#hangings

On November 15th 1714, two women were executed at The Grassmarket, Edinburgh for the “crime” of being Gypsies.

The following is an extract from “ A Gypsy trial of 1714 by David MacRitchie The Verdict had found the two other women, Jean Baillie and Agnes McDonald, equally guilty [of being gypsies] with these three. But it being pled for them, “for delaying the pronouncing of Sentence against them, That they are at present with Child,” the Court appointed a jury of matrons to establish the truth or falsity of the plea. These having certified, on the following day, that the plea was in both cases just, the Lords of Justiciary postponed consideration of the verdict, as affecting them, until “the second Monday of November next to come”; the two women being carried back to prison.

On the 15th of November, “The Lords Justice Clerk and Commissioners of Justiciary, having considered the verdict of assyse returned” in the previous August, and there being now no innocent lives at stake, they, with relentless logic, condemned “the said Agnes McDonald and Jean Baillie to be taken to the Grass-mercat of Edinburgh, upon Wednesday the Twenty fourth day of November Instant, And there, betwixt the hours of two & four in the Afternoon, To be hanged by the necks upon a Gibbet until they be dead.”

The pics are an illustration of the gallows and gallows represented in stone on the pavement in the Grssmarket.

Create a cozy retreat with stylish Swings. Whether indoors or outdoors, they offer a perfect space to sit back and enjoy the moment.

400 year old stone floor at The Prospect of Whitby , Wapping, England.

Photo: Maggie McBeagle

The Prospect of Whitby is a historic public house on the banks of the Thames at Wapping in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lays claim to being the site of the oldest riverside tavern, dating from around 1520.

“Sir Eustace is dead, then?”

“Yes; his head was knocked in with his own poker.”

Ouch. I guess the murder was not planned, then, considering the choice of weapon.

I researched until when hangings took place in the UK. The last execution by the gallows (and also in general) was in 1964. Which is much later than I would have thought. Prior to reading Sherlock Holmes, if you'd have asked me until when people were hanged I would have said something like the 17th or 18th century.

From this guardian article:

As they were led to the gallows there was little fuss. No public outcry, no headlines indicated that the executions of Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen would be remembered as anything other than run-of-the-mill.

Evans, 24, and Allen, 21, were unlucky with their timing. Two months after they were executed Labour came to power, bringing a Commons vote to suspend capital punishment for five years in the 1965 Murder Act, a move made permanent in 1969.

At the time of their convictions, the 1957 Homicide Act had already removed the automatic death penalty for all murders, though exceptions included any murder committed for theft.

The criminologist Steve Fielding, author of more than 20 books on British hangings, believes the lack of publicity was due to the fact that, by sensationalist standards, the Evans and Allen murder was "quite low key".

The two jobless Preston men travelled to the Cumbria home of John "Jack" West, a 53-year-old laundry van driver known to Evans, in a stolen car with Allen's wife and two children, on 7 April 1964. The two planned to rob the bachelor, but then killed him.

In the Netherlands the last execution by hanging happenened in 1860, in Maastricht, so more that 100 years earlier. (The only executions after that took place in the aftermath of the Second World War and were committed by gun) That is a wild difference.

I also found this interesting article on the Museum of London website:

The Hanging Of Timothy Evans

Timothy Evans was hanged for killing his wife Beryl and daughter Geraldine in 1950. He was, however, innocent of those crimes, which wouldn't be proven for more than a decade.

When Beryl and 14-month-old Geraldine were slain, police focused their entire investigation on Evans, who actually confessed to the crime. He was a nervous man who was known to drink, and the authorities posited he'd done away his pregnant wife and their child over money.

The crime actually took place at the hands of John Christie, a WWI veteran who testified against Evans at his trial. This didn't come to light until 1966, when it was discovered that Christie was a serial killer. The Evans family lived in the same building as Christie and, in 1949, he may have been approached by Beryl for an abortion. It's possible that after Beryl died during the procedure, Christie killed young Geraldine, as well.

https://www.garytaxali.com/work/