Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Corder, William
CORDER, WILLIAM (1804–1828), murderer, was a young man of some property. He had become the father of an illegitimate child by Maria Marten, a native of Polstead, Suffolk, who had before borne children to at least two other men, but who still continued to live with her parents. Corder frequently promised to marry Marten, and at length arranged that she should leave her home on 18 May 1827, dressed in male attire, and join him at a place known as the Red Barn, whence they would proceed together to Ipswich to be married on the following morning. Maria Marten left her home as desired, and was never again seen alive. At first no suspicion was aroused, for Corder paid frequent visits to his wife's parents, telling them that their daughter was living happily as companion to a lady. He kept them regularly informed of his wife's supposed movements, and wrote many letters, in which he professed great surprise that her letters to her mother had never reached Polstead, and mentioned his inquiries on the subject at the post-office. Matters continued thus till the following April, when the body of Maria Marten was discovered buried beneath the floor of the Red Barn, a search having been made at the instigation of the girl's mother, who, as was said at the time, repeatedly dreamed that her daughter lay buried in the place in question. It was found that Maria Marten had been shot through the head and stabbed in the heart. Corder was at once arrested, and in the August following was brought up for trial at Bury St. Edmunds. Conclusive evidence was adduced to prove that he had committed the murder. Corder, however, protested his innocence and addressed the jury in his own defence, alleging that he had quarrelled with the deceased in the barn and had then left her; that he stopped on hearing the report of a pistol, and going back found that she had shot herself; and that in the fear of being charged with murder he had buried the body. Chief-baron Alexander summed up strongly against the probability of the prisoner's story; the jury brought in a verdict of guilty; Corder was sentenced to death, and executed on the Monday following, 11 Aug. 1828. In the interval between his trial and execution Corder made a full confession of his guilt. The amount of public interest aroused by this case was almost unparalleled, there being several extraordinary incidents connected with it. It came out, for instance, that in the period between the murder and its discovery Corder had advertised for a wife, and had married a very respectable schoolmistress, who was one of forty-five respondents. Six columns, or a quarter of its entire space, was given by the ‘Times’ to the report of the trial, which extended over two days. The execution was witnessed, it was estimated, by ten thousand persons, and the rope with which the criminal was hanged is said to have been sold at the rate of a guinea per inch. Macready informed the Rev. J. M. Bellew that at a performance of ‘Macbeth’ at Drury Lane on 11 Aug., when Duncan asked ‘Is execution done on Cawdor?’ a man in the gallery exclaimed ‘Yes, sir; he was hung this morning at Bury.’ Corder's skeleton is still preserved in the Suffolk General Hospital at Bury St. Edmunds, and in the Athenæum of the same town is a history of the murder and trial, by J. Curtis (Kelly, 1828), bound in Corder's skin, which was tanned for the purpose by George Creed, surgeon to the hospital.
[Gent. Mag. August 1828; Annual Register, 1828, pp. 106 et seq.; Times, 8, 9, 10, and 12 Aug. 1828.]