Sarah Malcolm Aetat XII No Recompence but Love

Sarah Malcolm became notorious in 1733 when she was convicted of the murders of her former employer Lydia Duncomb, Mrs Duncomb's companion Elizabeth Harrison and their seventeen year old maid Ann Price. Malcolm, who had been employed as a charwoman, attracted the strong interest of the public because of her youth and good looks and the brutality of her crime. The painters William Hogarth and his father-in-law James Thornhill were among the many visitors that Malcolm received in her cell in Newgate Prison. Hogarth sold a painting of Malcolm to Horace Walpole, and engraved a print after it. The popularity of that image is confirmed in that numerous pirated versions were produced, including the present example.

The unknown print-maker capitalised on Malcolm's notoriety by inserting at the top right of print the scene of her execution on Fleet Street between Mitre Court and Fetter Lane, and adding an additional male figure who stands behind Malcolm holding a coin or ring. It has been suggested that this is the figure of James Thornhill, presumably presenting a coin to Malcolm or her prison guards for the privilege of viewing her. While the figure does somewhat resemble Thornhill, he appears to be dressed as a clergyman and it has been suggested that he is offering her a ring. This may be intended as the figure of Revd W. Piddington, Lecturer at St Bartholomew the Great, with whom she entrusted her final confession (confessing to a role in robbing Duncomb and Harrison, but denying murder). It was reported (Bigraphical Anecdotes of William Hogarth, 3rd edn, 1785, pp.173-5) that Malcolm had an amorous connection with Piddington, who was with her on the scaffold, so he may be proposing marriage to her. This salacious detail, along with the gruesome execution scene, were presumably intended by the printmaker to appeal to the public's macabre interest in her case. As such, the print is an important and evocative example of public appetite for gruesome crime stories in the eighteenth-century, and the role of artists and printmakers in feeding this appetite and making notorious criminals into London icons.