Beheading is another ancient method of execution. Beheading with a sword or an axe may have been more merciful than hanging but that was not always the case. Sometimes several blows were needed to sever the person’s head. In England beheading was normally reserved for the high-born and it was last used in 1747.

The French Revolution is notorious for its use of the guillotine. In fact mechanical devices for beheading people had been used in various parts of Europe for centuries before the French Revolution. (One was recorded in Ireland as early as 1307).

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) was elected a member of the French National Assembly in 1789. He proposed that there should be a swift and humane method of executing people in France. (And compared to many gruesome methods of executing people in 18th century Europe the guillotine was humane). The Assembly finally agreed to his idea in 1791 and the first decapitating device was built by a man named Tobias Schmidt, with advice from a surgeon named Antoine Louis.

The guillotine was last used in France in 1977. The French abolished capital punishment in 1981.

Birching

This was beating a person across the backside with birch twigs. Once a common punishment in schools it could also be imposed by the courts for minor offences. Birching was banned in Britain in 1948.

Branding

Branding people with red-hot irons is an ancient punishment. In England branding for various offences went on until the 18th century.

Breaking on the wheel

This was a punishment especially common in France and Germany although it was also used in other parts of Europe. The condemned man was tied to a wheel and the executioner then used an iron bar or hammer to break each arm and leg in several places. Sometimes a blow to the chest or strangulation was used to end the man's agony but he could be left to die of thirst. Breaking on the wheel was last used in Germany in 1827.

Burning

Burning is a very old method of killing people. In the Bible when Judah's daughter-in-law Tamar became pregnant after her husband died he ordered her to be burned (Genesis 38:24).

In the Middle Ages burning was the usual punishment for heresy. In 1401 a law in England made burning the penalty for heresy. During the reign of Mary (1553-1558 nearly 300 Protestants were burned to death in England. In the 16th and 17th centuries 'witches' in England were usually hanged but in Scotland and most of Europe they were burned. In the 18th century in Britain women found guilty of counterfeiting or murdering their husbands were burned. However burning as a punishment was abolished in Britain in 1790.

Sometimes a person about to be burned was strangled with a rope first to spare them pain. However in a horrible variation on this punishment in 1531 Henry VIII passed an act allowing poisoners to be boiled alive but the act was repealed after his death in 1547.

Cane

In the 16th century boys were often punished by being hit with birch twigs. In the 19th century hitting boys (and girls) with a bamboo cane became popular. In the 20th century the cane was used in both primary and secondary schools. However in the late 1960s and 1970s the cane was phased out in most primary schools. In England in 1987 the cane was banned in state-funded secondary schools. It was banned in private schools in 1998.

Crucifixion

Perhaps the cruellest method of execution ever devised. The condemned man carried the cross beam of the cross to the site of execution. His arms were tied or nailed to it and the crosspiece was tied or nailed to a pole. Under the person’s feet was a block of wood to make sure their weight did not tear their hands from the nails. The person's feet were also nailed to the cross. To add to the person's suffering they experienced thirst in the hot sun and their sweat attracted flies and other insects.

Death was eventually caused by asphyxiation as it became more and more difficult to breathe. Death could take days although sometimes it was hastened by breaking the person's legs. Crucifixion was banned in the Roman Empire in 345 AD. However crucifixion was also used in Japan

Drowning

Although drowning is an obvious method of killing people it was seldom used as a method of execution. The Roman writer Tacitus said that the Germanic peoples drowned cowards in fens under piles of sticks. The Anglo-Saxons also sometimes used drowning as a punishment. In the Middle Ages drowning was sometimes used to punish murder. In England in the 13th century it was enacted that anybody who committed murder on the king's ships would be tied to their victims body and thrown into the sea to drown.

In Portsmouth at that time male murderers were burned but female murderers were tied to a post in the harbour and left to drown when the tide came in.

Drowning was occasionally used in Europe through the following centuries. It was revived in the French Revolution in Nantes by a man named Jean Baptiste Carrier (1756-1794) as a convenient way of killing large numbers of people. They were loaded into vessels with trapdoors, which were then sunk.

Ducking Stool

The ducking stool was a seat on a long wooden arm. Women who were convicted of being scolds or gossips were tied to the seat then ducked into the local pond or river. The last woman to be ducked in England suffered the punishment in 1809. In 1817 another woman was sentenced to be ducked but fortunately the water level was too low so she escaped being immersed.

Electric Chair

In the late 19th century it occurred to people that electricity could be used to kill. It was first used in the USA in 1890 when a man named William Kemler was executed. Unfortunately his death was not quick. Nevertheless the electric chair became a popular method of execution in the USA.

Firing Squad

Firing squads became common once guns were accurate enough. However firing squads were usually used as a military not a civilian punishment. Yet in the USA Gary Gilmore was famously executed by firing squad in 1977.

Flogging

Flogging has been a common punishment since ancient times. Jesus was flogged before he was crucified. In England from the Middle Ages until the early 19th century whipping was a common punishment for minor crimes. In the 18th century whipping or flogging was a common punishment in the British army and navy. However it was abolished in 1874. Flogging was last used in a British prison in 1962.

Gas Chamber

The gas chamber was first used in the USA in 1924. The condemned man is strapped to a chair in a sealed room, which is then filled with cyanide gas. After his death powerful fans remove the gas.

Grampussing

In the days of sailing ships a punishment for minor offences was to tie a sailors hands above his head and pour buckets of water down his sleeves. By Napoleonic times this was known as grampussing because the man made a noise like a grampus, a sea mammal.

Hanging

Hanging was a very common method of execution in England from Saxon times until the 20th century.

At first the criminal stood on a ladder, which was pulled away on a cart, which was moved. From the 18th century he stood on a trapdoor. Sometimes the hanged man broke his neck when he fell but until the 19th century he was usually strangled by the rope.

The last hanging in public in Britain took place in 1868. The last people to be hanged in Britain were two men who were hanged on the same day in 1964. In Britain the death penalty for murder was abolished for an experimental period of 5 years in 1965. It was abolished permanently in 1969.

Hanging, drawing and quartering

This was the punishment in England for treason. The person was drawn on a hurdle pulled by a horse to the place of execution. They were hanged (strangled by being suspended by a rope) but when they were still alive and sometimes conscious they were cut down. The executioner cut open their stomach and 'drew out' their entrails. Finally the person was beheaded and his body was cut into quarters.

In the early 19th century the full sentence was no longer carried out. Instead the person was hanged until they were dead and then beheaded. They were not disembowelled. The last case was in 1820. However hanging, drawing and quartering was not formally abolished until 1870.

Keel Hauling

First recorded in the 16th century in the Dutch navy keelhauling meant dropping a man into the sea then hauling him under the keel of the ship with a rope. Barnacles would cut his skin to shreds and there was the possibility of drowning.

Lethal Injection

Lethal injection was first used as a method of execution in the USA in 1982. It has since become the most common method of execution in that country.

Mutilation

Mutilation included blinding, cutting off hands, ears and noses or cutting out the tongue. In the Ancient World the Assyrians often punished people by cutting off their ears, lips or nose. In Saxon England and through the Middle Ages mutilation was used as a punishment for stealing or poaching. In the 16th and 17th centuries cutting off the ears was a common punishment in England.

Pillory and Stocks

The pillory was a wooden frame on a pole with holes through which a person’s head and hands were placed. The frame was then locked and the person was subjected to humiliation and ridicule. Sometimes people also threw unpleasant objects at the person in the pillory. The stocks was a wooden frame with holes through which a person’s feet were placed and they were humiliated in the same way. Use of the pillory and stocks went out of favour in the 19th century. The pillory was abolished in Britain in 1837 and the stocks gradually went out of use.

In Chichester drunks were put in the pillory. The last person to suffer this punishment in the town was sentenced to 2 hours in 1852. The stocks was last used in Britain in 1872.

Prison

Before the 19th century prisons were not commonly used as a punishment. Instead people were often held in prisons until their trial. The sentence was usually execution or some form of corporal punishment. However prisons were very dirty and extremely overcrowded. Disease was rife and being sent to prison was often a death sentence because they were so unhygienic. Many prisoners died of typhus, which was called goal fever.

In the 19th century sanitary conditions in prisons became much better but the regime was very harsh. Convicts were made to do tedious and pointless tasks like turning a handle over and over again.

Scold's Bridle

This was a metal frame place over a woman's head. It had a bit that stuck in her mouth to prevent her talking. The scold's bridle or branks was used in Scotland by the 16th century and was used in England from the 17th century. It was last used in Britain in 1824.

Stoning

This is a simple method of executing people. A crowd throw stones at the condemned person until he or she is dead. It was common in the Middle East in Bible times and it is still used in the region today.

Tawse

The tawse was a leather strap with two or three tails. It was used in Scotland to hit a child's hand.

Transportation

Transportation was merciful compared to hanging. It was also a convenient way of ridding Britain of criminals. In the 17th and early 18th centuries people were transported to the colonies in North America. However the American Revolution of 1775 brought that to an end. So from 1787 convicts were transported to Australia. Transportation ended in 1868.

To read more about everyday life through the ages click here.

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