William Davidson, was born in Jamaica
in 1781. The illegitimate son of the Jamaican Attorney General and
a local black woman, William was sent to Glasgow
at the age of fourteen to study law. While in Scotland he became involved
in the demand for parliamentary reform. Davidson was apprenticed to
a Liverpool lawyer but after three years
ran away to sea. Later he was impressed into the Royal Navy.
On his discharge he returned to Scotland and his father sent him to
study mathematics in Aberdeen. Davidson
did not enjoy his studies and moved to Birmingham
where he started a cabinet-making business. Davidson fell in love
with the daughter of a prosperous merchant. The father disapproved
of his daughter's relationship and suspected that Davidson was after
her £7,000 dowry and arranged for him to be arrested on a false
charge. When he discovered she had married someone else he tried to
kill himself by taking poison.
After the failure of his cabinet-making business William Davidson
moved to London. He married Sarah Lane,
a working-class widow with four children. In the next few years she
had two more. Davidson became a Wesleyan
Methodist and taught at the local Sunday School. This came to
an end when he was accused of attempting to seduce a female student.
William Davidson became involved in radical politics again after the
Peterloo Massacre. After Richard
Carlile was found guilty of blasphemy and seditious libel and
sentenced to three years imprisonment in October 1819, Davidson told
a friend that these events had caused him to lose his belief in God.
Davidson now joined the Marylebone Union Reading Society where for
twopence a week he was able to read radical newspapers such as the
Republican and the Manchester
Observer. He also read the works of Tom
Paine.
It
was at the Marylebone Union that Davidson met John Harrison, a member
of the Spencean Philanthropists in London.
Soon afterwards Davidson also became a Spencean.
He met Arthur Thistlewood and within
a few months became one of the Committee of Thirteen that ran the
organisation.
On 22nd February 1820, George Edwards
(a government spy) pointed out to Arthur
Thistlewood an item in the New Times
that several members of the British government were going to have
dinner at Lord Harrowby's house at 39 Grosvenor Square. William Davidson
agreed to join Thistlewood and and twenty-seven other Spenceans
in the plot to kill the government ministers dining at Lord Harrowby's
house on 23rd February. Thistlewood selected Davidson as one of the
Executive of Five whose job it was to organise the assassinations.
Davidson had worked for Lord Harrowby in the past and knew some of
the staff that worked at Grosvenor Square. He was instructed to find
out more details about the cabinet meeting. However, when he spoke
to one of the servants he was told that the Earl of Harrowby was not
in London. When Davidson reported this news back to Arthur
Thistlewood he insisted that the servant was lying and that the
assassinations should proceed as planned.
On
the 23rd February Thistlewood's gang assembled in a hayloft in Cato
Street, a short distance away from Grosvenor Square. However,
government ministers were not meeting at the home of Earl of Harrowby.
The Spenceans had been set up by George Edwards,
a government spy who had infiltrated the Spencean
Society.
Thirteen police officers led by George Ruthven stormed the hay loft.
Several members of the gang refused to surrender their weapons and
one police officer, Richard Smithers, was killed by Arthur
Thistlewood. Davidson attempted to fight his way out but Benjamin
Gill hit him on the wrist with his truncheon and he dropped his blunderbuss.
Four of the conspirators, Thistlewood, John
Brunt, Robert Adams and John Harrison escaped out of a window.
However, George Edwards had given the police a detailed list of all
those involved and the men were soon arrested.
Eleven men were eventually charged with being involved in the Cato
Street Conspiracy. Charges against Robert Adams were dropped when
he agreed to give evidence against the other men in court. Davidson
claimed he was innocent and accused the court of being prejudiced
against black people. However, not only had Davidson been arrested
at the scene but evidence was produced to show that he had taken a
blunderbuss out of pawn to use in the attempted assassinations.
On 28th April 1820, William Davidson, James Ings,
Richard Tidd, Arthur
Thistlewood, and John Brunt were found
guilty of high treason and sentenced to death. John Harrison, James
Wilson, Richard Bradburn, John Strange and Charles Copper were also
found guilty but their original sentence of execution was subsequently
commuted to transportation for life. William Davidson was executed
at Newgate Prison on the 1st May, 1820.
(1)
Willliam Davidson, speech in court (April, 1820)
It
is an ancient custom to resist tyranny... And our history goes on
further to say, that when another of
their Majesties the Kings
of England tried to infringe upon those rights, the people armed,
and told him that if he did not give them the privileges of Englishmen,
they would compel him by the point of the sword... Would you not rather
govern a country of spirited men, than cowards? I can die but once
in this world, and the only regret left is, that I have a large family
of small children, and when I think of that, it unmans me.
(2)
British Luminary and Weekly Intelligence (7th May, 1820)
Davidson
ascended the scaffold with
a firm step, calm deportment, and undismayed countenance. He bowed
to the crowd, but his conduct altogether was equally free from the
appearance of terror, and the affectation of indifference.
(3)
John
Hobhouse
observed the executions and
that night wrote about it in his diary (1st May, 1820)
The
men died like heroes. Ings, perhaps, was too obstreperous in singing
'Death or Liberty', and Thistlewood said, "Be quiet, Ings; we
can die without all this noise."
(4)
The Traveller (May, 1820)
The executioner, who trembled
much, was a long time tying up the prisoners; while this operation
was going on a dead silence prevailed among the crowd, but the moment
the drop fell, the general feeling was manifested by deep sighs and
groans. Ings and Brunt were those only who manifested pain while hanging.
The former writhed for some moments; but the latter for several minutes
seemed, from the horrifying contortions of his countenance, to be
suffering the most excruciating torture.
(5)
George Theodore Wilkinson, An Authentic History of the Cato Street
Conspiracy (1820)
Thistlewood struggled slightly
for a few minutes, but each effort was more faint than that which
preceded; and the body soon turned round slowly, as if upon the motion
of the hand of death.
Tidd, whose size gave cause to suppose that he would "pass"
with little comparative pain, scarcely moved after the fall. The struggles
of Ings were great. The assistants of the executioner pulled his legs
with all their might; and even then the reluctance of the soul to
part from its native seat was to be observed in the vehement efforts
of every part of the body. Davidson, after three or four heaves, became
motionless; but Brunt suffered extremely, and considerable exertions
were made by the executioners and others to shorten his agonies.
(6)
Richard
Carlile, letter to Sarah Davidson
(May 1820)
Little did I think that villain Edwards was the spy, agent, and
instigator of the government,
and Mr. Davidson his victim. I now regret my error, and hope that
you will pardon it as an error of the head, without any bad motive.
Be assured that the heroic manner in which your husband and his companions
met their fate, will in a few years, perhaps in a few months, stamp
their names as patriots, and men who had nothing but their country's
weal at heart. I flatter myself as your children grow up, they will
find that the fate of their father will rather procure them respect
and admiration than its reverse.
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