Death of Frederick John White

rdf:langString Death of Frederick John White

rdf:langString Frederick John White was a private in the British Army's 7th Hussars. While serving at the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow, in 1846, White touched a sergeant with a metal bar during an argument while drunk. A court-martial sentenced him to 150 lashes with a cat of nine tails. The flogging was carried out on 15 June with White tied to a ladder in front of the regiment. White was afterwards admitted to hospital where he initially progressed well but eventually deteriorated and died on 11 July. An army autopsy recorded that White's death was by natural causes, resulting from an inflammation of the pleura and cardiac covering, and his body was sent for a church burial at St Leonard's Church, Heston. The vicar, however, had learnt of the flogging and alerted the Middlesex coroner Thomas Wakley. Wakley, an opponent of flogging, ordered an inquest and arranged for two further autopsies to be performed. The last of these, carried out by Erasmus Wilson, reported that White's death was a direct result from the flogging. The inquest jury, on 4 August, returned the verdict that White's case was a result of the flogging and called for its use to be discontinued. The case resulted in publicity for the cause of abolition, though some medical professionals disputed the inquest findings. Within days the commander-in-chief of the British Army, the Duke of Wellington, ordered that flogging sentences were not to exceed fifty lashes. The prime minister Lord John Russell noted in the House of Commons that he supported the eventual abolition of the punishment. Despite this flogging remained available to the army until 1881 when corporal punishment was abolished as part of the Childers Reforms.