With special thanks to Ms. Brenda Cook for providing the data for this article.
Historical Survival Records (1587–1785)
| Date / Place | Name | Age | Crime / Circumstances | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20/02/1587 Southwark – St. Thomas-a-Watering / London Barber-Surgeons’ Hall | Unknown Male | — | Hanged for felony; taken to Barber-Surgeons’ Hall for dissection | Revived in cold weather; died three days later on the 23rd of February 1587 |
| 14/12/1650 Oxford Castle Yard | Anne Green | 22 | Concealing the death of a bastard child | Revived by university anatomists; made full recovery, pardoned, married, had three children, died in 1665 |
| 04/05/1658 Oxford | “T” (female) | — | Maidservant convicted of concealing a birth | Revived by doctors; seized by bailiff Henry Mallory and hanged a second time from a tree at Broken Hayes |
| 1668 London (Ratcliff Cross) | Thomas Savage | 17 | Murder of a fellow servant | Revived at a nearby house after hanging; re-arrested by sheriff’s officers and hanged a second time |
| 1686 (?) Gloucester / 30/04/1689 Salisbury | Patrick O’Bryan | 31 | Highway robbery | Revived by friends after first hanging in 1686; returned to crime and murdered his accuser; hanged again at Salisbury in 1689 and gibbeted |
| 24/12/1705 Tyburn | John “Half-Hanged” Smith | 46 | Housebreaking | Suspended for 18 minutes; reprieved on the rope after crowd pleaded for him; revived at a nearby house; transported to America |
| 02/09/1724 Grassmarket, Edinburgh | Margaret “Maggie” Dickson | 22 | Concealing a pregnancy / infanticide | Revived inside her coffin on the journey to Musselburgh; declared legally dead under Scots law; lived a further 40 years |
| 25/04/1733 Tyburn | William Gordon | — | Highway robbery | Attempted tracheotomy incision to survive hanging; taken down alive after three-quarters of an hour; died shortly after resuscitation |
| 26/07/1736 Tyburn | Thomas Reynolds | 28 | Pulling down the Ledbury Turnpike in Herefordshire | Revived in his coffin; died later that day from injuries and mismanagement |
| 07/09/1736 Bristol | John Vernham | — | Felony | Revived in care; died at 11:00 p.m. that night in severe abdominal agony while sheriff waited to re-arrest him |
| 07/09/1736 Bristol | Joshua “Half-Hanged” Harding | — | Felony | Revived after hanging; committed to Bristol Bedlam as disordered in mind; sentence commuted to penal transportation |
| 24/11/1740 Tyburn | William Duell | 16 | Rape | Revived on the dissection table at Barber-Surgeons’ Hall; returned to Newgate; sentence commuted to transportation to America |
| 28/09/1752 Town Moor, Newcastle | Ewan Macdonald | 19 | Murder | Sat up on the anatomist’s dissection table; killed by a blow to the head with a mallet by the surgeon |
| 1785 (?) Newgate (?) | John Hayes | — | Housebreaking and theft | Taken to the private house of anatomist Sir William Blizard, where he revived on the table; had vision of a green field |
Survival Statistics (1587–1785)
Of these 14 historical survivals (3 women and 11 men) recorded between 1587 and 1785:
- 2 prisoners (one female, one male) were immediately seized and re-hanged by the civil authorities.
- 5 prisoners (all male) died of their physical injuries or mismanagement within a short time of resuscitation.
- 7 prisoners (two female, five male) made a complete recovery and survived their encounters with the gallows.
The Medical Mechanics of Short Drop Hangings
As can be seen from the historical record, all but the last of these executions were carried out before the “New Drop” came into general use and before the law was reformed to require condemned prisoners to remain suspended on the rope for a full hour.
It is also notable that at least five of these individuals were in their teens or twenties, and were presumably stronger, fitter, and more resilient to physical trauma.
Hanging, when carried out with little or no drop under the short drop method, does not cause instant death.
Neither does it cause severe fracture or dislocation of the neck vertebrae, as the kinetic energy generated is far lower than that seen in the evolution of the long drop in the 20th century.
Instead, the short drop squeezes the life out of the condemned person over an extended period through mechanical constriction of the neck:
- Causing pressure on the carotid arteries, jugular veins, and the vagal nerve trunks;
- Compressing the trachea (windpipe) and forcing the base of the tongue upward against the soft palate, both of which induce progressive asphyxia.
Respiration does not stop automatically or totally, but diminishes gradually over several minutes.
Bilateral compression of the carotid arteries stimulates the carotid sinus reflex, which drastically slows the heart rate and may eventually cause cardiac arrest.
However, the cervical vertebrae shield the vertebral and spinal arteries, which continue to supply residual oxygenated blood to the brainstem.
Thus, the brain, suspended in a comatose state, does not always become immediately or completely deprived of oxygen.
It is remarkable that in only one of the cases examined below did the revived individual exhibit obvious symptoms of permanent neurological or cognitive impairment.
In some executions, the condemned was observed to struggle violently for up to three minutes before becoming limp and unconscious on the rope; in other instances, suspension produced rapid loss of consciousness.
In either scenario, complete somatic death can take up to 30 minutes to ensue.
Leaving the body suspended on the gallows for a mandatory one-hour period had become standard administrative practice by 1760, as officially documented at the execution of Earl Ferrers at Tyburn in that year.
Prior to that period, prisoners were cut down whenever the under-sheriff or the City Marshal at Tyburn deemed them to be dead.
Because the stethoscope was not invented until 1816 by René Laennec, determining clinical death in the 17th and 18th centuries was notoriously difficult: manual palpation of peripheral pulses or placing an ear directly against the chest were the only diagnostic methods available to attending officials.
Case Records of Resuscitation and Survival
The Unknown Felon at St. Thomas-a-Watering (1587)
John Stow’s Annales of England (1592) preserves an early documented account of post-execution revival:
“On the 20th of February 1587, a strange thing happened: a man hanged for felony at Saint Thomas Wateringes, being begged by the Surgeons of London, to have made of him an Anatomy, after he was dead to all men’s thinking, cut down, stripped of his apparell, laid naked in a chest, thrown into a car, and so brought from the place of execution through the Borough of Southwark over the bridge, and through the City of London to the Surgeons Hall near unto Cripplegate:
The chest being there opened, and the weather extreme cold, he was found to be alive, and lived till the three and twentieth of February, and then died.”
Anne Green at Oxford Castle (1650)
On the 14th of December 1650, 22-year-old Anne Green was escorted into the Castle Yard at Oxford Castle to be hanged for concealing the death of a newborn child.
Anne was a domestic servant in the household of Sir Thomas Read at Duns Tew and had become pregnant by Read’s grandson.
She concealed her pregnancy to protect her employment, and following premature delivery, concealed the infant’s corpse, which was subsequently discovered.
At the scaffold, Anne climbed a ladder placed against the gallows beam, and the executioner positioned the noose around her neck.
When she concluded her prayers, the ladder was turned over, leaving her suspended.
Several friends in the crowd pulled down on her legs to shorten her suffering—a common practice during short-drop hangings.
Civil officers intervened and stopped the crowd, fearing the rope would snap under the excess weight.
After hanging for approximately thirty minutes, Anne’s limp body was taken down, placed in a wooden coffin, and conveyed to the university anatomy school.
Although this execution occurred prior to the Murder Act 1752, local statutes permitted bodies of felons executed in Oxfordshire to be delivered to the university for anatomical dissection.
Three physicians—Dr. William Petty, Dr. Thomas Willis, and Dr. Ralph Bathurst—prepared to begin the dissection when they noticed faint respiratory movements in her chest.
The physicians immediately initiated resuscitation efforts:
- Sitting her upright and administering warm herbal cordials, which stimulated coughing;
- Massaging her extremities to restore peripheral blood circulation;
- Applying heat and friction until pupillary reflexes returned.
Within 12 hours of resuscitation, Anne was able to speak short sentences; after 24 hours, she answered questions, and by the fourth day, she consumed solid food.
Her recovery was complete within a month.
When questioned, Anne stated that she had no conscious recollection of the hanging itself, remembering only the vague image of a man in a grey cloak.
Attending physicians noted that upon delivery, her face was heavily congested and dark red from venous stasis.
Recognizing her survival as an act of divine providence, the authorities granted her a full royal pardon.
She relocated to Wiltshire, married, gave birth to three children, and lived until 1665, dying at approximately 37 years of age.
The Maidservant “T” at Oxford (1658)
In May 1658, another domestic servant, identified in surviving legal records only by the initial “T”, was hanged at Oxford for the same offence of concealing an infant birth.
She was cut down and revived by local physicians using methods similar to those applied to Anne Green.
However, her outcome was tragic: upon discovering that the prisoner had survived, town bailiff Henry Mallory arrived with an armed guard, dragged the recovering woman from her bed, and hanged her from a tree at Broken Hayes (the modern site of the Gloucester Green bus station).
Thomas Savage at Ratcliff Cross (1668)
Seventeen-year-old apprentice Thomas Savage was condemned for the murder of a fellow servant girl and executed at Ratcliff Cross in London in 1668.
Savage struggled on the rope after the cart was driven out from under him, prompting a companion to strike him several heavy blows to the chest to hasten asphyxiation.
After hanging for what contemporaries described as “a considerable time”, he was cut down and his body released to friends.
His body was carried to a neighbouring house and laid upon a table, where he began breathing, opened his eyes, and attempted to speak.
Word of his revival reached the sheriff’s officers, who returned to the house, arrested Savage a second time, transported him back to the scaffold at Ratcliff Cross, and hanged him until dead.
Patrick O’Bryan: The Double Hanging at Salisbury (1686–1689)
Patrick O’Bryan was convicted of highway robbery committed on the outskirts of Gloucester in 1686 and executed by the short drop.
His body was claimed by confederates, who carried him to a nearby dwelling where they observed faint signs of breathing.
A local surgeon bled him from the arm, and over several weeks O’Bryan made a complete recovery.
His friends provided him with financial assistance on condition that he reform his life.
However, O’Bryan soon returned to highway robbery.
Approximately a year later, he encountered the gentleman whose testimony had secured his initial capital conviction.
Recognizing the robber he believed to be dead, the victim reacted with shock; O’Bryan drew a pistol, shot him, and finished the murder with a dagger.
Two years later, an arrested member of O’Bryan’s gang confessed his whereabouts while awaiting the gallows at Bedford.
O’Bryan was captured at his lodgings in Little Suffolk Street near the Haymarket in London, committed to Newgate Prison, and returned to Salisbury for trial at the Assizes.
He was convicted, hanged a second time on Tuesday the 30th of April 1689, and his corpse was subsequently suspended in an iron gibbet cage near the scene of the murder.
John “Half-Hanged” Smith at Tyburn (1705)
John Smith was condemned for burglary and conveyed to Tyburn on Wednesday the 24th of December 1705.
His was the sole execution scheduled for that day.
Smith was suspended from the triple tree for approximately 18 minutes when the crowd observed signs of life and began shouting that a reprieve had been granted.
The under-sheriff ordered him cut down, and a reprieve was confirmed.
Smith was carried into a nearby house on the Tyburn Road (now Oxford Street), where he was bled and revived.
When asked what sensations he experienced while hanging, Smith reported that the initial drop caused intense physical agony, followed by flashes of bright light before he lost consciousness.
The return of sensation during resuscitation, as blood circulation forced its way through his constricted vessels, was described as far more excruciating than the hanging itself.
Smith escaped the gallows on two subsequent occasions, was eventually sentenced to transportation to the American colonies, and survived until at least 1727.
Margaret “Maggie” Dickson at Edinburgh (1724)
Twenty-two-year-old Margaret “Maggie” Dickson was convicted under the Scottish Concealment of Birth Act for concealing the death of her newborn child while working as an inn servant in the Borders.
She was hanged in public at the Grassmarket in Edinburgh on the 2nd of September 1724.
According to contemporary accounts, she may have wedged her hand between the rope and her throat during the drop, but was declared dead by attending magistrates after hanging for the customary period.
Her body was placed in a wooden coffin and loaded onto a cart bound for interment at her native village of Musselburgh.
While resting at an inn in Peffermill, the carters heard muffled knocking and groaning emanating from inside the coffin.
Upon prying open the lid, they found Maggie breathing.
She was bled by a physician and made a rapid recovery.
Under Scots law, the trial court had executed the explicit terms of its judicial warrant, and she was deemed legally dead; the authorities concluded they had no legal power to hang her a second time.
Maggie returned to her husband, who remarried her, gave birth to several more children, and lived for an additional 40 years as a well-known local figure popularly known as “Half-Hangit Maggie Dickson”.
William Gordon’s Tracheotomy Attempt (1733)
William Gordon was condemned to death for highway robbery and executed at Tyburn on the 25th of April 1733.
Prior to the execution, Gordon conspired with an anatomist, Dr. Abraham Chovet, who made an incision into Gordon’s windpipe (tracheotomy) and inserted a small cannula to allow respiration during suspension.
When turned off the cart, Gordon remained suspended for three-quarters of an hour, the hangman observing that his body continued to show muscular tension.
When cut down, he was carried to a surgeon’s premises where respiration was re-established; however, the physical compression of the carotid arteries and internal haemorrhaging proved fatal, and he expired shortly after resuscitation.
Thomas Reynolds and the Turnpikes (1736)
Thomas Reynolds, aged 28, was executed at Tyburn on the 26th of July 1736 for riotously pulling down the Ledbury Turnpike gate in Herefordshire under the Black Act.
After hanging for the prescribed period, he was cut down and placed in a coffin.
While being transported through London, he regained consciousness and pushed open the coffin lid.
Those attending him attempted to conceal and nurse him, but due to internal neck injuries and lack of proper medical attention, he died later that day.
John Vernham and Joshua Harding at Bristol (1736)
On the 7th of September 1736, two men—John Vernham and Joshua Harding—were hanged together on the gallows at St. Michael’s Hill in Bristol.
Both men revived after being taken down:
- John Vernham: Appeared to make a complete initial recovery and sat up in bed. However, while the sheriff assembled officers to re-arrest him, Vernham was seized with violent abdominal spasms at 11:00 p.m. and died that night, likely from a massive arterial thrombosis or pulmonary embolism resulting from vascular trauma.
- Joshua Harding: Revived, but exhibited severe cognitive impairment and memory loss from cerebral hypoxia. He was transferred to the Bristol Bedlam lunatic asylum and later returned to Bristol Newgate, where the Crown commuted his death sentence to penal transportation.
William Duell at Barber-Surgeons’ Hall (1740)
Sixteen-year-old William Duell was convicted of rape and robbery and executed at Tyburn on the 24th of November 1740.
After hanging for approximately 22 minutes, he was cut down and his body conveyed to the Barber-Surgeons’ Hall near Cripplegate for anatomical dissection.
As the anatomical assistants stripped the body and washed it on the dissection board, an assistant noticed faint respiratory motion.
A surgeon bled him, applied smelling salts, and administered warm cordials.
Within two hours, Duell sat up on the dissection table.
By evening, he was sufficiently recovered to be returned to Newgate Prison.
His survival created a significant public sensation; the authorities declined to enforce the death sentence, and King George II commuted his punishment to transportation to North America, where Duell reportedly lived in Boston, Massachusetts, until the age of 80.
Ewan Macdonald at Newcastle (1752)
Nineteen-year-old Scottish soldier Ewan Macdonald was hanged on the Town Moor in Newcastle on the 28th of September 1752 for the murder of Robert Parker.
Under the newly enacted Murder Act 1752, his body was immediately taken to the local surgeon’s hall for dissection.
While laid out on the dissection table and left unattended, Macdonald revived, sat upright, and began struggling to breathe.
Upon re-entering the room and discovering the condemned man alive, the operating surgeon struck Macdonald a fatal blow to the head with a wooden mallet, killing him on the spot to avoid legal complications with the civil authorities.
John Hayes (Circa 1785)
One of the final recorded instances occurred around 1785, involving a housebreaker named John Hayes executed in London.
His body was delivered to the private residence of eminent anatomist Sir William Blizard.
While laid on the dissection table, Hayes began to exhibit signs of circulation and respiration.
Blizard resuscitated Hayes, bled him, and nursed him back to health in secret before assisting him in securing passage aboard a merchant vessel departing overseas.
Hayes later stated that he had no conscious recollection of the hanging itself, but retained a vivid near-death sensation of walking across a tranquil green meadow before regaining consciousness.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the historical term “half-hanged” mean?
The term “half-hanged” referred to convicts in the 17th and 18th centuries who survived judicial hanging under the short-drop method, either because they were cut down prematurely before somatic death occurred, had their neck arteries shielded, or were successfully resuscitated by anatomists on the dissection table.
Why did people survive hanging in the 17th and 18th centuries?
Before the invention of the long-drop gallows in the late 19th century, hanging was carried out by turning prisoners off ladders or carts, which did not break the neck vertebrae. Death was caused by slow strangulation and carotid artery occlusion. If a prisoner was cut down within 15 to 30 minutes, oxygenated blood could still reach the brain through the vertebral arteries, allowing resuscitation.
Who was “Half-Hangit Maggie Dickson”?
Margaret “Maggie Dickson” was an Edinburgh woman hanged in the Grassmarket in 1724 for concealing the death of her infant. She revived in her coffin while being transported to Musselburgh. Because Scots law deemed the court’s sentence executed once the drop fell, she was granted her liberty and lived for another 40 years.
Who was Anne Green?
Anne Green was a 22-year-old domestic servant hanged at Oxford Castle in 1650. Declared dead and sent for anatomical dissection, she was revived on the table by physicians William Petty and Thomas Willis, granted a full pardon, married, and had three children.
What legal rule ended instances of convicts surviving hanging?
By the mid-18th century, English authorities established the mandatory requirement that all condemned prisoners remain suspended on the gallows for a full hour to ensure absolute somatic death. The subsequent introduction of the New Drop scaffold in 1783 and scientific long drop tables eliminated post-execution survivals.
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