A BRIEF HISTORY OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN BRITAIN

Between the late 17th and early 19th century, Britain’s ‘Bloody Code’ made more than 200 crimes – many of them trivial – punishable by death. Writing for History Extra, criminologist and historian Lizzie Seal considers the various ways in which capital punishment has been enforced throughout British history and investigates the timeline to its abolition in 1965

British forms of punishment

From as early as the Anglo-Saxon era, right up to 1965 when the death penalty was abolished, the main form of capital punishment in Britain was hanging. Initially, this involved placing a noose around the neck of the condemned and suspending them from the branch of a tree. Ladders and carts were used to hang people from wooden gallows, which entailed death by asphyxiation.

In the late 13th century the act of hanging morphed into the highly ritualised practice of ‘drawing, hanging and quartering’ – the severest punishment reserved for those who had committed treason. In this process, ‘drawing’ referred to the dragging of the condemned to the place of execution. After they were hanged, their body was punished further by disembowelling, beheading, burning and ‘quartering’ – cutting off the limbs. The perpetrator’s head and limbs were often publicly displayed following the execution.

The practice of being hung, drawn and quartered was generally reserved for those who had committed treason, says Seal. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Later, the ‘New Drop’ gallows – first used at London’s Newgate Prison in 1783 – could accommodate two or three prisoners at a time and were constructed on platforms with trapdoors through which the condemned fell. The innovation of the ‘long drop’ [a method of hanging which considered the weight of the condemned, the length of the drop and the placement of the knot] in the later 19th century caused death by breaking the condemned’s neck, which was deemed quicker and less painful than strangling.

Burning at the stake was another form of capital punishment, used in England from the 11th century for heresy and the 13th century for treason. It was also used specifically for women convicted of petty treason (the charge given for the murder of her husband or employer). Though hanging replaced burning as the method of capital punishment for treason in 1790, the burning of those suspected of witchcraft was practiced in Scotland until the 18th century.

Burning at the stake was used in England from the 11th century for heresy and from the 13th century for treason, says Seal. (Photo by Fototeca Gilardi/Getty Images)

For other – perhaps luckier – souls and for those of noble birth who were condemned to die, execution by beheading (which was considered the least brutal method of execution) was used until the 18th century. Death by firing squad was also used as form of execution by the military.

The ‘Bloody Code’

Britain’s ‘Bloody Code’ was the name given to the legal system between the late-17th and early-19th century which made more than 200 offences – many of them petty – punishable by death. Statutes introduced between 1688 and 1815 covered primarily property offences, such as pickpocketing, cutting down trees and shoplifting.

Nevertheless, despite the ‘mushrooming’ of capital crimes, fewer people were actually executed in the 18th century than during the preceding two centuries. This paradox can be explained by the specificity of the capital statutes, which meant it was often possible to convict people of lesser crimes. For example, theft of goods above a certain value carried the death penalty, so the jury could circumvent this by underestimating the value of said goods.

Certain regions with more autonomy, including Scotland, Wales and Cornwall, were particularly reluctant to implement the Bloody Code and, by the 1830s, executions for crimes other than murder had become extremely rare.

British legal reformer and politician, Sir Samuel Romilly (1757–1818). "He succeeded in repealing the death penalty for some minor crimes and in ending the use of disembowelling convicted criminals while alive," says Seal. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Vocal critics of the Bloody Code included early 19th-century MP Sir Samuel Romilly, who worked for its reform. A barrister by profession, he was appointed solicitor general [a senior law officer of the crown] and entered the House of Commons in 1806. He succeeded in repealing the death penalty for some minor crimes and in ending the use of disembowelling convicted criminals while alive. Later, liberal MP William

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