at the Old Bailey, had decided what condition should be imposed. The vast majority of pardoned capital respites were transported to New South Wales. Before that condition of pardon could be put into effect, however, the respites had first to be brought back into the court at the end of another sessions in order to be formally notified, and to signal their acceptance, of the condition of their pardon—that is, to “plead their pardon” at the bar of the court. Although it is unclear from the sources whether or not the respites were still obliged, as they had been down to the 1690s at least, to present the most overt symbol of deference—kneeling while pleading their pardon—the symbolic significance of this procedure seems still to have been thought important, even if it had become largely a formality.