Given recent political events, both locally and nationally, we could suggest several suitable candidates for public humiliation.The following is taken from sources which include Gillian Clegg's "Brentford Past" and the Brentford History website.There were stocks, a pillory and a whipping post in Brentford. Stocks were used to lock the miscreant’s feet in place while the pillory secured the head and hands. The general idea was to provide the opportunity for physical and verbal humiliation. The public whipping of women was not abolished until 1817 and that of men until the early 1830s.In the 17th century the stocks, pillory and whipping post were in the Market Place (now Market Square) in New Brentford. These facilities were particularly well-used and popular during the annual Brentford Fair in the Market Place.In August 1640 John Greene of Twickenham was sentenced to spend 6 hours in the stocks at Brentford on a market day. In October 1699 Thomas Webb was sentenced to be put in the pillory, with 1 hour in the Brentford Pillory on a market day, and 1 hour similarly at Twickenham.In 1720 the Justices ordered the township of Brentford to provide new stocks, a cage and a whipping post to supplement whatever forms of punishment were in use. It seems that this was built on waste ground near Brentford Bridge. The cage was to be “eight foot square, in the clear height 7 foot to the evesplates to be built of timber, weather boarded without with fir, and lined within with elm boards, the foundation brickwork, the stocks and a whipping post to be affixed and penthouse over them.” An early occupant of the cage was Deborah Street “a lunatic”.In 1721 a man was put in the pillory at Brentford for deer stealing. In October 1725 Eleanor Knight was convicted for keeping a "common bawdy house" in Isleworth and she was ordered to be whipped "from Brentford Bridge to the Market Place there and round the said market and back again to the said Bridge on a Market Day until her body be bloody".At Brentford a new “cage” or “lock-up” was built in 1813 in Ferry Square. Drunks and other miscreants were held there until they appeared before magistrates. The cage was demolished in 1897 to make way for the Fire Station at 55 High Street.
Jim Storrar ● 3315d