Just Hanging Around Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tyburn

Tyburn was situated close to the current day position of Marble Arch. It was used as an execution site until the late 18th century. The Tyburn Tree was a unique gallows that allowed several people to be hanged at once. The most ever recorded was a simultaneous hanging of 24 people in June 1649.

Public executions were very popular. People made a day out of it and there was much competition for the best seats. The condemned felon had the opportunity to make a farewell speech from the gallows before being hanged, and the public expected these to be witty - a difficult feat to pull off under the circumstances.

Answer: Oliver Cromwell

In January 1661 King Charles II ordered the body of Oliver Cromwell to be exhumed from his tomb in Westminster Abbey. The body was then taken to Tyburn where it was hanged, drawn and quartered in revenge for his part in the execution of King Charles I. Two other regicides, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton, were posthumously executed at the same time.

All the people listed above were signatories to the death warrant of Charles I.
Of the 59 signatories some 18 fled abroad to escape the wrath of Charles II. Nineteen served terms of life imprisonment and thirteen were executed. Of those that were already dead by the time of the restoration only the three mentioned above were exhumed and posthumously 'punished'.

Answer: Francis Dereham

Both Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpepper were sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. However Culpepper's sentence was commuted to beheading but Francis Dereham suffered the full penalty.

Hanging, drawing and quartering was a particularly vicious method of execution normally reserved for traitors. The victim was hanged by the neck until almost dead, then cut down and revived. They were then cut open and their entrails removed, before finally their body was cut into quarters. (Many European countries had some protracted and gruesome methods of execution at the time).

Mark Smeaton and Henry Norris were alleged lovers of Anne Boleyn.

Answer: Wapping

Crimes committed at sea came under the jurisdiction of the Admiralty. The dock was placed just offshore at the low tide mark so it came under their remit.
Unlike Tyburn, where bodies were cut down immediately, at Execution Dock the bodies were left hanging until they had been covered by three tides.

Captain Kidd, a notorious pirate, was hanged there in 1701, and his body was left on the gibbet in an iron cage for over 20 years. The dock was last used for executions in 1830.

Answer: York

Dick Turpin was born in Essex, and in the 1730s was a poacher in Epping Forest, as well as a burglar and horse thief. After the break-up of the poaching gang he took to highway robbery. Under a pseudonym, John Palmer, he also carried out several horse thefts, and it was for these he was eventually tried and sentenced to death.

In 1739 he was hanged at a public execution, and was buried the next day. In a bizarre twist his body was stolen by grave robbers, probably to sell for medical research. However the theft caused a public outcry and the grave robbers were caught, still in possession of the body, by a mob. Turpin was then re-buried, reportedly in quick lime.

Answer: Pierrepoint

Following in the footsteps of his uncle and father, Albert Pierrepoint was probably the most famous of all Britain's official hangmen. Although no official record is available it is thought he hanged around 700 people in a 23 year career. This figure includes 202 German war criminals executed between 1945 and 1949 following several war crimes trials. He often executed several in one day.

Famous criminals hung by him include Derek Bentley, John Haig, Timothy Evans and "Lord Haw Haw" (William Joyce).

Answer: Buried in the prison grounds

From 1751 to 1832 the law stated that the bodies of murderers should be dissected, prior to that bodies had been claimed by family or friends for burial. In 1832 dissection was removed from the law, and a new act stated that bodies of executed criminals were the property of the Crown. They were buried inside the prison grounds, often in unmarked graves, several to a grave.
Many major prisons soon had quite large grave yards in their grounds. In later years, when some of these prisons were demolished for redevelopment, the bodies were removed and re-buried in consecrated ground.

Answer: Ruth Ellis

Ruth Ellis was convicted of the murder of her lover David Blakely. There was no question of her guilt. She shot at him as he went to get into his car, missing him, and then chased him round the car, shot him again, wounding him and then stood over him and fired a further three shots into his body. She was executed at Holloway prison on 13 July 1955. Her relationship with Blakely had been abusive.

The case caused intense public reaction and strengthened the calls for the abolition of the death penalty. Over 50,000 people signed a petition calling for clemency but this was rejected by the Home Secretary.

Answer: 1965

On November 8th 1965 the death penalty for murder was abolished and replaced with a mandatory life sentence. This did not apply in Northern Ireland, which retained the death penalty until 1973. The Act of Parliament that abolished the death penalty left four other capital offences on the statute books. High treason, piracy with violence, arson in royal dockyards and espionage remained punishable by death until 1998, as did some military law offences. The 1965 Act was only temporary, as it had a clause stating it had to be reviewed by Parliament within five years or automatic repeal would occur. It was reviewed in 1969 and made permanent.

The last executions for murder in the United Kingdom were in 1964.

Answer: All given posthumous pardons

All three were hanged between 1950 and 1953 and were subsequently given posthumous pardons some years later. Timothy Evans was convicted of the murder of his daughter, and it was subsequently revealed that she had most probably been murdered by serial killer John Christie. Derek Bentley was hanged for the murder of a policeman, even though it was his accomplice who fired the shot and he was under arrest at the time, and George Kelly's trial was deemed unsafe and his conviction was quashed.