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THE CASE OF ELIZABETH GIBBONS.
1529 President of the Royal Institute of pointed out in a letter to the Timesthat "could the woman British Architects, the President of the Surveyors’ Institution, have been asked by a judge, as she would have been in the President of the Incorporated Society of Medical Officers France, how these wounds happened she would either of Health, the Master of the Butchers’ Company, Mr. Shirley have convicted herself or explained the whole thing. In fairness prisoners ought to give evidence on Murphy, Dr. B. A. Whitelegge, the Venerable Archdeacon oath, subject to cross-examination." This they can now :Stevens, and Professor J. Lane Notter. do. It is a matter of passing comment that among those ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND. whose opinions were adverse to the recent Act of Parliament which enables them to do so was Mr. Justice Hawkins (now MR. C. H. GOLDING-BIRD, one of the surgeons to Guy’s Lord Brampton) who tried Elizabeth Gibbons; it is a matter Hospital, will be a candidate at the election to be held in for congratulation to medical men that the weight of .July for one of the vacant seats on the Council of the Royal responsibility involved in giving evidence in such a case as College of Surgeons of England. Mr. H. H. Clutton, Senior hers is by this Act considerably lightened, as the prisoner Surgeon of St. Thomas’s Hospital, will also seek election on has now, at any rate, the opportunity of stating as a witness the Council. We have already announced the names of Mr. that which actually took place and of being cross-examined .J. H. Morgan and Mr. J. Bland-Sutton as candidates. upon his or her story in order to test whether he or she ha
County Council), the
......
stated it truly.
THE CASE OF ELIZABETH GIBBONS.
-
IT has been announced that the Home Secretary has THE ANNUAL CONVERSAZIONE OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. ordered the release of Elizabeth Gibbons who in 1884 was I sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. The THE annual conversazione of this society was held on recurrence of her name in the daily press reminds us that May 21st, a reception being held by the President, Dr. F. T. -in commenting on her trial while she lay under sentence of Roberts, at 8.30 P.M., when Dr. J. Kingston Fowler delivered death we wrote of her,1 "The prisoner in this case an oration on Science and Medicine in the Eighteenth must be respited," and that, taking a course unusual Century, which was listened to with much attention. to us, we caused a petition to lie in our office for Sir William Gairdner, in proposing a vote of thanks to signature praying that the clemency of the Crown might Dr. Fowler, remarked that he had himself been interested be exercised in her behalf. The reason for our doing in the history of medicine in the eighteenth century and this, as we set out in the article referred to, was that the he had given an address on the subject in 1887. It was ,evidence which convicted her was that of the medical interesting to compare Cullen and Brown, both of whom had witnesses who drew conclusions from the number and systems. Cullen was a very learned and a very practically position of the wounds received by the deceased which failed minded man, but his system was replaced by the Brunonian ,entirely to convince us, while we attached weight to evidence system. Brown was a man of very different stamp, not which seemed to justify the theory of suicide set up by the refined, not of large practice, not a hospital physician, yet, defence. The prisoner and her husband had lived together strange to say, he erected a system which overthrew that for 37 years when one night he was found dead with four of Cullen. Patting it epigrammatically the eighteenth bullet-wounds inflicted by a revolver which he always kepti century was a century of revolution, the nineteenth was in his bedroom. No one had been present with him but a century of evolution. Music and tobacco assisted the his wife when the fatal shots were fired. Her story members to pass a very pleasant evening. was that he had fired the shots himself while she had tried to prevent him, but the evidence of a surgeon MR. H. M. O’HARA AND THE VICTORIAN practising at Hayes, where the deceased lived, was very BRANCH OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL strongly to the effect that it was impossible that the ASSOCIATION. wounds, speaking of them collectively, could have been OUR correspondent in Australia tells a painful story of inflicted one after the other by any man upon himself, and of the back the could not have one of at that alleged breach of professional ethics committed by Mr. shoulder, them, H. M. O’Hara, a Melbourne surgeon. Mr. O’Hara was asked to this last wound at all. With been self-inflicted regard that it it was suggested in cross-examination might have by the Council of the Victorian Branch of the British been caused by the deceased falling on the pistol, which was Medical Association to explain to what extent, if any, he was discharged thereby, but the witness and Mr. A. A. Bowlby, connected with a company selling a powder and a syringe to then medical registrar at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, be used in preventing conception. Mr. O’Hara made an who corroborated his evidence, would hardly admit that explanation which in the opinion of the Council did not there was a possibility of such a wound being so occa- acquit him of grossly unprofessional conduct and notice sioned. We neither make nor made any protestation of of motion for his expulsion from the Branch was given. the innocence of Elizabeth Gibbons, but we were and are The Council arrived at their decision by the necessary threeof opinion that such evidence as was given by the medical fourths majority, but when their action came up for conmen, coupled with no other evidence save what is known firmation at the next ordinary meeting of the Branch 44 as circumstantial evidence, was not sufficient to prove members voted for Mr. O’Hara’s expulsion and 34 against it, beyond all shadow of reasonable doubt that she had been so that the three-quarters majority of the Branch meeting guilty of the crime, bearing in mind that the crime of necessary for the ratification of the Council’s view was not murder involves a sentence which once executed cannot be obtained. The President of the Branch and the Council, recalled. It was admitted, we believe, when Gibbons’s sen- regarding the act of the Branch in not endorsing their tence was commuted to one of penal servitude for life, that decision as tantamount to a vote of want of conTHE LANCET had been the chief agent in saving her from fidence, tendered their resignation as members of the the gallows. She entered prison 16 years ago at the age of Branch, and, according to our correspondent, intend to .54, she leaves it consequently at the age of 70, and during send to the headquarters of the Association in England a her incarceration a great change has been wrought in the justification of the course which they have pursued. The procedure at criminal trials. While the agitation for her matter, our correspondent suggests, may be re-opened in reprieve was proceeding a gentleman named Wether field England. It is one that should be gone into minutely and
I
,
.
1
THE LANCET, Dec.
27th, 1884, p. 1163.
2
The
Times, Dec. 22nd, 1884, p. 10.
County Council), the
......
stated it truly.
THE CASE OF ELIZABETH GIBBONS.
-
IT has been announced that the Home Secretary has THE ANNUAL CONVERSAZIONE OF THE MEDICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. ordered the release of Elizabeth Gibbons who in 1884 was I sentenced to death for the murder of her husband. The THE annual conversazione of this society was held on recurrence of her name in the daily press reminds us that May 21st, a reception being held by the President, Dr. F. T. -in commenting on her trial while she lay under sentence of Roberts, at 8.30 P.M., when Dr. J. Kingston Fowler delivered death we wrote of her,1 "The prisoner in this case an oration on Science and Medicine in the Eighteenth must be respited," and that, taking a course unusual Century, which was listened to with much attention. to us, we caused a petition to lie in our office for Sir William Gairdner, in proposing a vote of thanks to signature praying that the clemency of the Crown might Dr. Fowler, remarked that he had himself been interested be exercised in her behalf. The reason for our doing in the history of medicine in the eighteenth century and this, as we set out in the article referred to, was that the he had given an address on the subject in 1887. It was ,evidence which convicted her was that of the medical interesting to compare Cullen and Brown, both of whom had witnesses who drew conclusions from the number and systems. Cullen was a very learned and a very practically position of the wounds received by the deceased which failed minded man, but his system was replaced by the Brunonian ,entirely to convince us, while we attached weight to evidence system. Brown was a man of very different stamp, not which seemed to justify the theory of suicide set up by the refined, not of large practice, not a hospital physician, yet, defence. The prisoner and her husband had lived together strange to say, he erected a system which overthrew that for 37 years when one night he was found dead with four of Cullen. Patting it epigrammatically the eighteenth bullet-wounds inflicted by a revolver which he always kepti century was a century of revolution, the nineteenth was in his bedroom. No one had been present with him but a century of evolution. Music and tobacco assisted the his wife when the fatal shots were fired. Her story members to pass a very pleasant evening. was that he had fired the shots himself while she had tried to prevent him, but the evidence of a surgeon MR. H. M. O’HARA AND THE VICTORIAN practising at Hayes, where the deceased lived, was very BRANCH OF THE BRITISH MEDICAL strongly to the effect that it was impossible that the ASSOCIATION. wounds, speaking of them collectively, could have been OUR correspondent in Australia tells a painful story of inflicted one after the other by any man upon himself, and of the back the could not have one of at that alleged breach of professional ethics committed by Mr. shoulder, them, H. M. O’Hara, a Melbourne surgeon. Mr. O’Hara was asked to this last wound at all. With been self-inflicted regard that it it was suggested in cross-examination might have by the Council of the Victorian Branch of the British been caused by the deceased falling on the pistol, which was Medical Association to explain to what extent, if any, he was discharged thereby, but the witness and Mr. A. A. Bowlby, connected with a company selling a powder and a syringe to then medical registrar at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, be used in preventing conception. Mr. O’Hara made an who corroborated his evidence, would hardly admit that explanation which in the opinion of the Council did not there was a possibility of such a wound being so occa- acquit him of grossly unprofessional conduct and notice sioned. We neither make nor made any protestation of of motion for his expulsion from the Branch was given. the innocence of Elizabeth Gibbons, but we were and are The Council arrived at their decision by the necessary threeof opinion that such evidence as was given by the medical fourths majority, but when their action came up for conmen, coupled with no other evidence save what is known firmation at the next ordinary meeting of the Branch 44 as circumstantial evidence, was not sufficient to prove members voted for Mr. O’Hara’s expulsion and 34 against it, beyond all shadow of reasonable doubt that she had been so that the three-quarters majority of the Branch meeting guilty of the crime, bearing in mind that the crime of necessary for the ratification of the Council’s view was not murder involves a sentence which once executed cannot be obtained. The President of the Branch and the Council, recalled. It was admitted, we believe, when Gibbons’s sen- regarding the act of the Branch in not endorsing their tence was commuted to one of penal servitude for life, that decision as tantamount to a vote of want of conTHE LANCET had been the chief agent in saving her from fidence, tendered their resignation as members of the the gallows. She entered prison 16 years ago at the age of Branch, and, according to our correspondent, intend to .54, she leaves it consequently at the age of 70, and during send to the headquarters of the Association in England a her incarceration a great change has been wrought in the justification of the course which they have pursued. The procedure at criminal trials. While the agitation for her matter, our correspondent suggests, may be re-opened in reprieve was proceeding a gentleman named Wether field England. It is one that should be gone into minutely and
I
,
.
1
THE LANCET, Dec.
27th, 1884, p. 1163.
2
The
Times, Dec. 22nd, 1884, p. 10.