Execution of Robert Tennant
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A FULL & PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE EXECUTION OF Robert Tennant
Who was Executed at Stirling on Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, for the bloody Murder of William Peddie, an old man, about 70 years of age, on the high road between Beancross and Kerse toll, parish of Falkirk, on the evening of the 3rd of August last, with his Speech upon the scaffold, also a copy of his Lamentation.
ROBERT TENNANT is a young man about 24 years of age, was a labourer, and employed in breaking stones on the Toll Road, between Beancross and Kerse Toll, in the parish of Falkirk, when the unfortunate circumstances of the murder took place.
William Peddie, the deceased was about 70 years old, a labourer also, and likewise employee on the same road, on which he was foreman. On the forenoon of the 3rd of August, the day on which the murder was committed, Peddie was instructed to dismiss Tennant from the work, by Mr. Borthwick, the superintendant of that district of road, because that, although the deceased had before prevailed on the superintendant to keep him on the road, it was evident that his drinking and irregularity rendered him unfit to be longer employed, and had been at that moment, 12 o'clock noon, lying drunk on the footpath, opposite the Toll, apparently fast asleep. When he awoke, and this instruction was communicated to him, the altercation commenced, which ended in the murder of the poor old man.
About eight o'clock on Wednesday morning the Magistrates assembled in the Court -House, shortly after which the prisoner was brought forward, and after a short time spent in devotional exercise, and after singing a few verses of the 50th psalm, he proceeded to the scaffold about 20 minutes past 8 o'clock, when after in very impressive and ferent prayer by the Rev. A Bennie, during in which he bowed repeatedly, he was led to the drop, and after a few seconds spent in prayer, he gave the signal, when he was launched into eternity. He was decently dressed in black. There were about 2000 spectators present.
Ye fellow man, pray view the end,
Of those who live in crime,
they range abroad without a friend;
And die before their time,
The dreadful scaffold does unfold
A lesson to the young;
It paints in Language seldom told,
That crime will stop the tongue.
When pinioned fast, the awful view,
Does damp the prisoner's heart,
But little thought spectators take,
It leaves no lasting smart.
Farewell, my friends, we now must sever,
The thought lies heavy at my heart,
Forget my awful end for ever,
I from you now must part.
Acknowledgement: 'The Trustees of the National Library of Scotland'
