Visit to The National Justice Museum
Walking in my ancestors footsteps
I finally made a long-awaited visit to the National Justice Museum in Nottingham last week.
It was a very moving experience, my incentive to visit was my 2 x Great Uncle John Hutchinson was tried there in 1905 and found guilty of the wilful Murder of a young boy Albert Matthews and was executed by John Billington on the 29th of March 1905 at Bagthorpe Gaol, but that’s a story for a future blog.
I actually got to walk in my ancestors footsteps! and walked from the ground floor and the cells that John would have been held in, up the winding stone stairs and into the dock where he would have stood for his trial and facing the judges chair in the criminal courtroom, the exact spot he stood on, seeing as he would have seen it.
The courtroom is very much the same as it was in 1905, the same wood panelling, the only change is the ceiling was then glass but has since been filled in.
A very eerie and moving experience to see what he would have seen all those years ago.
Your entry ticket to the Museum is a wrist band that contains your convict number, which relates to a specific convict.
Having walked through the criminal courtroom and down the steps you enter an exhibition area where you will find your convict number and their crime and punishment received.
My convict number was A1 – 561, which related to Daniel Clay, who was put in the pillory for one hour, in Market Place, Mansfield.
A pillory is a wooden framework that has holes in it for the head and hands, in which offenders were formerly imprisoned and exposed to public abuse.
Wandering around the different floors, it is very atmospheric of what it must have been like to have been on trial here or held prison here in the gaol cells.
The journey includes the capital punishment area, cells and the segregated womens cells, a dark cell, laundry and exercise yards.
There are also dungeons (watch your head when walking through these!)
There is also an area that is labelled as an area to be forgotten - an area over 20 metres below Street level, a dungeon dug out where prisoners were thrown and left to die of starvation.
My day concluded with the Monthly Crime Club which this month featured Nottingham's Edwardian Criminals, a very friendly evening with refreshments of your choice and a talk. A different theme every month next one not till March 2025 and 1920 criminals, as I enjoyed the evening I may well make the journey to see that.
And of course particular interest for me was the opening act John Hutchinson, followed by 3 other tales Nottingham criminals.
To see future events at the National Justice Museum CLICK HERE
And if you want to read more about my criminally insane executed relative I will be writing a series of blogs about him shortly
