When was the last public execution

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Q.� What happened

A.� The Fenians were 19th-Century Irish nationalists, forerunners of the IRA, formed in 1858 as the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Ireland, and as the Clan na Gael in American in 1867. The name derives from old Irish Fianna, legendary Irish warriors whose name became an Irish term for soldiers. Their terrorist activities included the Clerkenwell bombing in 1867, in which 12 people were killed and 126 injured as the Fenians attempted to rescue two of their members.

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Q.� But that wasn't the last execution

A.� By no means. Three days after Barrett was executed, Parliament passed a bill ending public hanging. Convicted were then executed inside prisons.

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Q.� Until when

A.� 8am on 13 August, 1964. Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison, Manchester.

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Q.� And then this obscenity ended

A.� Yes. In 1999, Parliament abolished the death penalty totally.

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Q.� Yet it still continues in the Land of the Free

A.� Indeed. Timothy McVeigh, the bomber who killed 168 people in Oklahoma in 1995, is shortly to died by lethal injection. Very few Americans seem to find capital punishment as abhorrent as the British do.

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Q.� Before we get off this appalling subject, kindly give me a rundown on the horrible history of hanging.

A.� Okay. In 1196, William Fitz Osbert became the first to hang at Tyburn (for sedition). In the 1500s, eight capital crimes were defined: treason, petty treason, murder, robbery, larceny, rape and arson. In 1686, Alice Molland�was the last to be hanged for witchcraft in England. But there were other hanging offences, too...

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Q.� Such as

A.� The Shoplifting Act (1699) defined shoplifting to the value of 5s (25p) as a capital crime. An act of 1723 made poaching and damage to forests and parks a hanging offence. Over the next few years its wide provisions increased the number of capital crimes from 30 to 150. These included blacking the face or using a disguise while committing a crime.

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Q.� You're joking!

A.� These were distinctly not funny matters. In 1752, 17-year-old Thomas Woolford was hanged and then his body used for anatomy. This was the first of a growing practice. Transportation was introduced in the 1770s to replace many capital crimes. The last hanging and burning - of Christian Murphy - was in 1789 at Tyburn.

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Q.� So attitudes were becoming more liberal

A.� Don't you believe it. In 1808, seven-year-old Michael Hammond and his sister aged 11 were hanged at Lynn for felony. The treasonous Cato Street conspirators were hung, drawn and quartered - and I'll spare you the details of that punishment - in 1820.

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Q.� But capital crimes were being reduced

A.� Yes. The last hanging for forgery was in 1829. Theft of sheep, cattle and horses were removed from the list, followed by sacrilege, letter stealing, returning from transportation, forgery, coining, burglary and theft from a house and finally rape and attempted murder. The last public hanging of a woman - Francis Kidder at Maidstone for murder - was in April 1868. The execution of anyone under 16 was outlawed by the Children's Act (1908). From 1931, pregnant women were no longer hanged after giving birth. Mary Ann Cotton was the last to suffer that fate at Durham Castle on 24 March, 1873, her baby being taken from her before execution.

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Q.� What about modern times

A.� In July, 1955, Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be hanged. The Homicide Act�(1957) limited the death sentence to five categories of murder: committed in the course or furtherance of theft; by shooting or explosion; while resisting arrest or during an escape; murder of a police or prison officer; two murders committed on different occasions. A 1965 act suspended capital punishment for five years. Treason, piracy with violence and arson in Royal Dockyards remained capital crimes. Capital punishment for murder was abolished in 1969. The hang'em-and-flog-'em brigade made many attempts to reintroduce hanging, but in 1994 a free vote on re-introduction of the death penalty was defeated by 403 votes to 159.

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Q.� Will it ever be reintroduced

A.� Unlikely. On 20 May, 1998, MPs decided by 294 to 136 to adopt provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights outlawing capital punishment for murder except 'in times of war or imminent threat of war'. The Bill incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into British law. It just remains for the United States of America to catch up with the rest of the civilised world.

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By Steve Cunningham

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