Mr. H. J. Thurnall.

One of the most painful cases of capital punishment for small offences
occurred in Royston about 1812-14, when quite a young girl from
Therfield, living in service in a house now let as an office in the
High Street, Royston, robbed her employer of some articles in the
house, and was sentenced to death at Hertford, and hung. This case
created a profound impression in the town, and for many years
afterwards the case "of the poor girl who was hung" was remembered as
an instance of the severity of the law.

The time came when this wholesale sentence of death for various
offences became more a question of the letter of the law than a
satisfaction of the public sense of justice, and out of a batch of
prisoners receiving sentence of death the Judge often reprieved the
majority, and some of them before leaving the Assize town. The result
was that though in many cases there was hope when under sentence of
death, there was a large number of persons, often young people, placed
under dreadful suspense. The most striking case of the kind in this
district was that of the fate of a Melbourn gang of lawless young men.
About 1820, several desperate young fellows linked themselves together
and became so bold in terrorising the inhabitants as to openly express
their intention to provide themselves with fire-arms and use them
rather than be taken. Eventually their time came, when they broke into
the house of a man named Tom Thurley, a higgler, living near the mill
stream. The properly they stole was nothing of great value--chiefly
some articles of clothing, &c.--and they were disturbed at their game
and had to bolt. In order to get rid of the evidence against them they
hid the stolen things in the spinney which then grew where the
gas-house now stands, just by the mill stream bridge. They were
arrested, and at the Cambridge Assizes five or six of them were
sentenced to death! The result of the trial produced a deep impression
in the village. The sentence was afterwards respited and they were
transported for life; their last appearance in the village being when
they rode through on the coach bound for London, and thence to the
convict settlement. One or two others were transported for other
offences soon after, and the gang was completely broken up. {92} Of
the convicts, two sons were out of one house--one of the old parish
houses which then stood in the churchyard.

Forgery was an offence punished with d