Christmas1868 – a bleak time in Lincoln Prison
Priscilla Biggadike had little to look forward to as she spent Christmas 1868 in the condemned cell in the Prison at Lincoln Castle.
The Castle archives contain extensive records of the prisoners held at Lincoln Castle during the Victorian period, with journal entries by the Prison Governor, Chaplain, Surgeon and Matron offering an insight into their treatment.
In her journal entry for December 15th the Prison Matron noted that “The Surgeon has ordered Priscialla Biggadyke to have a glass of wine before going to bed.”
Ten days later, on Christmas Day the Chaplain’s journal records, ‘Visited Biggadyke, read and prayed with her. Exhorted her to take advantage of seeing her friends and relations today to make a full and truthful confession to them. Visited again in the evening but without bringing her to confess the crime proven against her.”
The Prison Governor wrote on 26th December: “Priscilla Biggadike visited by her sisters and brother, Rachel Taylor, Susan Whiley, Anne Reed and George Whiley, at 11am till 1:30 pm and Biggadike having expressed a wish to see a Visiting Justice, Rev Wm. Althorpe came at 2:30 pm to see her. See V J Order book.”
From a record in the Magistrate’s order book, dated 26th December 1868, Priscilla’s last hope appears to have been a late appeal to the Magistrate – “Having been requested to see Priscilla Biggadike the Prisoner under sentence of death, I saw her this morning. She seemed anxious to know if anything could be done to spare her life- she said she was innocent of the crime of poisoning to her husband. I told there was not the least chance of a reprieve, & that nothing could be done for her.”
Priscilla Biggadike was hanged at Lincoln Castle on 28th December, 1868 for the wilful murder of her husband Richard Biggadike at their home in Stickney. Her lodger confessed to the crime a year later.
It is thought that early anti-capital punishment campaigners used Priscilla’s case to examine the attitudes to women prisoners at the time. She was the first woman to be executed in private, following an Act of Parliament.
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