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Medieval Historical Backgrounds
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Executions in England, late 18th and early 19th centuries
Before England began changing its laws in the 1820s, a person could be executed for a long list of crimes. Many were condemned, but not nearly so many actually were executed. Murder, counterfeiting money, and treason rarely resulted in mercy, but the large majority of sentences for lesser offenses were reprieved in some way, and those prisoners went to the hulls or penal colonies instead of to the gallows.
Thanks to the Newgate Calendar and other lists of executions that have survived, names and dates and crimes are available for many of the criminals who actually paid the ultimate penalty. Here are some interesting examples.
Rev. Henry Hackman, executed at Tyburn April, 1779 for the murder of Miss Reay, the mistress of the Earl of Sandwich. I'm on my way to Google to find out the details of this provocative tidbit.
Christian Bowman (a woman), strangled and burnt for "coining" on March 18, 1789. Strangling and burning was a common execution method for women. Witches were killed this way, for example. Women who killed either their husbands or their mistresses might be executed this way because the crime was considered a form of treason until the late 18th century. "Coining" was a form of treason too, and usually resulted in execution.. It means she was making and circulating counterfeit coins.
Thomas Maynard, executed for forgery December 31, 1828. He appears to have been the last to be executed for this crime.
John Smith and John Pratt, executed for "unnatural crimes" on April 8, 1835. One assumes they were convicted of homosexual activity which still carried the penalty of death at this date. I have found few examples of men actually being tried, convicted and executed, however, possibly because it was difficult to prove it had happened.
John Bell (?), 14 years old, executed for murdering another boy, aged 13, on August 1, 1831. Children were not necessarily spared. Of course, if his name was questionable so was his age.
William Rea, executed July 4, 1828, for highway robbery. We think of this crime being outdated by then, but evidently it was still happening. The same with piracy. There were executions for piracy at least as late as the 1860s.
On May 26, 1868, Michael Barrett Fenian was the last person to be publicly executed in England.
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