(Elizabeth) Martha Brown Executed 9th August 1856
The Thomas Hardy Connection? Image: courtesy of Shire Hall Museum (Dorchester) and Folio Creative (photographer) . Thomas Hardy 'Tess of the d'Urbevilles' (1891) ends with the its tragic heroine being hanged for the murder of Alex d'Urbeville, a former lover. Hardy did not depict the trial or the execution of Tess in the novel, a black flag is hoisted above the prison at Wintoncester ( Winchester) to show that the deed was done in the very last pages of the book. We learn that ' Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals, ....had ended his sport with Tess. At the age of 16,Hardy was a witness to the hanging of (Elizabeth) Martha Brown on 9th August 1856, who had been tried at the law court in Dorchester on 21st July 1856 and f...