Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868

According to Bland, the hangman himself was more of an ‘entertainer’ than a bringer of justice and this was reflected in the erection of stands at drops such as Tyburn, to enable people to view the offender better.  This macabre theatrical set up was amplified by the presence of street traders plying their wares throughout and perhaps in the most part by printers producing ‘scripts’ of prescribed words the offender may like to use.  It was common practice for the offender to offer some last words of penitence, perhaps a reason for their crime and for this the crowd would wait expectantly. Rather than disappoint them when it became apparent that this was not going to happen these printers would offer such scripts to the offender.  It is relatively fair to assume that such wording would be intended to be inflammatory rather than acceptable to the throng.

The spectacle of death as a form of entertainment is an evocative image that sticks in the mind of the modern observer. In part because of the fact that it is middle class writers whose accounts are most relied upon, on the basis that they were the most literate and therefore the most able to take note of what was unfolding than any other.  What is important to remember is that to an extent this was an assumption based upon the noise and conduct of the lower classes, something which McGowan believes may be distorted due to a certain degree of derision by those who considered themselves better.  Viewing such behaviour through the class barrier may dilute and wrongly reflect its true meaning.

        Two main criticisms of public executions arose in the lead up to its removal in 1868.  The first was rooted in the crowd, its reaction to both the offender and the solemnity of the event.  The second was taken from the belief that enlightenment and mental progression called for a more dignified death for the offender and that to witness it was not deemed civilised.

As far back as the mid 1700’s Henry Fielding is quoted as saying that public executions were ‘poorly staged, too much like carnival than solemn and frightening’ and that moving the gallows away from the public view would make death a more ‘effective penalty’.  Unlike many, Fielding obviously believed in the death penalty per se but was against it being flaunted publicly due to the

crowds’ reactions and the opportunity for the offender to become a martyr.

The intention of the state to make death a spectacle that would deter any future attempts by others was recorded by middle class writers as failing.  Dickens himself, upon attending a hanging, stated that there was ‘no sorrow, no salutary terror’, nothing to indicate that they were taking the proceedings in the spirit they were intended.  Rather than ingraining fear of any such retribution into witnesses McGowan suggests that ‘…it first created interest, then fascination and finally a desire to emulate the hero of the spectacle’.  He then develops this further in stating that continual viewing of executions increased the individuals desire to use physical violence themselves.  Therefore, rather than scaring potential offenders into submission it is claimed that it actually provoked them.  This conclusion seems a little to obvious and easy to draw, rather like us today claiming that violent films equal violent people.  To simplify the issue like this was to remove autonomy from the masses.

This, unfortunately, is exactly what did happen however.  Those who liked to see themselves as upstanding and civilised members of society began to question the motives and intentions of those who chose to attend executions.  It became something which respectable people simply did not do and as such labelled those who went as rough, uncouth, villainous types, people to be feared and avoided.  This is where the second argument for abolition stemmed from although the initial intention was for the complete removal of capital punishment, public or not.

The abolitionists calling for an end to the death penalty took the ‘disorder and immorality of the crowd’to be the focal point in their argument because it would have been difficult to argue that it was not an effective remedy against re-offending.  This was a mistake however; it was this constant complaining about the conduct of the masses that drew the legislative eye away from the death penalty as punishment in itself and allowed it to focus on the conclusion that the crowd should be removed to make it more effective.  This decision reflects the states belief that it was not capital punishment that was incompatible with civilised society but the presence of an audience.

Such explorations into the mind of said audiencesseemingly revealed a connection between viewing violence and committing it.  John Scott, writing in 1773, concluded that such punishment, if viewed by the public, was as morally corrupting as the acts it was intended to prevent.  He also believed that violence was a result of baseness and that watching or enjoying it in any form was indicative of ‘moral disorder’.  In contrast to this however J.S. Mill was of the opinion that it did indeed work as a deterrent but that it could not be expected to work on all people in the same way.  He said that we should not look at how it affected the ‘hardened criminals’ but should instead look at how it affects those who are ‘still innocent’.  Essentially he saw it working as prevention for those who may go wrong rather than a cure for those who already had.

This view of the crowd as rough, with a tendency to violence, emphasised the loss of control over them creating a serious problem for those who were supposed to wield the power.  As individuals they would have been seen as no threat at all, ones stepping out of line were punished in the appropriate manner and society coped.  It was the bringing of all these rough types together at public executions, where the crowd was seen as one, voicing its opinion loudly, that created the problem.  A select committee in 1856 called for the removal of public punishment from societies view but nothing was done to that effect for another twelve years.  This could in part be down to the fact that the authorities were more afraid of the consequences should it be removed than they were of the crowd should it stay.  It was a common belief that the spectacle was necessary in order for the death penalty to operate in the way it was intended, and in most cases the behaviour of the public only served to reconfirm this conclusion.  This idea was dispelled ten years later by the Capital Punishment Commission who examined the practice in the years 1864 to 1866.  In their 1866 report they again called for the abolition of the public death penalty on the grounds that the crowds had become dangerous in their size, creating more problems than the spectacle itself negated.  This time their aim was achieved.

        Removal of the public Death Penalty in 1868 was justified to the masses on the basis that it was required by ‘the growth of humanity’.  This was an opinion that was bandied about by those who had successfully campaigned to this end.  What appears to have been forgotten is that this was simply a compromise and a questionable one at that.  The Government still had a good deal of faith in capital punishment.  Those who were against it in any form called for its full eradication on the grounds that it was uncivilised and insensible to modern decorum.  Supporters then were unable to argue this point to its full conclusion for fear of being labelled uncivilised themselves, which would have been the next attack by the abolitionists.  They, instead, offered a compromise; the loss of the public execution.  The government was obviously unwilling to bow entirely to the opinion of those who wished to relieve them of their most effective punishment.  Whilst giving the offenders a shred of dignity in allowing him to die privately may be seen as progressive and civilised it is unlikely that this was the main reason behind the reform.  If they were truly of the opinion that it was an archaic and barbaric procedure then they would have removed it from use completely.  Taking the step to prevent the public viewing such deaths answered criticisms on both sides; those who believed in the penalty kept it ‘alive’, whereas those who were against it achieved a moral victory in getting it put behind closed doors.

It is the most likely scenario that the state began to fear the repercussions upon the crime levels if writers such as Scott were to be believed.  Executions were brought closer to the prison in 1783 as an answer to the thronging crowds causing problems en route to the gallows out of town.  It was the next obvious step, when it became apparent that the crowd were not dissuaded from attending and were in fact causing more problems in a confined space (there are accounts of thirty people being crushed at the hanging of Holloway and Haggerty), to move the gallows to a place where they were inaccessible to the hoi polloi.