Dying Declaration

At his trial for the attempted murder of PC Robinson, Peace was given penal servitude for life. Shortly afterwards he was tried for the murder of Arthur Dyson and sentenced to be hanged in Leeds on 25th January 1879.

A week before this he made a sensational confession to a Sheffield vicar he knew: during a robbery 3 years earlier he had shot another man, for which a young gypsy was serving a life sentence.

Now he was to die anyway, he said, he thought it right to clear the young man. The eve of his execution Peace spent in earnest and contrite prayer, with petitions on behalf of all his family. When actually on the scaffold, he delayed proceedings with a long address to the Press, assuring them that he had been forgiven for his wicked life

and was going to the Kingdom of Heaven.

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