The British female hanged 1868 - 1955 by Robert Anderson (Evans) on Monday, the 12th of January, 1874 . Thirty one year old Mary Ann Barry was executed alongside her partner in crime, 32 year old Edwin Bailey, for the poisoning murder of his illegitimate one year old child, Sarah, whom they considered a nuisance. With them on the gallows, set up in the quadrangle of Gloucester Gaol, was Edward Butt, who had shot his girlfriend. Mary became the last woman in England to suffer short drop hanging and reportedly struggled for some three minutes on the rope and had to be forced down into the pit by Anderson .ï¿½ The two men became still almost immediately. ï¿½ Berry, Elizabeth hanged by James Berry at Walton prison Liverpool on Monday, the 14th of March, 1887 . Thirty one year old Elizabeth Berry poisoned her 11 year old daughter for ï¿½10 life insurance. It was an unusual coincidence that the executioner and the criminal had the same surname and had also actually met previously when they danced together at a police ball.

Biggadyke, Priscilla, was hanged at 9.00 a.m. Monday, the 28th of December, 1868 , at Lincoln by Thomas Askern for poisoning her husband with arsenic. It was alleged that she killed him because he discovered she was having an affair with one of their lodgers. Thirty five year old Priscilla was the first woman to be executed in private in Britain . She ascended the steps to the platform where she said "Surely all my troubles are over" and "Shame on you, you are not going to hang me." But Askern did, in his usual clumsy way and she reportedly died hard. Britland, Mary Ann was executed by James Berry at Strangeways on Monday, the 9th of August, 1886 , becoming the first woman to be hanged there. Thirty eight year old Mary Ann Britland was convicted of poisoning Mary Dixon, with whose husband she had been having an affair. She had also previously poisoned her own husband, Thomas and daughter, Elizabeth. Bryant, Charlotte , hanged by Tom Pierrepoint at Exeter the 15th of July 1936 .

Charlotte Bryant (33) was convicted of poisoning her husband with arsenic. She was having an affair with their lodger and it seemed a simple way to remove her husband from the scene. Whilst awaiting execution, her previously black hair turned completely white. Calvert, Louie , hanged by Tom Pierrepoint at Strangeways prison Manchester Thursday, the 24th of June, 1926 . Louie Calvert, also 33, had criminal tendencies and was known to the police. She battered and strangled her landlady, Mrs. Lily Waterhouse, who had confronted her over things that had gone missing from the house and had reported Louie to the police. In the condemned cell, she also admitted to the murder of a previous employer - John Frobisher - in 1922. She was the first woman to be hanged at Stangeways since Mary Ann Britland in 1886. Tuesday, the 6th of March, 1900 . Twenty four year old Ada Chard-Williams was convicted of drowning a small child whom she had "adopted" for a few pounds.

She was suspected of killing other children and was another "baby farmer."ï¿½ She was the last woman to hang at Newgate, subsequent female executions in London taking place at the newly converted women's prison at Holloway. Christofi, Styllou , hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at London 's Holloway women's prison on Monday, the 13th of December, 1954 . Styllou Christofi, 53, was a Greek woman who brutally murdered her German born daughter-in-law, Hella, by battering her and then strangling her. Afterwards, she tried to burn her body. It is thought that she had also committed another murder in Cyprus . She asked for a Maltese Cross to be put on the wall of the execution chamber and this wish was granted - it remained there until the room was dismantled in 1967. Coincidentally, the murder was committed in the same street where a few months later Ruth Ellis was to commit hers - South Churchill, Catherine.

Fifty five year old Catherine Churchill was hanged by William Marwood at Taunton Monday, the 26th of May, 1879 for the murder of her husband, 82 year old Samuel Churchill. Cotton, Mary Ann , hanged by William Calcraft, assisted by Robert Anderson, at Durham on Monday, the 24th of March, 1873 . Forty year old Mary Ann Cotton was Britain 's first female serial killer and until recently held the record for the greatest number of murders - all by poisoning with arsenic. Although only convicted of the murder of her stepson, she is suspected of 14-15 murders. 21 people who had been close to her had died in the preceding 20 years. Cotton was pregnant with her seventh child at the time of arrest and trial and the execution had to be delayed until after she had given birth, as was the usual custom. However, because of her pregnancy, there was a petition for her reprieve. This was denied and she was hanged in the prison yard. Newspaper reporters who witnessed the execution reported that she struggled hard for about three minutes after the trap fell. Daly, Mary .

40 year old Mary Daly was hanged by William Billington at Tullamore prison in Ireland on Friday, the 9th of January, 1903 for the murder of her husband John. Her co-accused, Joseph Taylor, was executed two days earlier. Dyer, Amelia Elizabeth , hanged by James Billington at Newgate prison on Wednesday, the 10th of June, 1896 . Amelia Dyer (57) was hanged for the murder of 4-month old Doris Marmon, a baby who had been entrusted to her care, having received ï¿½10 to look after them. This particular form of murder was known at the time as "Baby Farming" and it is thought that Dyer had murdered 6 or more other babies for money. Each baby had been strangled with white tape, which as she told the police, "was how you could tell it was one of hers." Ellis, Ruth, hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at Holloway prison, North London Wednesday, the 13th of July, 1955 .

Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be executed in Britain - for the murder of her boyfriend David Blakely, who had refused to see her over the Easter of 1955. She lay in wait for him outside the Magdala pub and when he came out, shot him 5 times with a revolver. She was arrested immediately by an off-duty policeman and equally quickly convicted by an Old Bailey jury. Her execution caused a great deal of public controversy at the time. Flanagan, Catherine . 55 year old Flanagan was hanged at Kirkdale prison, Liverpool by Bartholomew Binns, side by side with her sister, Margaret Higgins (see below) on Monday, the 3rd of March, 1884. Binns was assisted by Samuel Heath as it was a double execution. Higgins, Margaret , Monday, the 3rd of March, 1884. Flanagan and Higgins were both convicted of the poisoning of 44 year old Higgin's husband, Thomas, for his life insurance. He was not their only victim (there were at least three) and they were not the only female poisoners operating in this area of Liverpool in the 1880's.

As was usual at the time, the Crown simply prosecuted one capital case at a time and did not go for anymore if the first resulted in a guilty verdict and death sentence. King, Jessie . King, aged 27, was hanged by James Berry at Calton prison Edinburgh on Monday, the 11th of March, 1889 for the murder, by strangling, of Alexander Gunn, one of two children in her care whom she murdered and buried in her cellar. She was a baby farmer and was thought to have murdered a third child whoï¿½s body was not recovered. Lefley, Mary , hanged by James Berry at Lincoln Monday, the 26th of May, 1884 . Mary Lefley, aged 44, poisoned her husband, William, with arsenic and had to be dragged to the gallows screaming "Murder, Murder" and struggling with the warders. Major, Ethel Lillie , hanged by Tom Pierrepoint at Hull prison on Wednesday, the 19th of December, 1934.

Forty three year old Ethel Major poisoned her husband, Arthur, with strychnine and her ghost is said to still haunt the prison. 's Newgate prison by James Billington on Tuesday, the 9th of January, 1900 . Thirty six year old Louisa Masset killed her four year old son, Manfred, and dumped his naked body in the ladiesï¿½ toilet at Dalston Junction railway station in London . The reason for the murder is that Manfred was a hindrance to her relationship with her boyfriend, so she took him to the station and battered him and suffocated him to death. Hers was the first British execution of the 20th century. Merrifield, Louisa , hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at Strangeways on Friday, the 18th of September, 1953 . Louisa Merrifield, 44, poisoned her employer, Mrs. Sarah Ann Rickets for whom she worked as housekeeper, to obtain her bungallow which had been left to Louisa under her newly changed will. She used a phosphorus based rat poison called Rodine and was tried with her husband, Alfred, who was acquitted.

Sheil, Margaret was executed with her brother Lawrence at Tullamore in Ireland on Friday the 27th of May 1870 for the murder by shooting of 30 year old Patrick Dunne over a land dispute.ï¿½ It appears that this was the culmination of a long running feud between the two families.ï¿½ Lawrence had served a prison sentence for an earlier assault on Dunne and upon his release Margaret was reputed to have said ï¿½If no one will shoot the scoundrel Iï¿½ll do it myself!ï¿½ The pair ambushed Dunne on his way home from the pub at Philipstown, County , where she shot him and then cut his throat. These were the first hangings in Ireland carried out within the prison walls. Newell, Susan , hanged by John Ellis at Duke Street Wednesday, the 10th of October, 1923 . Susan Newell, aged 30, strangled newspaper boy John Johnston who would not give her an evening paper without the money. Having killed the boy, she wheeled his body through the streets on a handcart accompanied by her eight year old daughter, Janet, whose evidence helped to convict her.

She was the first woman to hang in Scotland Wheeler (Pearcey), Mary Eleanor , hanged by James Berry at Newgate on Monday, the 23rd of December, 1890 . Twenty four year old Mary Pearcey was hanged for the murders of Mrs. Phoebe Hogg and her daughter (also Phoebe). She had cut Mrs. Hogg's throat and smothered the 18-month old child. She was having an affair with Phoebe's husband, Frank Hogg. Her father, Thomas Wheeler, had also been hanged for murder some 10 years earlier. Pearson, Elizabeth , 32 year old Pearson was hanged by William Marwood at Durham Monday, the 2nd of August, 1875 . Pearson was one of three unrelated murderers who suffered at Durham on that August day. She had poisoned her uncle, James Watson, with rat poison administered in his medicine.

Sach, Amelia , hanged by William Billington and Henry Pierrepoint at Holloway prison together with Annie Walters (see below) on Tuesday, the 3rd of February, 1903 Twenty nine year old Amelia Sach was another "baby farmer" and she and Walters became the first women to hang at Holloway which had become London's women's prison. Previously, female executions were carried out at Newgate. Stewart, Francis , hanged at Newgate prison by William Marwood on Monday, the 29th of June, 1874 . Forty eight year old Stewart was executed for the murder of her infant grandson, the only grandmother to be executed for this crime. She was the first British woman to be hanged using the ï¿½long dropï¿½ method. Tuesday, the 29th of December, 1903 . Emily Swann, 42, went to the gallows with her 30-year old lover John Gallagher for the murder of Swann's husband, William.

Hooded and noosed on the trap doors, Emily said "Good morning John" to which he replied "Good morning love."ï¿½ Emily replied "Goodbye, God bless you" before the drop fell ending any more conversation. Taylor, Louisa Jane , hanged by William Marwood at Maidstone on Tuesday, the 2nd of January, 1883 . Louisa Jane Taylor, 37, was executed for the poisoning, using a lead salt, of 82-year old Mrs. Tregellis at Plumstead. Her motive may have been money but equally may have been the sadistic pleasure of watching someone die slowly from lead poisoning. Thompson, Edith Jessie , hanged by John Ellis at Holloway prison on Tuesday, the 9th of January, 1923 . Edith Thompson aged 28 and her lover Frederick Bywaters were hanged in separate prisons at 9.00 a.m. on this day for the murder, by stabbing, of Edith's husband, Percy. Her execution caused considerable public disquiet as many doubted her guilt and the meaning of the various love letters that passed between her and Bywaters.

She had to be carried to the gallows and it was reported that her underwear was covered in blood after the hanging. John Ellis committed suicide in 1932 and like everyone else present had been deeply affected by this execution. The bodies of Edith Thompson and Stylou Christofi were reburied in an unmarked pauper's grave in Brookwood, Surrey when Holloway was rebuilt in 1970. Tooke, Annie , hanged by William Marwood at Exeter on Monday, the 11th of August, 1879 . Forty year old Annie was executed for the murder of 6-month old Reginald Hyde.ï¿½ She may have been a baby farmer. Waddingham, Dorothea , hanged by Tom and Albert Pierrepoint at Birmingham 's Winson Green prison on Friday, the 16th of April, 1936 . Thirty six year old "nurse" Waddingham, as she called herself, used morphine to poison one of her elderly patients, 89 year old Mrs.

Louisa Baguley and her disabled daughter, Ada Wadge, Selina , hanged by William Marwood at Bodmin on Thursday, the 15th of August, 1878 . Selina Wadge, aged 28, suffered for the murder of her illegitimate son, a sadly not uncommon crime in those days. Walber, Margaret . 53 year old Margaret Walber was hanged at Liverpoolï¿½s Walton prison by James Billington on Monday, the 2nd of April, 1894 for murdering her husband. Walsh, Annie, hanged at Mountjoy prison, Dublin by Tom Pierrepoint on Wednesday, the 5th of August, 1925 for the murder of her husband, 60 year old Edward. Thirty one year old Annie became the last woman to be executed in Ireland. Her co-defendant, nephew and lover, 24 year old Michael Talbot was executed at 8.00 a.m. , Annie following him to the gallows 45 minutes later.ï¿½ She had to be strapped to a collapse board. Walters, Annie .

Fifty four year old Walters was hanged at Holloway Tuesday, the 3rd of February, 1903 with Amelia Sach (see above). Theirs was the last double female execution and the first and only double at Holloway. Waters, Margaret, hanged by William Calcraft at Horsemonger Lane Goal (County of Surrey ) on Tuesday, the 11th of October, 1870. Waters, 35, was another baby farmer convicted of murdering an infant named John Walter Cowen. Webster, Catherine , hanged by William Marwood at Surrey ï¿½s Wandsworth prison on Tuesday, the 29th of July, 1879 . She was the only woman ever hanged at Wandsworth. Thirty year old Kate Webster murdered her elderly employer, Mrs. Julia Martha Thomas, with an axe. She then dismembered the body leaving parts in various places around London and throwing some into the Thames . The severed head was never found. She sold Mrs. Thomas's furniture and belongings and fled back to Ireland with the takings. She finally confessed her guilt to the chaplain the night before she was hanged. Williams, Mary.

Thirty year old Williams was hanged by William Marwood at Liverpool ï¿½s Kirkdale prison, Liverpool on Monday, the 31st of August, 1874 for the murder of Nicholas Manning. With her on the gallows was 22-year old Henry Flannigan, who had been convicted of murdering his aunt. Willis, Rhoda , also known as Leslie James was hanged by Henry and Tom Pierrepoint at Cardiff BBC ON THIS DAY | 13 | 1955: Ruth Ellis hanged for killing lover 1955: Ruth Ellis hanged for killing lover Convicted murderer Ruth Ellis has been hanged at Holloway Prison, London. Ellis was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey for shooting her lover, 25-year-old racing driver David Blakely, outside the Magdala public house in north London on Easter Sunday. Home Secretary Major Lloyd George rejected the final appeals to reprieve the 28-year-old former model and nightclub hostess last night. Public support The Prison Governor at Holloway was forced to call for police reinforcements yesterday evening as a crowd of 500 massed outside the prison's gates singing and chanting for Ellis for several hours.

Some people broke through police cordons to bang on the jail's doors, calling for Ellis to pray with them, but by 2330 BST the crowd had dispersed. Thousands of people have signed petitions asking for the death penalty to be lifted in this case, including 35 members of London County Council who delivered their plea to the House of Commons last night. The executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, arrived at the prison yesterday after travelling to the capital from Preston, Lancashire. A silent crowd - including women with prams - collected around Holloway this morning, waiting for the execution at 0900 BST. Eighteen minutes later, notice of Ellis' death was posted outside and the crowd surged forwards, blocking the road and stopping traffic. Legal questions Yesterday, Ellis was visited by her mother, her solicitor J G Bickford and her friend, Jacqueline Dyer, within an hour of hearing there would be no reprieve. Her trial opened on 20 June and the jury took just 14 minutes to find her guilty of murder. She did not appeal against her conviction. The case has increased debate about British criminal justice and the death penalty.

The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment has reported recently that the incidence of murder is not significantly greater in countries where the death penalty has been abolished. Last woman hanged for murder in Great Britain - Jul 13, 1955 - HISTORY.com Last woman hanged for murder in Great Britain Share this: Last woman hanged for murder in Great Britain Author Last woman hanged for murder in Great Britain URL Publisher A+E Networks Nightclub owner Ruth Ellis is convicted of murdering boyfriend David Blakely on this day in 1955. Ellis was later executed by hanging and became the last woman in Great Britain to be put to death. Ellis was born in Rhyl, Wales, in 1926. She left school as a young teenager, had a child and worked a variety of jobs, eventually becoming a nightclub hostess. In 1950, she married dentist George Ellis, with whom she had a second child. The marriage was short-lived and Ruth Ellis returned to working in nightclubs. She then became involved in a tempestuous relationship with David Blakely, a playboy race-car driver.

Ellis became pregnant but miscarried several days after a fight during which Blakely hit her in the stomach. She later became obsessed with Blakely when he failed to come see her as promised. On April 10, 1955, she shot him to death outside the Magdala pub in Hampstead, North London. During her trial, which began in June 1955, Ellis stated “It was obvious that when I shot him I intended to kill him.” This was a critical statement, as British law required demonstration of clear intent in order to convict someone of murder. It reportedly took the jury less than half an hour to find Ellis guilty and she automatically received the death penalty. Thousands of people signed petitions protesting her punishment; however, on July 13, 1955, the 28-year-old Ellis was hanged at Holloway Prison, a women’s institution in Islington, London. She was the last woman executed for murder in Great Britain. On August 13, 1964, Peter Anthony Allen and John Alan West became the last people to be executed for murder in England.

In 1965, the death penalty for murder was banned in England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland outlawed capital punishment in 1973. However, several crimes, including treason, remained punishable by death in Great Britain until 1998. In 1985, a movie titled Dance With a Stranger chronicled Ellis’ life. In December 2003, a British court dismissed an appeal filed by Ellis’s sister asking for Ruth’s conviction to be reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of “provocation and/or diminished responsibility.” Related Videos The end of the death penalty - Telegraph Saturday Magazine The end of the death penalty Fifty years ago, Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen became the last criminals to be executed in Britain. Nisha Lilia Diu tells their story. The mug shots of Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, the last criminals to be hanged in Britain. By Nisha Lilia Diu 9:30AM BST 13 Aug 2014 "At half past seven in the morning, all the prisoners started tapping their cell doors: bang, bang, bang. It just went on.

As we got nearer to eight o’clock they started banging quicker: bang, bang, bang, bang. And at eight o’clock exactly they all banged once, hard, and then stopped dead. And I thought, 'That’s the moment he’s been hung.' The hairs on the back of my neck went up, they really did. I remember it to this day." On August 13 1964 Dennis Owen was in Walton Jail operating a radio link "so if anything happened, we could call for back-up." Owen, 25, was an officer in the Liverpool City Police, and on that day the last executions in Britain took place. At precisely the moment Peter Allen dropped to his death in Liverpool, his accomplice, Gwynne Evans, was hanged 35 miles away in Manchester’s Strangeways prison. There were no upsets at either prison. "I told the control room that the poor bloke had been dispatched without any problems," Owen says. Barely 18 weeks earlier Allen and Evans had bludgeoned to death one of Evans’s acquaintances, a 53-year-old bachelor called John West.

"It was very swift justice but that was commonplace in those days," Steve Fielding, the crime writer and historian, says. "There were cases when it was just 30 days from murder to hanging." More often, like Allen and Evans, the convicted would spend a few weeks in the "condemned cell" within the prison, a large, bare room with a locked door in it. Behind it, and unbeknown to them, was the execution chamber. When the prisoner was walked to the gallows, he was on the trapdoors almost before he could register it. Hangmen were competitive about the speed of their jobs. A veteran of more than 400 hangings, Albert Pierrepoint used to boast that he could do the whole thing – from walking into the condemned cell to pulling the lever – in under ten seconds. The hangman would enter the condemned cell on the stroke of the appointed hour, pull the prisoner’s arms behind his back and march him on to the trapdoors in the execution chamber. The hood and noose would immediately be placed over his head and the lever pulled.

"And then," the hangman Syd Dernley wrote in his memoirs, "there was an enormous boom which over half the prison must have heard as those massive trapdoors crashed against the wall of the pit. It was over." The first execution Dernley witnessed was carried out by Albert Pierrepoint. "In the quiet which followed," Dernley remembered, "I heard an official say, 'Eight seconds. Well done!’" Pierrepoint liked to light a cigar just before the hour, leaving it in the ashtray and returning to it, still lit, when the businesses was done. He retired in 1956 and Evans and Allen were hanged by Harry Allen and Robert Stewart, respectively. Harry Allen had adopted some of Pierrepoint’s showmanship, donning a bowler hat and one of a selection of colourful bow ties when he was on the job. Some of these, along with his tape measure, pliers and a trunk of ropes, are now owned by Mike James, the publisher of True Crime Library , who has given them on loan to Wandsworth Prison.

(They can be seen by appointment with Stewart McLaughlin, honorary curator of the prison museum.) Harry Allen, Britain's last chief executioner, photographed in 1969 (PA Photos) Evans, 24, had briefly worked with John West at the Lakeland Laundry in Lancashire. When he was arrested, he said, "Jack [sic] West has been a friend of mine for five years and he told me that if I was ever short of money he would always lend me a couple of quid. I knew he had a load of cash." He and Peter Allen, 21, decided to pay West a visit at 1am on Tuesday, April 7. They took Allen’s wife, Mary, a cinema usherette, and their two small children along for the ride. According to Mary’s police statement, when the two men came out of the house "they were running." "They just drove off as fast as they could. I asked them what was wrong and they said that Sandy’s [her nickname for Evans] friend couldn’t lend them any money. Peter took his jacket off and when I picked it up by the collar all my hand was wet.

When I asked what it was Sandy turned the light on in the car." It was slick with blood. At the time Evans was lodging with the Allens at 2 Clarendon Street, Preston. "It was quite a rough town at that stage," John Stewart, then a junior detective on the case, says. "I think we dealt with 11 murders in 14 months." He remembers Allen coming into the CID office in Preston. "I was told to sit with Allen and not to speak to him about anything except for the weather." "He was wearing a style of jumper that was very popular at the time, with a knitted pattern on the back, a leaping salmon. The other one was a little man but this one was tall. Rather pale face. Quite a big lad. Not dishevelled, but not very healthy-looking." At first the pair denied the murder, but Evans had left several items in West’s house, including a medallion inscribed with his name. Allen was the first to crack. Having claimed they were all at home doing nothing on Monday night, he suddenly became flustered and requested a match. "Was given a match and lit a cigarette," the transcript of his interrogation notes.

"Struck the desk with his fist," it continues. "Buried his head in his arm and was silent for a few seconds. He then crumpled up a piece of paper on which Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Watson had made some notes. A: That’s lies. All right. I’ll tell you. I’d like to tell the whole flipping world about it." "It started off as an innocent robbery," Allen told Watson. They were unemployed, behind on the rent and owed £10 each in fines for thefts committed earlier that year. They went to a garage in Preston, "pinched a car" and drove to West’s house at 28 Kings Avenue in Seaton. Evans entered the property alone "and came out for me about ten to three". Evans said, "I knocked on Mr West’s door and he said, 'I didn’t expect to see you tonight.’" He added, "He asked me to go to bed with him.

I don’t know whether anyone knows it or not but West was a homosexual." Evans claimed to have turned the man down but his raincoat was later found on the back of a chair in West’s bedroom, and when West’s body was discovered he was naked from the waist down. It seems likely that at some point Evans asked for money and, finding it not forthcoming, somehow slipped out to call Allen. When West saw him, Allen told the court, he said, “'Who the bloody hell are you?' When I didn’t answer he came at me and made a lunge at me. I panicked, drew back my fist and hit him. The next thing I can remember is seeing Gwynne hitting West with a bar." When West’s battered body was found lying at the foot of the stairs the next morning, the pathologist noted 25 separate injuries, including a stab wound to the heart. John West was murdered in 1964, by the last people to be hanged in Britain. Allen concluded his statement by saying, "I am glad I was caught as I could not have lived noing [sic] I had helped in taking a human life." Evans was less repentant.

His psychiatric assessment describes him as "easily induced to laugh. It was apparent to me that he enjoyed the notoriety associated with his present predicament. He is a glib and fluent liar, repeatedly changing his version of events." On July 7 Evans and Allen were found guilty of capital murder at Manchester Crown Court. When Mr Justice Ashworth delivered the sentence, the black cap was placed on his head.“As both of you know, for the crime of which you have in my judgement been rightly convicted the law provides only once sentence,” he said. Nonetheless, nobody actually expected them to hang. There had been no executions so far in 1964, and only two the year before. Ten years before that, in 1952, there had been 23. A reprieve seemed certain, particularly given that the perpetrator of a very similar murder had been granted one earlier that year. There had been increasingly significant moves to end the death penalty since the Second World War, mostly led by the Labour MP for Nelson and Colne, Sydney Silverman. By the time of the 1957 Homicide Act, which dramatically reduced its application, the public and parliament alike had grown wary of it.

Public horror at the case of Timothy Evans, hanged in 1950, was still relatively fresh. He had been convicted of the murder of his baby daughter (his wife, Beryl, was also murdered but her case was "left on file"). Evans accused his neighbour John Christie of the killing. Three years later, when Christie moved out of his flat in Rillington Place, west London, the bodies of six women, including his own wife, Ethel, were found there. After his arrest he confessed to killing all six as well as Beryl, and was hanged for murder. There was also unease in 1953 when 19-year-old Derek Bentley was executed for the shooting of a police officer by his friend Christopher Craig, who at 16 was too young to hang. According to witnesses, the officer had said, "Hand over the gun, lad." Bentley then shouted, "Let him have it, Chris," which was interpreted in court as an instruction to fire. Then in 1955 there was Ruth Ellis. When the nightclub hostess was hanged for shooting her abusive on-off boyfriend, David Blakely, the outcry was loud and prolonged.

The tide was slowly turning against capital punishment. But it was too slow for Evans and Allen. The men appealed twice, and their mothers wrote to the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke, begging for clemency. To no avail. The night before his hanging Allen threw himself at the glass partition that separated him from his wife, smashing the glass and breaking his hand. His executioner, Robert Stewart, noted that he shouted, "Jesus!" as he was led to the drop. The death penalty for murder was suspended for a trial period a year later. It was abolished altogether in 1969, almost exactly a century after the banning of public hangings in 1868. Then, crowds of 30,000 were common at Newgate in London. "Even here you’d get a crowd of 8,000," Colin Penny, the museum manager at Lancaster Castle, the scene of countless executions over 1,000 years, says. By then, he says, hangings had become "very solemn occasions.

Newspapers reported men removing their hats when the person to be hanged was led out to the gallows, and visible shudders passing through the crowd when the trapdoor opened." "Seventy or 80 years earlier," he adds, hangings had been "almost like a fair. There would be hawkers of various kinds, people selling pies, jugglers." This was the era of the Bloody Code, when more than 200 crimes – including sheep stealing, trespassing and poaching – were capital offences. It was also the era of the "short drop", when a stool was kicked from beneath the feet of the culprit, leaving him to die by strangulation. It could take an hour to die. A page from Harry Allen's scrapbook showing a 1969 newspaper interview (Daniel Stier) Eventually, in the 1870s, the London executioner William Marwood developed the "long drop", intended to break the neck instantly. While not universally popular with executioners – William Calcraft, Britain’s longest-serving hangman, refused to adopt the more merciful practice and was subsequently retired in 1874, after 45 years of service – it was used until abolition.

The "long drop" requires a precise calculation, using the person’s height and weight to determine the distance he should fall. Too short, and it would cause death by strangulation. Too long, and it would tear his head off. This was the fate of one John Conway in 1892. His hangman, James Berry, quit the job for good after that incident. Indeed, many executioners were traumatised by their experiences. John Ellis, Britain’s chief executioner in the early 1900s, slit his own throat to escape the memories. Yet there was no shortage of hopefuls: about 250 people a year in the early 1960s submitted speculative applications. Britain had two chief executioners and typically four assistant executioners working at any one time, and they would hold their positions for years. In the rare event of an opening, unsavoury types were weeded out by a psychological exam, with the successful few going on to a week’s training at Pentonville Prison. Robert Stewart emigrated to South Africa shortly after abolition and never talked about his job, as far as we know.

Harry Allen, on the other hand, was "quite happy to tell you all about it", according to Robert Douglas, a Birmingham police officer who met Allen when he hanged Russell Pascoe, whom Douglas had been guarding. "I said, 'What was the most you’ve done?' He said, 'At Nuremberg we did 27 in two hours and 40 minutes.' They hanged them three at a time in a gymnasium. Harry was quite proud of that." Harry Allen relaxes at home with his wife, Doris, in 1970 (Photo by REX) Allen’s widow, Doris, tells me he was "a very jolly person, always full of life". Did the job ever weigh heavy on him? "No, no, no, he never gave it a thought. He believed in it – that if they’d murdered somebody that was it. I agreed with him. I still do." Support for capital punishment is on a gradual global decline.

It is down to 51 per cent in Britain, according to the latest YouGov poll, in September 2010 – still significantly higher than in most of Europe, but lower than in America, where support has also fallen, to 60 per cent. "Throughout history, if a jury has the chance to sentence criminals to something other than death, they will typically take that opportunity," says Prof Mitchel Roth at the Sam Houston State University in Texas, the author of the forthcoming book An Eye for an Eye: A Global History of Crime and Punishment. "Even in Texas," he says, "now we have life without parole, we see people being sentenced to death a lot more rarely. In 2000 40 men were executed, against 13 in 2013." Prof Jim Sharpe of the University of York, who is writing A Fiery & Furious People: The History of Violence in England, agrees. "In every social group in England we’ve begun to see violence as an inappropriate and ineffective way to solve problems," he says. A common argument for the death penalty is that it acts as a deterrent, but extensive research on the subject has proved inconclusive.

Two years after her husband hanged, Mary Allen agreed to give an interview. She had had a difficult time, repeatedly dismissed from jobs when her history was discovered. Remarried, she refused to share her new name. "I need to start again for the sake of the babies," she said. She told an anecdote of when she and her new husband did a newspaper quiz one morning. One of them, realising too late what they were saying, read out loud, "Who were the last men to be hanged in England?" She realised with some shock that she had become a part of history.

Question: Who was the last woman to be executed for murder in the UK?
Answer: Ruth Ellis