Henry Fauntleroy
Encyclopedia
Henry Fauntleroy was an English
banker and forger, the last to be hanged for forgery in the United Kingdom
.
After seven years as a clerk in the London bank of Marsh, Sibbald & Co., of which his father was one of the founders, he was taken into partnership, and the whole business of the firm was left in his hands. In 1824 the bank suspended payment. Fauntleroy was arrested on the charge of appropriating trust funds by forging the trustees' signatures, and was committed for trial, it being freely rumoured that he had appropriated 250,000 pounds, which he had squandered in debauchery.
He was tried at the Old Bailey
, and, the case against him having been proved, he admitted his guilt, but pleaded that he had used the misappropriated funds to pay his firm's debts. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Seventeen merchants and bankers gave evidence as to his general integrity at the trial. After his conviction, powerful influence was brought to bear on his behalf, and his case was twice argued before judges on points of law. An Italian named Angelini even offered to take Fauntleroy's place on the scaffold. The efforts of his many friends were, however, unavailing, and he was executed in November 1824.
A wholly unfounded rumour was widely credited for some time subsequently, to the effect that he had escaped strangulation by inserting a silver tube in his throat, and was living comfortably abroad.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne
's novel The Blithedale Romance
a minor character who is mentioned in the background is a banker named Fauntleroy.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
banker and forger, the last to be hanged for forgery in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
After seven years as a clerk in the London bank of Marsh, Sibbald & Co., of which his father was one of the founders, he was taken into partnership, and the whole business of the firm was left in his hands. In 1824 the bank suspended payment. Fauntleroy was arrested on the charge of appropriating trust funds by forging the trustees' signatures, and was committed for trial, it being freely rumoured that he had appropriated 250,000 pounds, which he had squandered in debauchery.
He was tried at the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
, and, the case against him having been proved, he admitted his guilt, but pleaded that he had used the misappropriated funds to pay his firm's debts. He was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Seventeen merchants and bankers gave evidence as to his general integrity at the trial. After his conviction, powerful influence was brought to bear on his behalf, and his case was twice argued before judges on points of law. An Italian named Angelini even offered to take Fauntleroy's place on the scaffold. The efforts of his many friends were, however, unavailing, and he was executed in November 1824.
A wholly unfounded rumour was widely credited for some time subsequently, to the effect that he had escaped strangulation by inserting a silver tube in his throat, and was living comfortably abroad.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer.Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in the city of Salem, Massachusetts to Nathaniel Hathorne and the former Elizabeth Clarke Manning. His ancestors include John Hathorne, a judge during the Salem Witch Trials...
's novel The Blithedale Romance
The Blithedale Romance
The Blithedale Romance is Nathaniel Hawthorne's third major romance. In Hawthorne , Henry James called it "the lightest, the brightest, the liveliest" of Hawthorne's "unhumorous fictions."-Plot summary:...
a minor character who is mentioned in the background is a banker named Fauntleroy.