The Murder of James Dove and the Hanging in Chains of Michal Morey#
June, 1736. Arreton. A woodcutter and his grandson set off to Newport to buy Necessaries. But they don’t return home to their cottage, a place called Sullens, that night. Nor the next…
Although the original court records that later dealt with the case were lost, an account does exist, albeit, in brief, in volume LIII of the Political State of Great Britain, p535-6 [via Google Books]:
“ Extract of a Letter from Hampshire.
At the Assizes at Winchester yesterday Se’enight, an old Fellow of the Isle of Wight, was condemned for the Murder of his Grandson, about 14 Years of Age. He had bred him up from his Cradle ; and the Child having some way or other disobliged him, he took him out with him one Morning about Six o’Clock in June last, on Pretence of going to a Market-town about seven Miles from him, to buy Necessaries, and carried him into a Wood, and murdered him with a Bill-hook, which he had taken with him for that Purpose. There was no Confession made by the Villain , nor was the Body found till October, when it could only be known by the Hat, Breeches, Stockings, and Shoes, which the Child had on when he went from Home, and which were found with the Body, together with the Bill-hook and the old Man’s Gloves. He had cut off his Head, and mangled his Body, and put the whole into two Wallets, which he also carried with him. What cruel Circumstances might attend the Execution of this horrid Fact, is at present only known to God and the Murderer. The old Fellow did not return home till about a Week after the Fact was committed ; and being asked after the Child, and not giving a satisfactory Answer, he was taken up on Suspicion ; and upon searching a Chest belonging to him, his bloody Shirt ( which was also produced in Court) was found wrapt up in a clean Shirt ; upon which he was committed at the Summer Assizes, and now tried, convicted, and condemn’d, and is to be hanged this Day at Winchester, but in Chains in the Isle of Wight.”
Micah Morey was accordingly executed on Saturday the 19th of March, but without making any particular Confession. He was hung in chains according to old statute under a law that required bodies of those hanged for murder to be either dissected or hung in chains:
The gruesome end is captured in a local playground rhyme:
Michal Morey’s dead,
For cutting off his grandson’s head,
He is hung on Arreton Down
For rooks and ravens to peck down.
The original statute regarding hanging in chains was integrated into the “modern” statute book by way of the Offences against the Person Act 1828
Offences against the Person Act 1828
An Act for consolidating and amending the Statutes in England relative to Offences against the Person. [27th June 1828.]
WHEREAS it is expedient to repeal various Statutes now in force in that Part of the United Kingdom called England, relative to Offences against the Person, in order that the Provisions contained in those Statutes may be enacted and consolidated into this Act; Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, That so much of the Great Charter made in the Ninth Year of the Reign of King Henry the Third, as relates to Inquisitions of Life or Member; and so much of a Statute made in the Fifty-second year of the same Reign, [Murder Act 1267. 52 H.3. c.25.] as relates to murder; …
…
IV. And be it enacted, That every Person convicted of Murder shall be executed according to Law on the Day next but One after that on which the Sentence shall be passed, unless the same shall happen to be Sunday, and in that Case on the Monday following; and the Body of every Murderer shall, after Execution, either be dissected or hung in Chains, as to the Court shall seem meet; and Sentence shall be pronounced immediately after the Conviction of every Murderer, unless the Court shall seem reasonable Cause for postponing the same; and such Sentence shall not only the usual Judgment of Death, but also the Time hereby appointed for the Execution thereof, and that the Body of the Offender shall be dissected or hung in Chains, whichsoever of the Two the Court shall order: Provided always, that after such Sentence shall have been pronounced, it shall be lawful for the Court or Judge to stay the Execution thereof, if such Court or Judge shall so think fit.
The practice of hanging in chains was repealed in 1834:
An Act to Abolish the Practice of hanging Bodies of Criminals in Chains, 1834
4 & 5 W IV. Bodies of Criminals Cap. 26
XXVI. An Act to abolish the Practice of hanging Bodies of Criminals in Chains [25th July 1834 .]
WHEREAS by an Act passed in the Ninth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Fourth, intituled An Act for consolidating and amending the Statutes in England relating to Offences against the Person [9 G. 4 c. 31], it is amongst other Things enacted, that the Body of every Person convicted of Murder shall after Execution either be dissected or hung in Chains, as to the Court which tried the Offender shall seem meet, and that the Sentence to be pronounced by the Court shall express that the Body of the Offender shall be dissected or hung in Chains, whichever of the Two the Court shall order : And whereas by a certain Act passed in the Tenth Year of the same Reign, intituled An Act for consolidating and amending the Statutes, in Ireland relating to Offences against the Person [10 G. 4. c. 34.] a like Provision is made with respect to Persons convicted of Murder in Ireland : And whereas by a certain Act made and passed in the Second and Third Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, intituled An Act for regulating Schools of Anatomy [2 & 3 G. 4 c. 75.] so much of the Provision of the said recited Act made and passed in the Ninth Year of the Reign of His said late Majesty King George the Fourth as authorized the Court to direct that the Body of a Person convicted of Murder should after Execution be dissected is repealed, and instead thereof it was enacted, that in every Case of Conviction of any Prisoner for Murder the Court before which such Prisoner shall have been tried shall direct such Prisoner either to be hung in Chains or to be buried within the Precincts of the Prison in which such Prisoner shall have been confined after Conviction, as to such Court should seem meet; and that the Sentence to be pronounced by the Court should express that the Body of such Prisoner shall be hung in Chains or buried within the Precincts of the Prison, whichever of the Two the Court should order: And whereas it is expedient to amend the said recited Acts :’ Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, [So much of recited Acts as authorises the dissecting or hanging in Chains certain Criminals after Execution repealed.] That so much of the said recited Act made and passed in the Ninth Year of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Fourth as authorizes the Court to direct that the Body of a Person convicted of Murder should after Execution be hung in Chains, and also so much of the said recited Act made and passed in the Tenth Year of the same Reign as authorizes the Court to direct that the Body of a Person convicted of Murder should after Execution be dissected or hung in Chains, and also so much of the said recited Act made and passed in the Second and Third Year of the Reign of His present Majesty as provides that in every Case of Conviction of any Prisoner for Murder the Court shall direct such Prisoner to be hung in Chains, shall be and the same is hereby repealed.
The following account of events of 1735/6 involving Michal Morey and James Dove was originally inspired by For Rooks and Ravens: The Execution of Michal Morey, Kenneh S. Phillips, IW Museum Publication No. 4, and is how I originally recounted it, as a local historical account, to the Island Storytellers story circle. I have also told the tale in various other forms several times since.
Micah Morey’s Tale
Michal Morey’s dead,
For cutting off his grandson’s head,
He is hung on Arreton Down
For rooks and ravens to peck down.
If you turn left out of Robin Hill, past the Hare and Hounds pub, you’ll see Burnt House Lane on the right, running down the valley towards Newport.
Back in the early-1700s, just on the hillside to the left of there, lived a woodcutter, Micah — or, Michal — Morey, his son and daughter in law, her sister, and James Dove, his grandson.
There is a Morey’s building and timber merchants on the island to this day: you’ll see their yards just coming into Sandown, from Brading, in Ryde, and in Newport. I don’t know if they are related.
James’s mother, and Michal’s daughter, Mary, had died giving birth to him fourteen years before; his father, Thomas Dove, originally of Brading, had abandoned him and remarried elsewhere on the island.
Early one morning in June, 1736, shortly after sunrise, six a.m. or so, Michal Morey and his teenage grandson left their cottage at Sullens, setting off “on Pretence of going to a Market-town about seven Miles from him, to buy Necessaries”, as an old report has it. Between them, they carried some old leather panniers.
Shortly after, Michal must have returned home alone, but then he too disappeared. A week later, Michal returned; “being asked after the Child, he could not give a satisfactory Answer. He was taken up on Suspicion; and upon searching a Chest belonging to him, his bloody Shirt (which was later produced in Court) was found wrapt up in a clean Shirt”. He was placed in the care of his son, presumably under some sort of house arrest, and a hue and cry raised to search for James.
Towards the end of July, Michal absconded again. Three days later, he was found again, a small reward paid for his return. Two weeks after that, he was sent to the Big Island, to the mainland, and imprisoned in Winchester jail on suspicion of murder.
But there was still no sign of James.
Walking through nearby autumnal woods that October, another Arreton parishioner noticed… what? That’s odd. Could there be hidden valuables in that old leather bag that seems half buried over there? Whoo, hoo, this could be my lucky day… But whatever he saw horrified him, and he made haste to summon help.
A jury of witnesses, including the Coroner and the Bailiff, made their way back to the woods. Two half buried satchels were revealed, and opened. An arm here, a leg there, a bill hook for chopping wood, and, was that a head?
The body was unrecognisable, but a description at least of the clothes that still wrapped the putrefying body parts was made.
A gravedigger was summoned — I don’t know if he’d ever seen worse — a coffin made and the body quickly interred in the nearby Arreton church graveyard.
The widowed mother of a neighbouring farmer, who had perhaps at times fashioned clothes for her neighbour’s motherless child, had the clothes described to her, but she couldn’t be certain they were James’.
And so it was that the next day, James’ body was dug up a for a second time. From his Hat, Breeches, Stockings, and Shoes, he was duly identified. He was reburied for a second, or should that be, a third?, time.
The fate of Michal, still in Winchester gaol, was now surely settled; but it was not until February of the next year, 1737, that the great and the good of Arreton Parish met in the vestry of the church there, and grimly determined to pay for Michal’s trial on a count of murder.
At the Winchester Assizes starting on Wednesday, March 2nd, Michal stood trial. He made no confession. “What cruel Circumstances might have attended the Execution of th[at] horrid Fact [of murder], [was] only known to God and the Murderer”. Michal was sentenced not just to death, but also to hanging in chains thereafter.
There were no football matches on Saturdays in those days, but there were public hangings. A good a spectacle as any you could expect.
And so it was that Michal was executed on Saturday, 19 March, 1737, at Gallows Hill, Winchester. Hung by the neck until he was dead.
But the story doesn’t end there. Only part of the sentence had been fulfilled.
Michal’s body was brought back to the island, where it was placed in a tightly fitting metal gibbet cage, made to measure by a local blacksmith.
His gibbeted body was then hung from a tall wooden pole, most likely spiked with nails at the bottom to prevent it from being cut down, on top of an ancient burial mound that overlooks Arreton valley.
The mound is there to this day: we know it as Michal Morey’s mound: if you turn left out of the Hare and Hounds, then left again onto the Down’s road, you’ll see it there to the right, just a few hundred yards down the road. If you’re coming along the Down’s road from Ryde, it’s on the left, a few hundred yards before the T-junction at the end.
Michal’s body was never found - murderers would never be buried in consecrated ground. There is a skull on display in the Hare and Hounds that some claim to be Michal’s, but whilst it is from the mound that bears his name, it dates from much older times. A memory of the gibbet can also be found in the same pub: one of beams, claimed to be the hewn from the gibbet itself, is carved with the date “1737”. Look up in the room at the back, and you’ll see it.
Local folk traveling the Down’s road to this day still mention seeing a ghostly figure walking nearby the mound, but whether it’s the ghost of Michal, or James, or the ancients from the burial mound itself, who can say?
So the next time you visit Robin Hill, listen out for the sound of woodsmen working round about; for the sound of chains clanking against who knows what in the distance; for the call of the birds circling there still.
And bring to mind the playground rhyme learned by so many of Arreton’s primary school children over the years:
Michal Morey’s dead,
For cutting off his grandson’s head,
He is hung on Arreton Down
For rooks and ravens to peck down.
The episode was recalled almost 150 years later, in the Isle of Wight Times of Thursday, April 10th, 1879, p5, following the discovery of human remains on Arreton Down:
ARRETON. MICAHEAL MOREY’S BONES.— In the year 1735, the 9th of King George II, Michal Morey, a woodman, was hung and gibbeted on the side of Arreton Down for the murder of his grandson, who had strayed away to the place where he was at work, and provoked him to anger. Tradition said he hid the body and placed a Bible under the head in order to prevent his being haunted by the ghost. Some years after, the bones having slipped from the gibbet, were collected and buried near the site. Last week some man digging there found the skull, with teeth perfect, and other bones.
The report appears to have prompted a poetic response that appeared three weeks later in the Isle of Wight Observer of Saturday, May 3rd, 1879:
A LEGEND OF ARRETON DOWN
[A short time ago some men, digging on the down, found the skull with teeth perfect, amid other bones, supposed to be the remains of Micah Morey, a woodman, who was hung there- for the murder of his grandson in the year 1735.]
Old Micah Morey, I’ve heard say,
His grandson’s head cut off one day ;
For some time after that, ‘tis said
He wandered in the fields, and fed
On beans and peas, ‘till he was caught,
And for his crime to justice brought.
He was the murderer proved to be,
For which he paid the penalty.
Upon a gibbet he was slung,
Where many days the body hung,
Which surely did the folks affright
Who had to pass that way at night.
At length some who more daring were
Said it no longer should hang there,
So cut it down, and hid from view
The corpse, where none beside them knew.
His ghost, howe’er. I’ve heard some say,
Oit scared them when they pass’d that way.
His bones which long were hid from sight,
Have lately been exposed to light,
From their long resting place exhumed,
And rudely elsewhere are entombed.
His skull a stranger brought away,
Him to remind, at this late day,
That Micah Morey for his crime
Swung on the hill in olden time.
In glass case ‘tis exposed by him
And prized as if a precious gem.
The house in which the murderer dwelt
He set on fire, and when rebuilt
Twas “Burnt House” call’d – the name to-day,
Though six score years have pass’d away.J. DORE.
Just below the Downs Road, in Arreton Chalk Pit, a small cave have taken on a role in the legend that still surrounded Michal Morey, as the West Sussex Gazette of Thursday, January 10th, 1935, p9, reported:
ISLE OF WIGHT NOTES
BOYS’ CAVE PERIL
A constable had to cut steps in the cliff face with pick and shovel before two boys imprisoned in “Michal Moreys Cave,” on Arreton Down, could be released. The cave is one in which Michal Morey took refuge after murdering has grandson. Eventually he was caught and hanged, and buried at the spot. Five boys set out to explore and picnic in the cave, arriving about 11 am. Two managed to clamber into the cave, but heavy rain made the chalk so slippery that descent was impossible without assistance. They were marooned in the cave for over four hours, the other boys trying unsuccessfully to throw them food.