Frances Kidder made history by becoming the last woman to be publicly hanged in Britain, when she was executed at Maidstone at midday on Thursday, the 2nd of April 1868. Early Life 25-year-old Frances had been born in 1843 to John and Frances Turner of New Romney in Kent. She married William Kidder in 1865 … Read more
The Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act came into law at the beginning of June 1868 and stipulated that all executions had henceforth to be carried out within prisons. The first to be so was that of 18 year old Thomas Wells at Maidstone. Although the law had changed the location it had not changed the method of execution nor … Read more
Background Alexander Arthur Mackay became the second person to be executed in private and the first at Newgate. 18-year-old Mackay was employed by George Grossmith as a waiter and general servant at his eating house at No. 11 Artillery Passage, London. Mackay had an argument with George’s wife, 45-year-old Emma, on the morning of Friday, … Read more
Thirty five year old Priscilla Biggadyke became the first woman in Britain to be executed in private when was hanged at 9.00 a.m. on Monday, the 28th of December, 1868, at Lincoln Castle. She had been convicted of poisoning her husband, Richard, with arsenic at their home on September 30th 1868. Priscilla was born Priscilla Whiley in the village of Gedney in Lincolnshire in 1833 and had married Richard in … Read more
The Crime and Motive Twenty-nine-year-old Margaret Shiel, known as Peggy, was executed with her brother, twenty-four-year-old Laurence, at Tullamore Gaol in County Offaly, Ireland, on Friday, the 27th of May 1870, for the murder of thirty-six-year-old Patrick Dunne over a land dispute. The Shiels lived with their father, Patrick, at Kilcroe on a forty-acre farm. … Read more
