Greasley church's saddest grave? Double tragedy of Melicent Shaw, crushed to death at a public execution...

In memory of 20-year-old Melicent Shaw of Kimberley
Crushed to death at the execution of William Saville in 1844

This gravestone of Melicent Shaw of Kimberley at Greasley church marks a double tragedy: a family murdered by their own father and multiple deaths, including Melicent herself and several children, at the subsequent public execution in 1844.

She was crushed to death in a crowd panic outside Nottingham's Shire Hall (the Galleries of Justice) after the execution of William Saville, hanged for the cut-throat murder of his wife and three young children in Colwick Woods. This horrific murder caused great public interest and on execution day thousands of people packed into the narrow streets outside the Shire Hall with little or no crowd control. As the convicted man dropped on the scaffold, the crowd surged with horror and panic spread. Melicent died with eleven others as the panicking crowd surged down Garner's Hill steps. The Nottingham Date Book describes the sad events..

William Saville hanged for the
murder of his family

"The crowd at the execution, Wednesday, Aug. 8, was immense. It was wonderful to see what countless thousands were packed together. As far as the eye could reach from the scaffold in front of the County Hall, nothing could be beheld but a sea of heads. Eight was the hour of execution, but every available space was occupied long before it arrived. Occasionally, there came a cry from the mighty surging mass that a man, woman, or youth, was fainting or being crushed to death, and if the sufferer were fortunate enough not to be entirely bereft of strength, he or she was lifted up, and permitted to walk to the extremity of the crowd on the shoulders of the people. Saville was led forth, and at three minutes past eight, the drop descended. Almost immediately after, the mighty crowd broke, as it were, in the middle. The anxiety, deep and general, to witness the spectacle, was succeeded by an equally general and still deeper desire to get away from the overpowering and suffocating pressure. The result was positively awful. The greater portion of the house-doors along the Pavement were closed, and those who were crushed against the walls by the terrific and resistless tide, had no means of escape. Twelve human beings were killed, and more than an hundred received serious injuries; and of the latter, the deaths of five, after lingering illnesses, were clearly traceable to the same most lamentable catastrophe."

A full account of the tragedy can be read at the Hidden History website here.

Young deaths

The Nottingham Date Book listed the dead that day many of whom were very young...

The grave of the Saville family

The murdered Saville family were buried in the now derelict churchyard of St John the Baptist next to Colwick Hall. Their own sad grave with its partly indecipherable epitaph is described in local antiquarian Alfred Stapleton's book The Churchyard Scribe from 1908...

"More than twenty years ago I copied from a broken wooden cross (doubtless now destroyed) in Colwick churchyard, Notts., the following remains of a painted inscription, recording a notorious local tragedy : Near this Cross lie the bodies of Ann Saville and her three Children, Mary, Harriet, and Thomas S........ murdered by her husband and then ....... Colwick Wood. Buried May 24th, 1844."

Today their burial place is no longer marked, the cross long-gone and the ruined church roofless and overgrown with brambles.

St John the Baptist ruined church Colwick
Credit - A Daykin

Inconsistent details

There are some curious typos on either Melicent's grave or in the newspaper reports - the grave says she was called Melicent but many reports call her Millicent. Aug 8th was the reported execution day but the grave says she died on 7th aged 20. Some newspapers say she was 19. Who is correct? You'd expect the grave's stonemasons would have more time to check details with relatives than the newspapers had but getting the date of death wrong?

The name Melicent while rare today does exist in historical texts... "Historically, Melicent has been noted in various medieval texts and noble families. It has appeared in literature and among the aristocracy, particularly in the context of Arthurian legends [though not in the original Thomas Malory legends themselves] where characters embodying loyalty and strength were prominent. The name was more common during the medieval period, especially in spheres that valued chivalric ideals and virtues. As a result, Melicent has often been linked to tales of bravery and steadfastness in the face of adversity."

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Notes and sources

Alfred Stapleton was a Nottingham antiquarian with a particular interest in gravestone epitaphs. His books heavily feature Greasley church's more unusual gravestones. So rich is this source of local tales, more of them will no doubt be featured in subsequent "Tales from Watnall Hall" articles. Indeed there is a direct connection to the Shaw family (subject of the latest article), the hall and the Rolleston family, lords of the manor since Tudor times...

The lords of the manor and the many Lancelots in Greasley...

"Only one name out of the foregoing lists, to wit Lancelot, occurring on a Shaw memorial nearly two centuries old, is specially worthy of note, as reflecting the hereditary cognomen of the Rollestons, manorial lords of Watnall. Such adoption of the name of the squire may be presumed to have been more or less current in all parishes, the parish-registers testifying that it was markedly so at Greasley, from an early date. For instance, between 1600 and 1718 no less than fifteen "Lancelot" entries figure among the Greasley marriages, though it is only fair to say that some of them appear to have been re-marriages on the part of widowers."