Age: unknown
Sex: male
Crime: murder
Date Of Execution: 25 Apr 1778
Execution Place: unknown
Method: hanging
Executioner: unknown
Source: http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/caernarfon.html
Saturday, 25 April 1778
Morris Rowlands on 21 January 1778 at Gochwillan Mill, Llanllechid shot dead William Williams, miller(WALES 4/275/4). In the Trinity 1778 Quarter Session papers MR is said to have been dieted for 13 weeks from 7 January (sic) to 24 April. (13 weeks would have been from 24 January which would fit with a murder on the 21st.) He was paid for 13 weeks only so the 7 January date may be a copyist's error.
According to Caernarfon Historical Society Transactions 1939 page 12 "April 25 1778: a man from Llanllechid hanged at Morfa Hallt and gibbeted Dalar Hir.
near Aber."
Executed in April according to ballad (BCWB Volume VI Number 12).
C&DH reports "Morris Rowlands, for murdering a miller at Gochwillan, executed April 5th 1778." The date is incorrect as the Session did not start till 18 April.
Shrewsbury Chronicle Saturday 9 May"Saturday se'nnight a creditable farmer was executed at Caernarfon and hanged in chains for murder of a miller by shooting and afterwards beating his brains out with a stake: the occasion was a love affair.
