Persons executed, by year and by sex in England and Wales from 1800. Year summary counts and person-specific data indicating place and date of execution and age of person.
Amid the Napoleonic Wars at the start of the nineteenth century, executions amounted to about 25% of absence in punishment in England and Wales. Subsequently the share of executions in punishment absence continually declined. The share of executions in punishment absence was always below 10% after 1820.[
From 1800 to 1835, 57 males and 3 females were executed in England and Wales on average per year. That’s about half the average number of executions per year in the eighteenth century in England and Wales. The sex ratio for executions, however, rose to 21.6. More selective punishment of death tends to be more skewed toward men.
Movement away from the death penalty occurred in Britain from the early nineteenth century. In 1823, the Judgement of Death Act made the death penalty discretionary for all crimes except murder and treason. The last execution in Britain occurred in 1964. The death penalty for murder was abolished permanently in 1969. The death penalty for treason, the last penalty of death to be abolished, was abolished in 1998.
Thanks to Dave Mossop and Richard Clarke for extraordinary work in collecting information on capital punishment in the UK.
Dataset sheets:
- yearly: yearly executions by sex, best estimate with comparison to Parliamentary Papers (PP), Clark-Mossop, and Wilson counts
- EW 1837-99: persons executed in England and Wales, 1837 to1899, with county, place, name, sex, age, crime/victim name. Structured data formed from Clark-Mossop rosters.
- EW 1900-64: persons executed in England and Wales, 1900 to 1964, with place, name, sex, age, victims name. Structured data formed from Clark-Mossop rosters.
- UK women 1800-1964: women in United Kingdom, with region, place, name, age, crime. Some data on victim, method, motive alleged. Structured data formed from Clark-Mossop rosters.
- checks: period sums of executions cross-checked with various published figures
- other data: average age of persons executed, share of reprieves, etc.
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