100 Facts About British Executions (3 page)

70 – The last woman to be executed by beheading was Lady Alice Lisle who suffered that fate at Winchester on September 2
^nd
, 1685, for sheltering two traitors.

71 – The last person burned at the stake in Britain was Catherine Murphy, burned at Newgate on March 18
^th
, 1789, for coining.

72 – The youngest person executed in Britain was probably John Dean who was hanged for arson on February 23
^rd
, 1629.  His age was given as being between seven and eight.

73 – The youngest girl to be hanged was probably Alice Glaston who was executed on April 13
^th
, 1546.  Her crime is not recorded but she was eleven years old.

74 – On November 18
^th
, 1932, a sixteen year old boy, Harold Wilkins, was condemned to death for the murder of Ethel Corey.  He was reprieved and the following year the minimum legal age for a sentence of death was raised to 18.

75
–
The last person below the age of 18 to be hanged was Charles Dobel, hanged alongside William Gower at Maidstone on January 2
^nd
, 1889 for murder.  Dobel was seventeen.

76 – The last man to be hanged in chains (gibbeted) was James Cook who suffered that fate on August 10
^th
, 1832, at Leicester.

77 – The last executions at Execution Dock in Wapping were those of George Davis and William Watts on December 16
^th
, 1830.  They had been convicted of piracy.

78 – The last person burned at the stake for witchcraft was Janet Horne who was burned in Scotland in 1727.

79 – The largest number of executions at one time probably occurred on June 23
^rd
, 1649, when 23 men and one woman were executed together at Tyburn.

80 –
Besides hanging, beheading, shooting and burning,
other forms of execution that have been used in Britain are; burial alive, pressing to death, boiling alive, and drowning.

81
–
At the beginning of the 19
^th
century there were 222 crimes which could attract the death penalty including impersonating a Chelsea pensioner and damaging London Bridge.

82 – The last execution on Jersey was that of Francis Joseph Hutchet on October 9
^th
, 1959 but the last execution on Guernsey was that of John Charles Tapner on February 10
^th
, 1854.

Hutchet, the last man hanged in the Channel Islands,

pictured when he was a boy

83 – The infamous highwayman, Richard (Dick) Turpin wasn’t executed for highway robbery.  He was hanged at York on April 7
^th
, 1739, for horse theft.

84
–
Margaret Pole, the 8
^th
Countess of Salisbury was beheaded at the Tower on May 27
^th
, 1541.  The inexperienced executioner’s first blow only struck Margaret in the shoulder and eventually it took a total of eleven blows to dispatch her.

85 – John Price was a British hangman of the early 18
^th
century
but he was found guilty of the murder of Elizabeth White in Bunhill Fields.  Found guilty of murder the hangman was himself hanged on May 31
^st
, 1718.

86 – The fastest execution of record is that of James Inglis on Tuesday, May 8
^th
, 1951.  The time between Albert Pierrepoint entering the condemned cell to the trap being sprung was seven seconds.

James Inglis, whose execution

took just seven seconds

87
–
It has been said that Syd Dernley was sacked as an assistant executioner because he made a crude comment about the size of
John Kenneth Livesey’s
penis
after his execution at Wandsworth on Wednesday, December 17
^th
, 1952
.  It is more likely that
Dernley
was dismissed because he was sentenced to six months imprisonment in 1954, for p
ublishing
obscene
material
.

88
–
Executioner John Ellis took part in his last execution when he hanged John Eastwood at Leeds on Friday, 28
^th
December, 1923.  The following year, Ellis tried to take his own life when he shot himself.  He tried again on September 20
^th
, 1932, when he cut his own throat after an argument during which he threatened his wife and daughter.  This time he was successful.  He had taken part in 203 executions.

89 – The town of Halifax had its own beheading machine, a form of guillotine, named the Halifax Gibbet.  The last executions there were on April 30
^th
, 1650, when Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell were decapitated
, for theft.  A total of 52 people are known to have died on the Gibbet.

90
–
Though there may be lots of reasons for committing murder, possibly the strangest in the twentieth century was that carried out by George Pople on Saturday, December 19
^th
, 1931.  He murdered Mabel Mathews for her bicycle lamp!  Pople was hanged at Oxford on Wednesday, March 9
^th
, 1932

91
–
Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel was Scotland’s most prolific killer hanged in the twentieth century.  He killed at least seven people and possibly as many as eleven.  He was hanged at Barlinnie prison on Friday, July 11
^th
, 1958

Peter Manuel

92
–
The last wife killer hanged in England was Corbett Montague Roberts, hanged at Birmingham on Tuesday, August 2
^nd
, 1955.

93 – The last husband killer hanged in England was Ethel Lily Major, hanged at Hull on December 19
^th
, 1934.  Her ghost is said to haunt the prison.

94
–
Outside of London, the prison where most executions took place in the 20
^th
century was Manchester, with 71.  Leeds was a close second, with 68.

95
–
John Charles Parr killed his girlfriend, Sarah Willett, right outside a police station, on August 27
^th
, 1900, and was arrested immediately.  He was hanged at Newgate on Tuesday, October 2
^nd
.

96 – The first male poisoner hanged in the century was George
Joseph
Chapman who poisoned three women over five years, in London.  He was hanged at Wandsworth on Tuesday, April 7
^th
, 1903.