The hanging tree

execution and the English people, 1770-1868

by V. A. C. Gatrell

1994 634 pages eng

Hanging people for small crimes as well as grave, the Bloody Penal Code was at its most active between 1770 and 1830. Some 7,000 men and women were executed on public scaffolds then, watched by crowds of thousands. Hanging was confined to murderers thereafter, but these were still killed in public u…