The Trials, Execution and Dying Behaviour of James Magenis, James Strangeways and Munoo Who were Executed on Friday at the Old Bailey

This execution broadside refers to the public execution of three men at the Newgate gallows on 23rd December 1814. The condemned are named as James Magenis (aged 28) convicted of burglary, James Strangeways (aged 28) convicted of highway robbery and Munoo (aged 28) convicted of 'an unnatural crime.' Munoo was executed for committing an ‘unnatural offence’ on an 8 year old boy in a field near Shadwell. A seaman from the Indian Subcontinent, often referred to as Lascars, Munoo was probably residing in a Seaman’s mission in London’s docklands awaiting a return passage when arrested. The term 'unnatural crime' was often used as an alternative to 'sodomy' or 'buggery'. Although officially punishable by death until 1861 executions for both consensual and non-consensual 'unnatural crimes' of 'buggery' or sodomy were not enforced after 1835. The night before his execution Munoo, a Muslim, was attended by an Imam called Mauljee and his attendant who also accompanied him to the scaffold. Mr Gould, the London Superintendent of the Lascars, was also allowed to be with Munoo on the morning of his execution.

Until 1868 public hangings were a popular form of entertainment for the London crowd. Such occasions provided an opportunity for cheap printers and street vendors to 'turn a penny on the street' by selling accounts of the crimes, trial and 'dying speeches' of executed criminals as souvenirs to the paying spectators. Although the printer of this broadside is unknown, most execution broadsides and other forms of 'gallows literature' were published by a small number of printers many of whom, such as Thomas Birt, James Catnach and James Pitts were based around the Seven Dials area of London. Spelling and grammar was often poor and the details not always accurate. The printers often used battered woodcuts, and, for the gallows scene used a stock block with a pierced central section to allow the sex and required number of hanging figures to be changed as required. Female criminals were depicted by using a block for a male figure, cut square at the knee to represent a skirt.