It used to be said that London’s streets were paved in gold but in reality they were running in blood – the blood of tens of thousands of people executed by the state for crimes ranging from treason to petty theft.
Over 700 years, public executions in the capital – often intended as a deterrent against criminal activity – were watched by vast crowds, creating an “execution economy” built on a thirst for grisly details and a physical hunger born of hours of anticipation.
By the end of the 18th century, more than 200 crimes were punishable by death. London’s courts ordered the deaths of more people than courts in the rest of the country combined.
“Public executions became embedded in London’s landscape, culture, society and economy,” said Beverley Cook, the curator of Executions, a new exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, that opens on Friday. “They were a very visible part of Londoners’ lives for many centuries, with some events attracting tens of thousands of people.”
From the first public execution in 1196 to the last in 1868, the exhibition tells the stories of people put to death and the impact on society. It includes engravings, paintings, death warrants, last letters of the condemned, clothing, shackles, a gibbet and the diary of the governor of Newgate prison, where condemned prisoners were held.
A noose was “probably the most difficult object to put on display because of the contemporary connotations”, said Cook.
No spot in the City of London is more than 500 metres from a place where gallows once stood, according to the exhibition. People were confronted with the decaying bodies of executed criminals hanging in gibbet cages, traitors’ heads on spikes over London Bridge and body parts displayed on city gates.
Methods of execution went far beyond hanging. Traitors were hung, drawn and quartered – dragged from prison to the execution site, hanged until nearly dead, then castrated, disembowelled, beheaded and cut into quarters.
Members of the nobility were often simply beheaded, out of respect for their high status. Burning to death was the standard punishment for heresy, aimed at striking fear into people who questioned the teaching of the church. Boiling to death was rare, and usually reserved for poisoners.
A roll call of 5,000 people – names, ages, crimes and place of execution – who were publicly put to death is the result of meticulous research carried out for the exhibition. Amid the traitors, murderers and highway robbers are many people executed for minor crimes such as pickpocketing, burglary and shoplifting.
One was Ambrose Newport, 21, put to death in 1731 for “stealing a black-brown mare”.
Perhaps the most famous of those executed before a public audience was Charles I, convicted of “High Treason and other high Crymes” and beheaded in 1649 at Banqueting House in Whitehall in front of an “abundance of Men and Women”.
Among the items on display is an intricately woven silk vest said to have been worn by the king at his execution. The cause of visible stains on the garment has not been conclusively identified.
The spectators flocking to the gallows and other execution sites to witness the spectacle of state-sanctioned death provided others with an opportunity to make money. Window views and grandstand seating were hired out to the wealthy; the poor stood for hours fortified by beef, mutton, eel and fruit pies, depending on the season.
Execution “broadsides”, costing about a penny, were hawked all over the country, describing the crime and the death in everyday street language. They were written in advance, with their authors sometimes caught out by a last-minute reprieve.
“Murder is, doubtless, a very shocking offence; nevertheless, as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it,” wrote one broadside seller in 1861.
By then, the death spectacles were coming to an end. Some argued that public execution days disrupted London’s economy, and social reformers questioned the morality of watching people die. Transportation to the colonies and new Victorian prisons offered alternative punishments.
On 26 May 1868, the last public execution in London took place. Michael Barrett was an Irish Republican convicted for his part in an explosion at the Clerkenwell House of Detention. He always protested his innocence. Three days later, public executions were abolished, although the death penalty remained until 1969.
The issues raised in the exhibition were not merely of historic curiosity, said Cook. Many of its themes will be “surprisingly familiar” to people today. “The struggle to protect an urban population from crime, and the enduring issues of poverty, a rising population, discrimination and domestic violence.”
And, she added, “55 countries still have capital punishment on their statute books. We don’t want visitors to think this is the end of the story”. The last section of the exhibition includes a video interview with Paul Bridges, the chair of Amnesty’s anti-death penalty project.
Execution opens at the Museum of London Docklands on Friday 14 October, entrance from £12
