"Touching, gripping, and totally fascinating."
From David Thompson Myers who was executed for sodomy in front of a crowd of 6,000, to Philip Cody who tried to kill the executioner in a desperate bid to escape on the scaffold, to Mary Ansell, who poisoned her insane sister with a Victoria Sponge cake to claim her life insurance money - the stories of the condemned give a fascinating insight into Victorian life, death and attitudes to crime.

Newspaper coverage of true crime cases and their subsequent executions was big business and the public clamoured to read about the actions and words of culprits whose deaths were either celebrated or commiserated depending on public feeling towards their crimes.

The 19th Century was a time of rapid change for the system of capital punishment in Britain. At the start of the century, the 'Bloody Code' was in full swing with executions being enjoyed as huge public spectacles. As a criminal you could be executed for any number of petty crimes, but by 1900 the law had changed significantly. By the turn of the century, the only capital crimes were murder and treason, and executions took place behind the closed walls of prisons.

The press reports from the time give a fascinating insight into the attitudes of the public, both towards different criminals and to capital punishment itself. Their reaction, which could range from anger and derision towards a detested criminal, to horror and outrage that someone should be executed with whom they had sympathy or believed to be innocent.

The last words of these men, women (and even children) are sometimes moving, sometimes bizarre or unrepentant, or simply maintaining their innocence.

The records of these events are a touching insight into the behaviour and reactions of people who were facing their last moments before their inevitable death.

Before they were launched into eternity.

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• Politics & Social SciencesSocial SciencesViolence in Society
• Biography & True AccountsTrue CrimeCriminals
• Biography & True AccountsTrue CrimeMurder & Mayhem

• Publication Date: May 17, 2021
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 450 Pages
• File Size: 15 KB