The Hanging Tree

Hanging people for small crimes as well as grave, the Bloody Penal Code was at its most active between 1770 and 1830. In those years some 7,000 men and women were executed on public scaffolds, watched by thousands. Hanging was confined to murderers thereafter, but these were still killed in public until 1868. Clearly the gallows loomed over much of social life in this period. But how did those who watched, read about, or ordered these strangulations feel about theterror and suffering inflicted in the law's name? What kind of justice was delivered, and how did it change? This book is the first to explore what a wide range of people feltabout these ceremonies (rather than what a few famous men thought and wrote about them). A history of mentalities, emotions, and attitudes rather than of policies and ideas, it analyses responses to the scaffold at all social levels: among the crowds which gathered to watch executions; among 'polite' commentators from Boswell and Byron on to Fry, Thackeray, and Dickens; and among the judges, home secretary, and monarch who decided who should hang and who should be reprieved. Drawing onletters, diaries, ballads, broadsides, and images, as well as on poignant appeals for mercy which historians until now have barely explored, the book surveys changing attitudes to death and suffering,'sensibility' and 'sympathy', and demonstrates that the long retreat from public hanging owed less to the growth of a humane sensibility than it did to the development of new methods of punishment and law enforcement, and to polite classes' deepening squeamishness and fear of the scaffold crowd. This gripping study is essential reading for anyone interested in the processes which have 'civilized' our social life. Challenging many conventional understandings of theperiod, V. A. C. Gatrell sets new agendas for all students of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture and society, while reflecting uncompromisingly on the origins and limits of our modern attitudes toother people's misfortunes. Panoramic in range, scholarly in method, and compelling in argument, this is one of those rare histories which both shift our sense of the past and speak powerfully to the present.

Winner of 1994 Whitfield Prize for British History.

“'this massive study of public executions in England during the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth century ... Gatrell's sensitive and elaboratereconstructions of criminal cases, appeals to mercy, and executions are thestrength of this important and provocative study.'Times Literary Supplement”

a mammoth study, penetrating and poignant...a vast panorama, expertly interweaving history high and low, politics and passions, judges, jurors and journalists'New Statesman and Societybrilliant account ... magnificent book ... beautifully produced, well-illustrated and relatively inexpensive'Guardianquite outstanding ...book'Observermagnificent new study ... a book of extraordinary quality ... the monumental scale of his achievement, and subtlety and richness of the argument.'Sunday Telegraph'brilliant book'Richard Gott, The Guardian'This is a powerful, committed and well-written book with a problematic theme ... much of his fascinating book was more redolent of the 1960s than of the Victorian era ... this is a continually interesting book, by the standards of modern scholarly publishing excellent value for money, and a study that ably bridges modern and historical concerns.'Jeremy Black, Financial Times'Its strengths are originality of research and force of statement. Above all, no praise can be too high for the author and publisher in the choice, appositeness, captioning and reproduction of the illustrations. They are so closely interwoven with the argument that they form a brilliant summary of it.'Richard Ollard, The Independenta richly imaginative evocation of what public executions meant to onlookers - and to those struggling from the rope.'Independent on SundayThere is plenty to incite horror, but the cleverness of the book is the way it puts the English way of execution into a political context.'Jeremy Paxman, The Independentthis massive study of public executions in England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century ... Gatrell's sensitive and elaborate reconstructions of criminal cases, appeals to mercy, and executions are the strength of this important and provocative study.'Times Literary SupplementThis is an unusual book, in that it approaches history from the viewpoint of emotion ... not a book for the squeamish. The descriptions of hangings, gibbeting, anatomising and the behaviour of the crowds and prisoners make almost unbearable reading ... this is a work of meticulous scholarship and extensive research which, in concentrating on emotion, brings the history of the period vividly to life.'The Friend'An excellent secondary source; recommended for academic and larger public library history collections.'Nancy L Whitfield, Library Journal, October 1994'This is an unusual book, in that it approaches history from the viewpoint of emotion ... It is not a book for the squeamish. The descriptions of hangings, gibbeting, anatomising and the behaviour of the crowds and prisoners make almost unbearable reading ... this is a work of meticulous scholarship and extensive research which, in concentrating on emotion, brings the history of the period vividly to life.'Jan Arriens, The Friend, January 1995'magnificent though grim and haunting book ... Some may find it, as the telly news puts it, "disturbing" or even "distressing".'Colin Welch, The Times'As is often the case, all that gets in the way of this cosy explanation is one or two facts, and the author of this book has done a magnificent job in bringing quite a few to our attention.'Jack Robertson, Socialist Review, February 1995passionately argued book...Gatrell makes much use of a source hitherto scarcely touched by historians, namely the appeals of pardon from those sentenced to suffer the supreme penalty...There is clearly much more to be gleaned from this source...Gatrell has a string of similarly painful and shocking stories. This is a rich, powerful and stimulating volume which deserves an audience far beyond specialists in the topic and period.'The Bulletinimpressive, distasteful, prize-winning study'The Sunday TelegraphGatrell's prize-winning investigation into the phenomenon tries to focus on how the 'entertainment' affected the thousands who turned up to watch, but is never shy of elaborating in gruesome detail on the savagery of the deed.'Oxford Timesmassive in size, formidable in scholarship, yet compelling and highly readable'Clive Emsley, History TodayA. C. Gatrell takes us down a bone-chilling journey into an age seldom fully explored and not so long ago in our nation's history.'Ian Murray, Bournemouth Evening EchoGatrell's scholarship combines with his passion to produce an excellent study'Barry Godfrey, History Today

V. A. C. Gatrell is University Lecturer and Fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. He is editor of Robert Owen: A New View of Society (Pelican, 1971) and Crime and Law: The Social History of Crime in Western Europe since 1500 (Europa, 1980), and a well-known author of numerous articles in social and economic history. He lives in Cambridge.

Hanging people for small crimes as well as grave, the Bloody Penal Code was at its most active between 1770 and 1830. In those years some 7,000 men and women were executed on public scaffolds, watched by thousands. Hanging was confined to murderers thereafter, but these were still killed in public until 1868. Clearly the gallows loomed over much of social life in this period. But how did those who watched, read about, or ordered these strangulations feel about the terror and suffering inflicted in the law's name? What kind of justice was delivered, and how did it change? This book is the first to explore what a wide range of people felt about these ceremonies (rather than what a few famous men thought and wrote about them). A history of mentalities, emotions, and attitudes rather than of policies and ideas, it analyses responses to the scaffold at all social levels: among the crowds which gathered to watch executions; among polite' commentators from Boswell and Byron on to Fry, Thackeray, and Dickens; and among the judges, home secretary, and monarch who decided who should hang and who should be reprieved. Drawing on letters, diaries, ballads, broadsides, and images, as well as on poignant appeals for mercy which historians until now have barely explored, the book surveys changing attitudes to death and suffering,sensibility' and `sympathy', and demonstrates that the long retreat from public hanging owed less to the growth of a humane sensibility than it did to the development of new methods of punishment and law enforcement, and to polite classes' deepening squeamishness and fear of the scaffold crowd. This gripping study is essential reading for anyone interested in the processes which have 'civilized' our social life. Challenging many conventional understandings of the period, V. A. C. Gatrell sets new agendas for all students of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century culture and society, while reflecting uncompromisingly on the origins and limits of our modern attitudes to other people's misfortunes. Panoramic in range, scholarly in method, and compelling in argument, this is one of those rare histories which both shift our sense of the past and speak powerfully to the present.

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