An “incredibly rare” confession on the deathbed of an 18th-century highwayman, written just before he was “hung on chains” for robbing the Yarmouth Mail and describing his enlightened response to a failed gay seduction, has been acquired by Horsham Museum.
The Life of Thomas Munn, aka, the Gentleman Brick-Maker, aka, Tom the Smuggler has 24 pages and was printed in 1750. It is part of the once popular genre of deathbed confessions, a precursor to true crime, and claims to be an autobiography that Munn handed over to the Yarmouth jailer on the morning of his execution on April 6, 1750.
The pamphlet, allegedly sold for pennies by street vendors, describes Munn’s life of smuggling, theft, and “jokes,” revealing how he turned into a crime life after growing up in a brick family in Kent. Later he went to Sussex to become a dance master, writing how he got “a bunch of Young Fellows as un-distinctive as I am … to join me in Morris dance, as it is called in that County.” This is one of the earliest documented references to Morris dancing, according to Horsham Museum.
Munn was back in stone making some three years later, at one point sharing how he “trudged” to Horsham to meet a potential woman. The woman, Munn reveals, was a wealthy 70-year-old widow: “I immediately noticed that poor old Soul couldn’t bite me because she didn’t have a tooth in her head, which might make her kiss soft.” A local attorney is also in the running for her hand in the marriage, and Munn gives up his lawsuit after the attorney visits the widow, and she’s “daddy up the stairs with him, and it seems to be there long enough for a Cause to have tried. ”However, it was“ a very unfortunate game ”, he notes.
Horsham Museum said that what elevates the pamphlet above the usual deathbed confessions is “the degree to which Thomas was self-conscious and thoughtful about his life.” He describes an incident at an inn in Southampton when the innkeeper’s son joined Munn in his bed and told him that “I like to lie with a naked man.”
“He wasn’t in bed for long, but started playing a role that was so contradictory to nature that I started in bed, and wanted words to express my confusion, surprise and passion,” says Munn. The “dude” leaves after Munn threatens him with a pocket knife, and the next day makes “many excuses”.
As Munn puts it, “It was what I have never met before, nor since then, but I had enough philosophy in me to regret exposing a young man, although he pointed to a most heinous sin; and certainly we commit those crimes beyond the usual should have pity, for no one is sure that if he comes under the same temptation, he will be able to withstand it. “
Jeremy Knight, curator at the Horsham Museum, said it was remarkable that Munn had this reaction and that he had also chosen to make a public account of it.
“To give it space in his confession – the only space he had to be publicly accountable – is really interesting,” he said. The printer could also have taken offense and not recorded it – after all, the author wouldn’t be able to tell a story … Still, both thought it was important enough to tell. And what Munn argues is, while viewed as a sin, his immediate response was determined by his upbringing and social norms. He’s not so sure because he was turned on by the boy, and who are we to judge when we have that reaction ourselves? A desire for tolerance and acceptance – it is human nature. “
Justin Croft, a British bookseller who came across the pamphlet at an American auction and bought it before selling it to the museum, called it “an interesting reflection on queerness.”
“In some ways it’s a very typical criminal deathbed confession – there were hundreds back then,” he said. But these kinds of weird events are unusual. It’s not something I’ve noticed in any of these before. It’s ambiguous – he says this happened, I did what I did, but don’t blame me because could you resist in the same circumstances? “
Horsham Museum acquired the booklet, which is kept in only four libraries around the world, with the help of the Friends of the National Libraries. It will display it in a new gallery when it reopens in the summer.