William Dodd was a man of God and good works who made a terrible mistake. Dodd, a Freemason, was also a poet and an author of commentaries on the Bible and Shakespeare. He served for a time as chaplain to the King of England, opened a facility to help reformed prostitutes change their lives and became one of the most popular preachers of his day. He lived extravagantly, acquired debts and in an impulsive move to pay them, forged a bond to obtain a loan. He was caught and convicted. Despite a popular movement to pardon him backed by a petition with 23,000 signatures, his conviction and sentence stood. At that time in England his offense was a capital crime and on June 27, 1777 became the last person in England to be hanged for forgery.
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