3-021-510 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Fenian Prisoners at the Bow-Street Police Court [in London]: examination of the prisoners, 1868. 'The five persons in custody on the charge of wilful murder done by blowing down the wall of the Clerkenwell House of Detention on Dec. 13, were again brought...before Sir Thomas Henry...[View of] the interior of the court, with presiding magistrate, counsel, attorneys, and...the prisoners in the dock. Their names are Timothy Desmond and William Desmond, brothers; Jeremiah Allen, Nicholas English, and Ann Justice. The counsel for the prosecution were Mr. Giffard, Q.C., and Mr. Poland; Mr. Lewis, solicitor, defended the woman Justice, and Mr. Harper defended Timothy Desmond. The witnesses examined were the police-constable Ranger, one of those who were on duty watching the movements of the suspected persons outside the prison wall at the time of the explosion...Knowles, another policeman, who was on duty inside when the woman Justice came to visit the Fenian prisoner Casey, and said she was his aunt...Henry Bird, dairyman, who saw the men bring the truck with the barrel of gunpowder, and one put a lighted match to the fuse, but would not swear positively to the identity of either of the Desmonds, though he found them very like the same men'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.