Capital Punishment in the United Kingdom Part II

 Parliamentary debates on reintroduction

After Royal Assent for the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, supporters in Parliament have made several attempts to reintroduce capital punishment. On 23 November 1966, Duncan Sandys was refused leave to bring in a Bill to restore capital punishment for the murder of police or prison officers, by a vote of 170 to 292. Motions to make the five-year suspension of capital punishment under the 1965 Act permanent were opposed, but agreed by 343 to 185 in the House of Commons; in the House of Lords, an amendment to continue with a temporary suspension of capital punishment until 31 July 1973 was rejected by 174 to 220. In April 1973, the House of Commons voted against reintroduction.

The deaths of civilians in several IRA bombings in 1974 prompted a renewed debate. On 11 December 1974 Brian Walden moved a motion declaring that "the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public"; Jill Knight moved an amendment calling instead for introduction of legislation providing for death to be the penalty for acts of terrorism causing death. Her amendment was rejected by 217 to 369. A year later, Ivan Lawrence's motion "That this House demands capital punishment for terrorist offences causing death" was rejected by 232 to 361.

After the Conservatives' victory in the 1979 general election, Eldon Griffiths (Parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales) moved a motion "that the sentence of capital punishment should again be available to the courts" on 19 July 1979. While the motion was not expected to pass, the margin of its defeat (243 to 362) was much wider than expected. Later in the same Parliament, the Criminal Justice Bill provided an opportunity on 11 May 1982 for several new clauses to be proposed which would have reinstated capital punishment. The first, which simply declared that "A person convicted of murder shall be liable to capital punishment", was tabled by Edward Gardner, and rejected by 195 to 357. It was followed by an alternative under which capital punishment would be available "as the penalty for an act of terrorism involving the loss of human life"; this new clause was rejected by 176 to 332.[ A further new clause proposing capital punishment "as the penalty for murder by means of firearms or explosives" was rejected by 176 to 343. Then a new clause allowing for capital punishment "as the penalty for murder of a police or prison officer" was rejected by 208 to 332. Finally a new clause allowing capital punishment "as the penalty for murder in the course of robbery and burglary which involves the use of offensive weapons" was rejected by 151 to 331.

The new Parliament in 1983 again prompted supporters of capital punishment to put their case. Sir Edward Gardner's motion "That this House favors the restoration of the death penalty for murder" was debated on 13 July 1983, with several amendments moved to restrict capital punishment to certain categories of murder. The amendments were voted on first: capital punishment for murder "resulting from acts of terrorism" was rejected by 245 to 361, for murder "of a police officer during the course of his duties" by 263 to 344, for murder "of a prison officer during the course of his duties" by 252 to 348, for murder "by shooting or causing an explosion" by 204 to 374, and for murder "in the course or furtherance of theft" by 194 to 369. The main motion was then defeated by 223 to 368. Towards the end of the Parliament, a new clause proposed to the Criminal Justice Bill proposed to return the death penalty for "A person convicted by the unanimous verdict of a jury of the premeditated killing of another person or of knowingly and intentionally killing another person in a manner, or for a reason, or in circumstances which a reasonable person would consider to be evil" was rejected by 230 to 342 on 1 April 1987.

The Criminal Justice Bill in 1988 provided a further opportunity for a debate; the new clause proposed by Roger Gale allowed for the jury in a murder case to "have the power, upon reaching a verdict of guilty of murder, to recommend ... death in the manner authorized by law". It was rejected by 218 to 341.

The aforementioned bills were rejected despite support from then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

On 17 December 1990 a new Criminal Justice Bill again saw amendments designed to reintroduce capital punishment. The first covered anyone over 18 "convicted of the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty" and was rejected by 215 to 350; a general reintroduction of death as the penalty for murder (with special provision for the Court of Appeal to decide whether to substitute a life sentence) was then rejected by 182 to 367. Capital punishment for "murder committed by means of firearms, explosives or an offensive weapon, or for the murder of a police or prison officer" was rejected by 186 to 349.

A Parliamentary debate on a question proposing reintroduction of capital punishment came on 21 February 1994 when new clauses to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill were moved. The first, providing for death as the sentence for "the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty", was rejected by 186 to 383; A new clause providing for general reintroduction with power for the Court of Appeal to substitute life imprisonment was rejected by 159 to 403. This would have been aimed at terrorists in the Northern Ireland conflict.

In June 2013 a new bill for capital punishment in England and Wales was introduced, sponsored by Conservative MP Philip Hollobone. This Bill was withdrawn.

Notable executions

Before 1707

6 July 1535: Sir Thomas More was beheaded for treason for refusing to acknowledge Henry VIII as the head of the Church of England.

6 October 1536: William Tyndale was strangled before being burned at the stake for heresy after translating the Bible into English, which was seen as an affront to God.

17 May 1536: George Boleyn, 2nd Viscount Rochford was beheaded on false charges of committing adultery and incest with his sister Anne Boleyn.

19 May 1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII and queen of England, was beheaded at the Tower of London on false charges of adultery, incest and treason so that Henry could marry Jane Seymour.

2 June 1537: Francis Bigod was hanged for treason.

12 July 1537: Robert Aske was hanged in chains for treason.

28 July 1540: Thomas Cromwell was beheaded on false charges of treason as punishment for arranging Henry VIII's ill-fated marriage to Anne of Cleves.

10 December 1541: Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were executed for adultery for having affairs with queen of England Catherine Howard. Both were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, but Culpeper's sentence was commuted to beheading.

13 February 1542: Catherine Howard, fifth wife of Henry VIII and queen of England, was beheaded for adultery after having an affair with her cousin Thomas Culpeper. Her lady-in-waiting Jane Boleyn, Viscountess Rochford was beheaded the same day for facilitating her adultery.

13 April 1546: Alice Glaston became the youngest known girl legally executed in England, at age 11 for an unknown offense.

7 December 1549: Robert Kett was hanged from the walls of Norwich Castle for treason after he was found guilty of leading Kett's Rebellion against Edward VI. His brother William was executed the same day by being hanged from the walls of Wymondham Abbey.

22 August 1553: John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, was beheaded for treason.

12 February 1554: Lady Jane Grey, queen of England, and her husband Lord Guildford Dudley were beheaded for treason by Jane's successor Mary I.

11 April 1554: Thomas Wyatt the Younger was beheaded for treason for leading the Wyatt Rebellion against Mary I.

On or around 18 July 1556 on the island of Guernsey, the infant son of Perotine Massey, less than one day old, was ordered to be burned by Bailiff Hellier Gosselin, with the advice of Roman Catholic priests nearby who said the boy should burn due to having inherited moral stain from his mother.

21 March 1556: Thomas Cranmer was burned at the stake for heresy, despite recanting his Protestant beliefs multiple times.

2 June 1572: Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk was beheaded for his involvement in the Ridolfi plot.

22 August 1572: Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland was beheaded for leading the Rising of the North.

July 1584: Sir Francis Throckmorton was executed for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I in order to pave the way for a Spanish invasion.

20–21 December 1586: Anthony Babington, John Ballard and eleven others were hanged, drawn and quartered for conspiring to kill Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots.

8 February 1587: Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded.

25 February 1601: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex was beheaded for treason after he attempted to start a rebellion against Elizabeth I.

30 January 1606: Robert Wintour, Thomas Bates and John Grant were hanged, drawn and quartered for their involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, a conspiracy to blow up the House of Lords in order to kill King James I.

31 January 1606: Guy Fawkes, Sir Everard Digby, Robert Keyes, Ambrose Rookwood and Thomas Wintour were hanged, drawn and quartered for their involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, the day after the execution of their fellow conspirators.

21 May 1613: John Maxwell, 9th Lord Maxwell was beheaded for the murder of the Laird of Johnstone and the killings of several other members of Clan Johnstone during a feud between Clan Johnstone and Clan Maxwell.

29 October 1618: Walter Raleigh was beheaded at the Palace of Westminster for violating the 1604 Treaty of London by attacking a Spanish outpost during peacetime.

23 February 1629: John Dean became the youngest known person legally executed in England, at age 8 or 9 for arson.

30 January 1649: King Charles I was found guilty of high treason by 59 commissioners and was beheaded.

15 July 1685: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth was beheaded at the Tower of London for leading the Monmouth Rebellion against King James II of England.

Kingdom of Great Britain, 1707–1801

11 November 1724: Joseph "Blueskin" Blake was hanged at Tyburn for burglary. His partner-in-crime, Jack Sheppard, was executed for the same burglary five days later.

16 November 1724: Jack Sheppard, housebreaker, was hanged at Tyburn for burglary after four successful escape attempts from jail.

24 May 1725: Jonathan Wild, criminal overlord and fraudulent "Thief Taker General", was hanged at Tyburn for receiving stolen goods and thus aiding criminals.

7 April 1739: Dick Turpin, infamous highwayman, was hanged at Knavesmire.

30 July 1746: nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason at Kennington Common (now Kennington Park).

9 April 1747: Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, Jacobite leader and Scottish Clan chief, was the last man to be publicly beheaded in Britain, at Tower Hill.

26 April 1748: Thomas Kingsmill, one of the leaders of the Hawkhurst Gang, was hanged at Tyburn and then gibbeted for smuggling

11 May 1748: Arthur Gray, leader of the Hawkhurst Gang, was hanged at Tyburn and then gibbeted for smuggling and the murder of a customs officer.

3 October 1750: James MacLaine, 'The Gentleman Highwayman', was hanged at Tyburn, London.

21 June 1751: Alexander Geddes was hanged at Gallows Hill in Aberdeen for bestiality, the last known execution for bestiality in Scotland.

14 March 1757: John Byng became the only British admiral executed, by firing squad by the Royal Navy. His crime was having failed to "do his utmost" at the Battle of Minorca during the Seven Years' War.

5 May 1760: Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers was executed at Tyburn for the murder of a servant. He was the last peer to be hanged (reputedly by a silken rope) and is the only peer to have been hanged for murder.

3 April 1783: Highwayman John Austin was the last person to be hanged at Tyburn.

18 March 1789: Catherine Murphy, a counterfeiter, was the last woman in England to be burned at the stake (though she was in fact strangled before the fire was lit, and thus not literally burned to death). The penalty of burning at the stake, which at the time applied to women and not to men, was abolished the next year.

24 October 1795: Four Irishmen were convicted of the murder of William Marriott. James Cully, Thomas Markin and the two brothers Michael and Thomas Quin were all hanged in Wisbech. Cully and Michael Quinn's bodies were placed in gibbets. One gibbet is now in the Wisbech & Fenland Museum.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1801–1922

21 February 1803: Edward Despard and six others in the Despard Plot were hanged and decapitated on the roof of the gatehouse at Horsemonger Lane Gaol for allegedly plotting to assassinate King George III and launch an uprising.

13 November 1805: Richard Harding was hanged for uttering playing cards with a forged ace of spades. The attorney general in charge of the prosecution was Spencer Perceval.

18 May 1812: John Bellingham was hanged for the murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.

1 May 1820: Five conspirators of the Cato Street Conspiracy were hanged and decapitated for planning to murder all the British cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister Lord Liverpool. Five other conspirators were transported to Australia.

8 September 1820: Andrew Hardie and John Baird were hanged and beheaded at Stirling after being tried for their part in the Radical War in Scotland.

11 August 1828: William Corder was hanged at Bury St Edmunds for the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn a year before.

28 January 1829: William Burke, one of Britain's first recorded serial killers, was hanged at Edinburgh Gaol for his participation in the Burke and Hare murders.

8 September 1830: William Wall, John Rowley and Richard Clarke were hanged at Kenn, Somerset, for the arson of three hay ricks. This was the last public execution in England to be held at the scene of the crime.

13 August 1831: Dic Penderyn was hanged on the gallows at St. Mary's Street, Cardiff for allegedly participating in the Merthyr Rising.

21 March 1834: George Capel was hanged in Aylesbury for bestiality, the last known execution for bestiality in England.

27 November 1835: James Pratt and John Smith were hanged in front of Newgate Prison for sodomy, the last known execution for sodomy in England.

25 March 1851: Sarah Chesham, an alleged serial poisoner, was the last woman to be hanged for attempted murder, at Chelmsford. In 2019, an episode of Murder, Mystery and My Family suggested that Sarah Chesham was innocent but the Criminal Case Review Commission refused an application to pardon her in 2022.

14 June 1856: William Palmer, now believed to have been a serial killer, was hanged at HM Prison Stafford for the murder of John Cook.

9 August 1856: Elizabeth Martha Brown was the last woman to be hanged in public in the English county of Dorset; her hanging is notable in part because it influenced Thomas Hardy, an eyewitness, in his portrayal of the execution of the fictional heroine of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

27 August 1861: Martin Doyle was the last person to be hanged for attempted murder, at Chester.

29 April 1862: Mary Timney's hanging was the last public execution of a woman in Scotland.

14 November 1864: Franz Muller was hanged for the murder of Thomas Briggs, the first murder committed on a British train.

28 July 1865: Edward William Pritchard was hanged on Glasgow Green, the last public execution in Glasgow.

12 May 1867: Robert Smith was hanged at Buccleuch Street Prison for the robbery, rape and murder of nine-year-old Thomasina Scott, the last public execution in Scotland.

2 April 1868: Frances Kidder was the last woman to be hanged in public in Britain.

26 May 1868: Fenian Michael Barrett was executed at Newgate Prison for mass murder. He had participated in the Clerkenwell explosion, which had killed 12 people. His execution was the last public hanging in the UK.

1 April 1872: William Frederick Horry was hanged at Lincoln Castle. This was the first execution in history to use the long drop method of hanging.

24 March 1873: Serial killer Mary Ann Cotton was hanged at Durham Gaol for the murder of her stepson.

10 June 1896: Amelia Dyer was hanged at Newgate for the murder of 6 babies. It is now believed that she may have killed over 400 infants.

7 July 1896: Charles Thomas Wooldridge was hanged at Reading Gaol for the murder of his wife. The execution inspired Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

19 July 1899: Mary Ansell was hanged at St Albans, for poisoning her sister. At 22, she was the youngest woman to be hanged in the post-1868 'modern era' (non-public, and by the 'long drop' method).

7 and 9 January 1903: Joseph Taylor and Mary Daly, who had been having an affair, were executed for the murder of Mary's husband, John Daly, in June 1902. Joseph Taylor, aged 26, was hanged in Kilkenny Prison on 7 January 1903, and Mary Daly, aged 36, was hanged in Tullamore Prison on 9 January 1903, the last woman executed before Ireland was partitioned.

3 February 1903: Amelia Sach and Annie Walters at HM Prison Holloway for the murder of an unknown amount of babies, the only double hanging of women in British history.

23 May 1905: Albert and Alfred Stratton, the first British murderers convicted based on fingerprint evidence, were hanged at HMP Wandsworth.

14 August 1907: Rhoda Willis was hanged at Cardiff Prison, the last baby farmer to be executed in Britain and the last woman to be executed in Wales.

23 November 1910: Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged in London's Pentonville Prison for poisoning his wife.

8 September 1914: Private Thomas Highgate was executed by firing squad, the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during World War I.

13 August 1915: George Joseph Smith was hanged in Maidstone Prison for the pattern of serial killings known as the "Brides in the Bath Murders".

3–12 May 1916: Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke, Joseph Plunkett, Éamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Seán Mac Diarmada and several others were shot at Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, for high treason and instigating violent insurrection.

3 August 1916: Roger Casement, a former government official, was hanged at Pentonville for high treason. He was convicted of conspiring with Germany, then at war with the United Kingdom, to incite insurrection in Ireland and to incite Irish soldiers serving in the British Army to mutiny.

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1922–1964

9 January 1923: Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, in London's Holloway and Pentonville Prisons respectively, for the murder of Thompson's husband. The case was controversial because, although in letters Thompson had fantasized about the possible elimination of her husband, there was no firm evidence that she was in any way connected with the murder for which she was hanged.

10 October 1923: Susan Newell was hanged at Duke Street Prison for the murder of John Johnston, the last woman executed in Scotland.

3 January 1931: Victor Betts was hanged for his part in a murder committed during the course of a robbery. The case had established that a person need not be present when a crime is committed to be regarded as an accessory after the fact.

16 April 1936: Dorothea Waddingham, a nurse, was hanged at Winson Green Prison. She was convicted of murdering two of her patients, Mrs Baguley (89) and her daughter Ada (50) by administering morphine.

31 July 1940: Udham Singh, an Indian independence activist, was hanged at Pentonville Prison. He had assassinated the Indian administrator Sir Michael O'Dwyer.

15 August 1941: Josef Jakobs, a German spy, was executed by firing squad, the last execution in the Tower of London.

25 June 1942: Gordon Cummins, the "Blackout Ripper", was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. He had murdered four women in a 6-day period in February 1942.

2 September 1942: Tom Williams was hanged in the Crumlin Road Gaol for his involvement in the killing of Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officer Patrick Murphy during the Northern Campaign.

3 November 1942: Duncan Scott-Ford was hanged at Wandsworth Prison for treachery.

19 December 1945: John Amery, a British fascist and Nazi collaborator, pleaded guilty to eight charges of treason and was hanged at Wandsworth Prison in London.

3 January 1946: William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", was hanged for treason in London's Wandsworth Prison. He was an American citizen, but was convicted of treason because, as the holder of a British passport (albeit fraudulently obtained), he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign.

4 January 1946: Theodore Schurch was hanged at Pentonville Prison for treachery, the last person executed for an offence other than murder.

16 October 1946: Neville Heath was hanged at Pentonville Prison for the rape and murder of two women.

27 February 1947: Walter Rowland was hanged in Manchester for the murder of Olive Balchin despite maintaining his innocence. While he had been awaiting execution, another man, David Ware, confessed to the crime. A Home Office report dismissed the latter's confession as a fake, but in 1951 he attacked another woman and was found guilty but insane and committed to Broadmoor Hospital.[144]

12 January 1949: Margaret Allen, aged 43, was hanged for killing a 70-year-old woman in the course of a robbery, the first woman to be hanged in Britain for 12 years.

10 August 1949: John George Haigh, the "acid-bath murderer", was hanged at Wandsworth.

9 March 1950: Timothy Evans was hanged at Pentonville for the murder of his wife and daughter at 10 Rillington Place, North West London. He initially claimed his wife died after drinking an abortion drug he gave her, but later withdrew the claim. Evan's downstairs neighbor, John Christie (whom Evans accused of committing the murder), later found to be a sexual serial killer, gave key evidence against Evans, but ultimately confessed to murdering Evans' wife himself shortly before he was executed in 1953. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966 after an investigation concluded that Christie also murdered Evans' daughter. In 2004 the Court of Appeal refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved, but acknowledged that Evans did not murder his wife or his daughter.

28 March 1950: George Kelly was hanged at Walton Prison, Liverpool, for murder, but had his conviction quashed posthumously by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.

25 April 1952: Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns were hanged for killing a woman during a robbery in Liverpool. They claimed that they had been doing a different burglary in Manchester, and others involved in the crime supported this. A Home Office report rejected this evidence. Huge crowds gathered outside Liverpool's Walton Prison as they were executed.

3 September 1952: Mahmood Hussein Mattan, a Somali seaman, was hanged in Cardiff for murder. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction posthumously in 1998 after hearing that crucial evidence implicating another Somali was withheld at his trial.

28 January 1953: Derek Bentley was hanged at Wandsworth Prison as an accomplice to the murder of a police officer by his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig. Craig, a minor, was not executed and instead served 10 years in prison. Bentley was granted a partial posthumous pardon on 29 July 1993, and the Court of Appeal fully overturned his conviction on 30 July 1998.

15 July 1953: John Christie was hanged at Pentonville for the murder of his wife Ethel. Christie was a serial killer and had murdered at least six other women.

13 December 1954: Styllou Christofi was hanged aged 53, the penultimate woman executed in Britain.

13 July 1955: Ruth Ellis, aged 28, was the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was the 15th and youngest woman hanged in the 20th century.

23 July 1957: John Vickers was the first person to be hanged after the use of capital punishment was restricted by the Homicide Act 1957.

6 May 1958: Vivian Teed, 24, was hanged in Swansea for the murder of William Williams, the last person to be executed in Wales.

11 July 1958: Peter Manuel was hanged aged 31, the second to last person to be hanged in HM Prison Barlinnie and the third to last to be hanged in Scotland.

5 November 1959: Guenther Podola was the last person to be hanged for the murder of a policeman.

10 November 1960: Francis Forsyth was hanged at Wandsworth Prison for the murder of Alan John Jee, the last 18-year-old to be executed in Britain. His accomplice James Harris was hanged at Pentonville the same day.

22 December 1960: Anthony Miller, 19, was hanged in Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison for the murder of John Cremin. He was the last teenager to be executed in Britain and the penultimate person executed in Scotland.

20 December 1961: Robert McGladdery, 25, was hanged in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. He was the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland, for the murder of Pearl Gamble in Newry.

4 April 1962: James Hanratty was hanged at Bedford after a controversial rape–murder trial. In 2002, Hanratty's body was exhumed and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction after Hanratty's DNA was linked to crime scene samples.

15 August 1963: Henry Burnett was hanged aged 21 at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of Seaman Thomas Guyan, the last hanging in Scotland.

13 August 1964: Peter Anthony Allen was hanged at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, for the murder of John Alan West. They were the last people executed in Britain.