Odd this day
Yes, that’s right — it’s the 247th anniversary of the hanging of the clergyman William Dodd, who forged a £4,200 bond in the name of the Earl of Chesterfield, prompted 23,000 Londoners to sign a petition calling for mercy, and inspired one of Samuel Johnson’s most famous coinings.
Dodd’s problems basically arose because his outgoings exceeded his income. He was very fond of clothes, and famed for his smart appearance, becoming known as The Macaroni Parson — a phrase which makes sense if you know a bit of 18th century slang. Fashionable young men who wore posh clobber and fancy wigs were named after the pasta they encountered on their Grand Tours.
He might have gotten away with the fraud, if it wasn’t for a pesky ink blot. He was friends with Lord Chesterfield, and persuaded a broker that his lordship needed to raise some money discreetly. The broker accepted the document which Dodd produced, and sent it to his solicitor. Unfortunately, he noticed a blot, and… helpfully wrote the document out again, and sent it, as he thought, back to Chesterfield, who, of course, knew nothing about it, and said it was a forgery. Dodd tried pleading that he hadn’t meant to defraud Chesterfield, but to no avail.
Mind you, he had form… In 1774, he was after the job of rector at a church in Hanover Square, which would have brought him £1,500 a year. According to the Newgate Calendar (a collection of sensational stories about 18th-century crime):
He caused an anonymous letter to be sent to Lady Apsley, offering the sum of three thousand pounds if by her means he could be presented to the living. The letter was immediately communicated to the chancellor, and, after being traced to the writer, was laid before his majesty. The insult offered to so high an officer by the proposal was followed by instant punishment. Dr Dodd’s name was ordered to be struck out of the list of chaplains. The press teemed with satire and invective; he was abused and ridiculed in time papers of the day; and to crown the whole, the transaction became a subject of entertainment in one of Mr Foote’s pieces at the Haymarket.
Samuel Johnson was among those on his side, according to 1911’s edition of Encyclopædia Britannica:
Samuel Johnson was very zealous in pleading for a pardon, and a petition from the city of London received 23,000 signatures.
…but his luck was out. As the encyclopedia adds:
Dr Dodd was a voluminous writer and possessed considerable abilities, with but little judgment and much vanity.
…and the case did not go his way.
Still, he had always had literary ambitions, and imprisonment awaiting trial for this capital offence gave him time to compose a long poem in blank verse, Thoughts in Prison. He also delivered a sermon, The Convict’s Address to his unhappy Brethren — but it didn’t feel like his work. James Boswell said
it had a great deal more force of mind in it than any thing known to be his
to which Samuel Johnson responded
Which was (a) a splendid aphorism, (b) one for the ages, and (c) complete balls. Johnson had written the whole damn thing, and agreed with Dodd not to say so.
He eventually confessed to Boswell, some time after Dodd’s demise, saying:
I did not DIRECTLY tell a lie: I left the matter uncertain.
