The union was not condoned by Catherine’s family, who turned her out when they realised she was romantically attached to the guardsman who earned a living selling pamphlets and ballads.
But Catherine was enchanted by the charismatic, handsome Irishman and the pair began a life together travelling from town to town on foot and sleeping rough – by the time she left her family’s care, she was already pregnant.
Their speciality was writing and selling ‘gallows ballads’, on one occasion the couple hawked such a publication at the execution of Catherine’s cousin, Charles Christopher Robinson, 18, who was hanged in Stafford after being found guilty of cutting the throat of his sweetheart in 1866.
The union was not condoned by Catherine’s family, who turned her out when they realised she was romantically attached to the guardsman who earned a living selling pamphlets and ballads.
But Catherine was enchanted by the charismatic, handsome Irishman and the pair began a life together travelling from town to town on foot and sleeping rough – by the time she left her family’s care, she was already pregnant.
Their speciality was writing and selling ‘gallows ballads’, on one occasion the couple hawked such a publication at the execution of Catherine’s cousin, Charles Christopher Robinson, 18, who was hanged in Stafford after being found guilty of cutting the throat of his sweetheart in 1866.