From British Chronicle (September 1767)
The torture Brownrigg inflicted on her parish apprentice girls was considered shocking even by eighteenth-century standards. Parish apprentices, orphans let out from the workhouse to earn their keep, were the most vulnerable section of society, with no one to protect their interests or fight for their cause. These girls had no recourse when their mistress turned on them; their deaths had a tragic inevitability which brought the predicament of other parish apprentices to the attention of the public, and were influential in changing the way they were treated by society and the government.
It appears from the sessions paper, which was published this morning, and contains the whole trial of James, Elizabeth and John Brownrigg, for the murder of Mary Clifford, that the deceased at the time of her death was about fifteen years old; that while she was on liking she had a bed to lie on, and was well used; but that afterwards she lay on the boards in the parlour and passage, and often in the cellar without any covering; that the deceased having one night broke open the cupboard for victuals, her mistress made her strip herself naked, and go to washing, during which she frequently beat her with a stump of a riding whip; that she afterwards used to be tied up naked to a water pipe in the kitchen, at other times to a hook and at other times fastened by a jack chain1 round her neck to the yard door; that they [Mary Clifford and Mary Mitchell] were several times lock’d up under the stairs from Saturday night to Sunday night, while the family were at Islington, and were allowed only a bit of bread; that the deceased, the last time she was whipped, went naked all the rest of the day, and that she was frequently charged by her mistress not to put on her cloaths. The apprentice John Benham never saw the deceased beaten till two months after he was bound, and then not at the times she was tied up and stripped; but had often seen her cap bloody. Mary Mitchell the surviving apprentice saw the deceased beat by her master with a hearth broom once, but the apprentice never saw him strike her, and has seen him push her out of the room when she was going to be beat by her mistress. A few days before the last whipping the deceased fell down stairs with a saucepan and hurt herself; but the wounds of the last whipping appearing to be the cause of her death, Elizabeth Brownrigg was found guilty, and the other two prisoners were acquitted. The latter were detained to be tried for assaulting Mary Mitchell.
To this account of the trial, it may not be improper to add, that the morning before Mrs Brownrigg’s execution, she seemed resigned and joined in prayer. Afterwards she, together with her husband and son, received the Holy Sacrament in the chapel. After which she prayed with great fervency, crying ‘Lord deliver me from blood-guiltiness. I have nothing to plead or recommend me to thee but my misery; but thy beloved Son died for sinners, therefore on his merits I rely and depend for pardon.’ She was now quite resigned, and prayed with her husband and son upwards of two hours, when she took leave of them, which exhibited a scene too affecting to be described, and which drew tears from all present. On her husband’s assuring her that he would take care to maintain their two younger children, when he should be released from confinement, she begged him to seek a release from the prison of sin; and as for her children, God was all-sufficient, and hoped he would not suffer them to be used as she had treated the unhappy girls put under her care. Her son fell on his knees, and begged his mother’s blessing: on which she fell on his face and kissed him, while her husband fell on his knees on the other side, praying to God to have mercy on her soul. Which occasioned her to say, ‘Dear James, I beg that God, for Christ’s sake, will be reconciled, and that he will not leave nor forsake me in the hour of death, and in the day of judgment.’ She took her last farewel of them, and was soon after carried to the place of execution. At Tyburn she composedly assisted in prayer; and desired the Ordinary to acquaint the spectators, that she acknowledged her guilt, and the justice of the sentence. And her last words were, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’
She repeatedly, before her death, declared her husband innocent of ill-treating the girls, and that the son never did so, but by her order.