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    The Bloody Code

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    Dafydd Humphreys
    1) In 1831, a 14-year-old boy named John Amy Bird was hanged in Maidstone, Kent for murdering and robbing a 12-year-old boy. Over 4,000 people came to witness his execution. 2) In the 1700s, the Bloody Code made over 200 crimes punishable by death, including petty crimes like theft. This led to high numbers of death sentences and executions. 3) Reforms began in the early 1800s, led by Samuel Romilly, to reduce the number of capital crimes and death sentences for minor offenses in an effort to end the Bloody Code.

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    The Bloody Code

    Uploaded by

    Dafydd Humphreys
    4K views25 pages
    1) In 1831, a 14-year-old boy named John Amy Bird was hanged in Maidstone, Kent for murdering and robbing a 12-year-old boy. Over 4,000 people came to witness his execution. 2) In the 1700s, the Bloody Code made over 200 crimes punishable by death, including petty crimes like theft. This led to high numbers of death sentences and executions. 3) Reforms began in the early 1800s, led by Samuel Romilly, to reduce the number of capital crimes and death sentences for minor offenses in an effort to end the Bloody Code.

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    When England went mad for hanging

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    1) In 1831, a 14-year-old boy named John Amy Bird was hanged in Maidstone, Kent for murdering and robbing a 12-year-old boy. Over 4,000 people came to witness his execution. 2) In the 1700s, the Bloody Code made over 200 crimes punishable by death, including petty crimes like theft. This led to high numbers of death sentences and executions. 3) Reforms began in the early 1800s, led by Samuel Romilly, to reduce the number of capital crimes and death sentences for minor offenses in an effort to end the Bloody Code.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    4K views25 pages

    The Bloody Code

    Uploaded by

    Dafydd Humphreys
    1) In 1831, a 14-year-old boy named John Amy Bird was hanged in Maidstone, Kent for murdering and robbing a 12-year-old boy. Over 4,000 people came to witness his execution. 2) In the 1700s, the Bloody Code made over 200 crimes punishable by death, including petty crimes like theft. This led to high numbers of death sentences and executions. 3) Reforms began in the early 1800s, led by Samuel Romilly, to reduce the number of capital crimes and death sentences for minor offenses in an effort to end the Bloody Code.

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    The Bloody

    Code
    John Amy Bird Bell
    • On 1st August, 1831, an illiterate
    pauper was hanged by the neck
    until dead
    • Four thousand people came to see
    him hang in Maidstone, Kent
    • Afterwards his body was
    dissected by surgeons

    •He was 14 years old


    “At the trial the
    prisoner exhibited
    the utmost
    indifference to his
    fate, and appeared
    to entertain no fear
    for the
    The Sentence:

    DEATH BY
    HANGING
    At half-past eleven o'clock on
    Monday morning the wretched
    malefactor ceased to exist, and
    his body was given to the
    surgeons of Rochester for
    dissection.
    “He exhibited some
    emotion
    when he was
    informed that a
    part of the
    sentence was
    that his body
    Bird had attacked and murdered
    a 12 year old boy who was
    collecting money for his
    disabled father.

    The victim had been stabbed in


    the throat with a knife and
    robbed of nine shillings.

    Bird admitted he had planned


    the crime with his brother.
    Despite what you
    may think, it was rare
    for people as young
    as this to be hanged
    in 1831.

    One hundred years


    earlier, it was a different
    matter altogether….
    William Jennings, aged 15 year old Elizabeth
    15 year old James
    12, was hanged at
    Booty (age also given as Morton was hanged at
    Tyburn on Monday, the
    12) suffered at Tyburn Nottingham on the 8th of
    12th of March 1716, April 1763 for the
    on Monday, the 21st of
    having been convicted murder of two of her
    May 1722 for the rape of
    of housebreaking at
    a 5 year old girl. employer’s children.
    the February Sessions.

    15 year old Elizabeth


    Four juveniles were hanged at Tyburn on Monday,
    the 20th of May 1717. They were 18 year old Marsh was convicted of
    Martha Pillow who had been convicted of stealing the murder of her
    in a shop, 17 year old Thomas Price and 18 year grandfather. She was
    old Joseph Cornbach for housebreaking and 17 hanged in public on
    Monday, the 17th of
    year old Christopher Ward for burglary.
    March, 1794.
    Possibly the youngest children ever executed in Britain
    were Michael Hammond and his sister, Ann, whose ages
    were given as 7 and 11 respectively in a book published in
    1907. Previously, no claims as to their precise ages had
    been made, although they were referred to as being “under
    age,” without specifying what this term actually meant, and
    as “the Boy and the Girl” as they were both small.
    They were reportedly hanged at (Kings) Lynn on
    Wednesday, the 28th of September 1708 for theft. The local
    press did not, however, consider the executions of two
    children newsworthy! A painting of the two being taken in
    the cart to the gallows appears in Paul Richard’s book
    ”King’s Lynn”.
    It was reported that there was violent thunder and lightning
    after the execution and that their hangman, Anthony Smyth,
    died within a fortnight of it.
    The Bloody Eighteenth Century?

    Why was hanging the answer to


    everything in the 1700s?
    The Bloody Code
    No. of crimes carrying the
    death penalty
    No of crimes carrying the death
    penalty16885017651601815225

    1688 50

    1765 160

    1815 225
    Some of the crimes carrying the death
    penalty in the 1700s

    •stealing horses or sheep


    •destroying turnpike roads
    •cutting down trees
    •pick pocketing goods worth more than one shilling
    •being out at night with a blackened face
    •unmarried mother concealing a stillborn child
    •arson
    •forgery
    •stealing from a rabbit warren
    •rape
    •murder
    Plus…
    "strong
    evidence of
    malice in a
    "being in the
    child aged 7–14
    company of years of age"
    Gypsies for
    one month" "blacking the
    face or using a
    disguise whilst
    committing a
    crime"
    WHY?
    • the attitudes of the
    wealthy men who made
    the law were
    unsympathetic. They
    felt that people who
    committed crimes were
    sinful, lazy or greedy
    and deserved little Lord Chief Justice
    1802-18
    mercy.
    Edward Law
    WHY?
    • since the rich made
    the laws they made
    laws that protected
    their interests. Any act
    which threatened their
    wealth, property or
    sense of law and order
    was criminalised and
    made punishable by
    death.
    Lord Chief Justice
    1756-88
    William Murray
    WHY?
    • the law was harsh
    to act as a
    deterrent. It was
    thought that people
    might not commit
    crimes if they knew
    that they could be
    sentenced to death.
    Was it effective?
    3500 Death sentences
    and executions,
    3000
    London
    2500 1701-1825
    2000

    1500 Death Sentences


    Executions
    1000

    500

    0
    1701- 1726- 1751- 1776- 1801-
    25 50 75 1800 1825

    It is no coincidence that during the period 1776-1800 the


    English ruling class were fearing a revolution like in France….
    The End of the Bloody Code
    • Sir Samuel Romilly speaking to the
    House of Commons on capital
    punishment in 1810, declared that

    "..[there is] no country on


    the face of the earth in
    which there [have] been so
    many different offences
    according to law to be
    punished with death as in
    England."
    Whilst executions for
    murder, burglary and
    robbery were common,
    the death sentences of
    minor offenders were
    often not carried out.
    In 1808 Romilly had
    the death penalty
    removed from pick-
    pocketing and other
    trivial offences and
    started reform that
    continued over the
    next 50 years.
    Gibbeting
    (the public
    display of
    executed
    corpses) was
    abolished in
    1832 and
    hanging in
    chains was
    abolished in
    1834.
    In 1861, the Criminal Law
    Consolidation Act further reduced
    the number of capital crimes to
    four:
    •murder
    •treason
    •arson in royal dockyards
    •piracy with violence
    Public executions
    were abolished in
    1868

    From 1868 onwards, all


    hangings in Britain took
    place inside prison, on
    gallows like this one at
    HMP Wandsworth.
    So...to cap it all off.......
    Why did it come about? What actually happened?
    • Fear of crime by the rich • The number of capital
    • The rich set the laws sentences rose
    • The laws protected their • But the number of
    growing property executions in proportion
    actually fell
    • There were more poor
    people • Apart from times of real
    fear – French Revolution,
    • The rich thought that industrial unrest
    harsh punishments would
    reduce crime • Juries were unwilling to
    deliver guilty verdicts
    • Transportation was a new
    alternative to hanging
    • Romilly ended the Bloody
    Code in the 1820s.

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