By Tim Lambert
On 30 September 1630, John Billington became the first person executed in America for murder.
On 11 May 1812 British prime minister Spencer Perceval was shot by a merchant named John Bellingham. Perceval was the only British prime minister to be assassinated. John Bellingham was hanged on 18 May 1812.
In 1849, Rebecca Smith became the last woman in Britain to be hanged for infanticide (killing one’s own child). She poisoned her baby son with arsenic. She was hanged in Devizes, Wiltshire.
On 21 June 1864, George Bryce became the last person to be executed in public in Edinburgh.
On 28 July 1865 poisoner William Pritchard became the last person to be hanged in public in Glasgow. (Pritchard was born in Southsea, Portsmouth).
On 2 April 1868, Frances Kidder became the last woman in Britain to be hanged in public. (She murdered her stepdaughter). Public executions were a popular form of entertainment, and they were free. Vendors sold food and drink to the crowds. People who lived in buildings overlooking the gallows often charged people to stand in bedrooms by the window where they could get a better view.
The last trial for witchcraft in the USA was in 1878. A man was accused of harming a woman from a distance using ‘mesmerism’. The case was dismissed.
On 6 August 1890, William Kemmler became the first man to be executed in the electric chair. The first woman executed in the electric chair was Martha Place in 1899.
On 7 August 1890 Anna Månsdotter became the last woman to be hanged for murder in Sweden. She was convicted of killing her daughter-in-law. She was beheaded with an axe.
On 10 September 1894 a London taxi driver called George Smith became the first person in Britain to be convicted of drunk driving. He was fined 20 shillings.
On 28 January 1896, Walter Arnold became the first driver in Britain to be fined for speeding. He was fined five shillings.
On 13 September 1902 a burglar named Harry Jackson became the first person in Britain to be convicted by fingerprint evidence. He left a his prints on a freshly painted windowsill. Jackson was sentenced to 7 years in prison.
On 23 May 1905, Albert and Alfred Stratton were hanged for murder. It was the first British murder case in which fingerprint evidence was used.
In Britain the last person under the age of 18 to be hanged for murder was 17-year-old Charles Dobel on 2 January 1889. In 1933, the minimum age for hanging was raised from 16 to 18.
Herbert Rowse Armstrong was the only British solicitor to be hanged for murder. He was hanged on 31 May 1922. Armstrong poisoned his wife with arsenic.
The last woman to be hanged in the USA was Mary Holmes in 1937. (Since then women have been executed by the electric chair, gas chamber, or lethal injection).
On 17 June 1939, Eugen Weidmann became the last person to be guillotined in public in France. The last private execution by guillotine in France was in 1977. France abolished the death penalty in 1981.
The last person to be executed in the Tower of London was German spy Josef Jakobs on 15 August 1941. He was shot by a firing squad.
In May 1944 Helen Duncan became the last person in Britain imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735, which made it a crime to fraudulently claim to summon up spirits. Duncan was a medium and she held seances in Portsmouth. She was sentenced to 9 months in prison. But the last person to be CONVICTED under the act was another medium, Jane Rebecca Yorke. In September 1944 she was fined 5 pounds (a large sum of money at that time). The act was repealed in 1951.
On 18 February 1957, Walter James Bolton became the last person to be executed in New Zealand. He was convicted of poisoning his wife. Capital punishment was ended in New Zealand in 1961.
The last woman to be hanged in Britain was Ruth Ellis in 1955. However, the last woman to be sentenced to death in Britain was Mary Wilson in 1958. Wilson was convicted of poisoning two of her husbands with phosphorous. She was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Wilson died in prison in 1963.
The last teenager to be hanged in Britain was 19-year-old Anthony Miller. He was hanged for murder in Glasgow on 22 December 1960.
On 15 August 1963, Henry John Burnett became the last man to be hanged in Scotland. (He was hanged in Aberdeen).
On 13 August 1964, the last executions in Britain were carried out when Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen were hanged in separate prisons. The death sentence for murder was abolished for a trial period of 5 years in 1965. It was permanently abolished for murder in 1969.
On 3 February 1967 Ronald Ryan became the last man to be hanged in Australia.
In 1981 Michael Anderson Sloan was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the electric chair. But in 1983 the sentence was changed to life imprisonment. On 7 March 1989 while he was sitting on a metal toilet in a cell mending an earphone cable he was electrocuted.
On 7 December 1982, Charles Brooks Jr became the first person in the USA to be executed by lethal injection. The first woman executed in that way was Velma Barfield in 1984.
On 10 September 1984 Alec Jeffreys discovered DNA fingerprinting. It has proved to be a vital tool for law enforcement. In 1987 Colin Pitchfork became the first murderer caught by the new technology.
