William Duell was a 16-year old English boy convicted of raping

Rape

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...

 and murder

Murder

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...

ing Sarah Griffin in Acton, London

Acton, London

Acton is a district of west London, England, located in the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross.At the time of the 2001 census, Acton, comprising the wards of East Acton, Acton Central, South Acton and Southfield, had a population of 53,689 people...

. He was sentenced to death. On 24 November 1740, he was hanged

Hanging

Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...

 in Tyburn

Tyburn

Tyburn is a former village just outside the then boundaries of London that was best known as a place of public execution.Tyburn may also refer to:* Tyburn , river and historical water source in London...

, along with four others. His body hung for about twenty minutes before being cut down. It was then brought to the Surgeon's Hall

Surgeons' Hall

Surgeons' Hall in Edinburgh is the home of the Surgeons' Hall Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh....

 to be anatomized for a medical training college, a common practice at that time.

Revival

Duell was stripped and laid on the board, about to be dissected

Dissection

Dissection is usually the process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the functions and relationships of its components....

. However, one of the servants noticed that he had begun breathing slowly. Duell's breath got quicker and quicker; he was then bled, and in two hours, he was able to sit upright. That night, he was taken back to prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 in Newgate.

Duell, suffering from a fever

Fever

Fever is a common medical sign characterized by an elevation of temperature above the normal range of due to an increase in the body temperature regulatory set-point. This increase in set-point triggers increased muscle tone and shivering.As a person's temperature increases, there is, in...

 and delirium

Delirium

Delirium or acute confusional state is a common and severe neuropsychiatric syndrome with core features of acute onset and fluctuating course, attentional deficits and generalized severe disorganization of behavior...

 during his trial and execution, had no recollection of the hanging. It was suggested that his bad state was what ultimately saved his life. By the following day, he was back to full health.

Meanwhile, the public had apparently found out what happened to Duell, and there was great excitement over his case. The authorities decided to change his sentence to penal transportation

Penal transportation

Transportation or penal transportation is the deporting of convicted criminals to a penal colony. Examples include transportation by France to Devil's Island and by the UK to its colonies in the Americas, from the 1610s through the American Revolution in the 1770s, and then to Australia between...

. He was exile

Exile

Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...

d for life.