{"id":291,"date":"2021-10-04T14:51:36","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T14:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/?p=291"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:24:56","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:24:56","slug":"branding-punishment-1700s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/04\/branding-punishment-1700s\/","title":{"rendered":"Branded, burned, hanged \u2013 punishments in the 18th century"},"content":{"rendered":"

Branded for life is a figure of speech; in the 18th Century, branding was a punishment dished out by judges for a range of offences.<\/p>\n

The old saying \u2018may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb\u2019 means most of us are aware the punishment for stealing livestock was once death.<\/p>\n

And thanks to Guy Fawkes (and Bonfire Night), British children grow up knowing that the grisly sentence for treason in olden times was to be \u2018hanged, drawn and quartered\u2019.<\/p>\n

But did you realise women could be burned at the stake until as recently as 1790? The Old Bailey online site<\/a> has a lot of detail on punishments handed out at that court.<\/p>\n

And did you know that courts could, and did, order branding (\u2018burning in the hand\u2019) as a punishment until the early part of the 19th century?<\/p>\n

The sheep\/lamb saying could just as easily have been: \u201cI may as well be hanged for a sheep as a handkerchief\u201d.<\/p>\n

‘Death’ wasn’t always fatal<\/h2>\n

Luckily for those convicted, the death sentence wasn\u2019t always carried out.<\/p>\n

In September 1779, at the Old Bailey, death was the sentence announced in the cases of Margaret Creamer<\/b>, for robbing John Scarlet<\/b> of two guineas, three shillings, and a pocket book; William Chamberlayne,<\/b> a porter of letters at the General Post-office, for stealing a promisory note for \u00a310 out of a letter; Mary Jones, alias Wood<\/b>, for stealing a quantity of linen drapery goods,\u00a0and: John Pears,<\/b> for stealing a mare.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think this John was \u2018one of ours,\u2019 but I followed his story. In April 1780, he was \u2018respited during His Majesty\u2019s pleasure\u2019. And in November that year, he was pardoned by the King, one of a number \u2018who were under sentence of death and set at large from Newgate during the late riots, but surrendered themselves.\u2019<\/p>\n

The riots started out as resistance to the Catholic Relief Act of 1778, but as urban riots still do today, they spread to other targets of resentment: Newgate, King\u2019s Bench, the Fleet and New Bridewell prisons were set on fire, and the Bank of England attacked.<\/p>\n

But back to branding<\/h2>\n

In July 1738, in York, one Matthew Ellerton<\/strong> was \u2018burned in the hand\u2019 for stealing four quarters of mutton, and Mary Aughton<\/strong> (otherwise Joy<\/strong>) was burned in the hand for marrying two husbands, Peter<\/strong> Joy and John Aughton<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In 1754, the Derby Mercury opined that burning in the hand was an inadequate punishment for such a contempt of the law as bigamy, and the great and irreparable injury done to the second spouse.<\/p>\n

The punishment continued to be dished out. In 1758, at Warwick, a George Reynolds<\/strong> was sentenced to burned in the hand for \u2018robbing\u2019 (burgling) a malt-house \u2013 with the addition that he was to be enlisted as a soldier. And in 1763, there was a case with a Cumbrian connection. A man from East Grinstead, Sussex, was branded for bigamy: his first wife having been a woman from Clifton, in Westmorland. He\u2019d changed his name and found people to give him good character, in order to marry a woman of fortune.<\/p>\n

In 1765, William Byron<\/strong>, 5th Baron Byron (great-uncle of the poet), killed his cousin and neighbour William Chaworth<\/strong> in a tavern, in a duel after a petty argument. Tried literally before his peers \u2013 peers of the realm \u2013 he was found guilty of \u2018felony\u2019, but not of murder. He pled privilege, under an old custom, that meant he wasn\u2019t burned in the hand or deprived of his inheritance. It was very much \u2018one law for the rich and another for the poor\u2019.<\/p>\n

Another \u2018famous\u2019 punishment, of course, was transportation \u2013 often used as an alternative to the death penalty. However, in 1776, it was reported that judges would have to use burning in the hand, whipping \u2018etc\u2019 instead of transportation to America, as the \u2018colonists\u2019 there didn\u2019t want the convicts.<\/p>\n

Burning in the hand continued to be the punishment for bigamy and manslaughter, even though a Bill before Parliament in 1779 took the opinion that that in some cases, it was ineffectual and disregarded, and in others too severe, as it was a \u2018mark of infamy\u2019 for life on people who might otherwise never offend again.<\/p>\n

At Cockermouth<\/strong> four years later, a list of sentences included Joseph Carr<\/strong> and John Doyle<\/strong>, jailed for a year and branded in the hand, for manslaughter. They had originally been accused of murdering Corporal Charles Bolton<\/strong>: Doyle having knocked him down with an iron spit, and Carr having stabbed him. Doyle was from Ireland, Carr, aged about 18, was a native of Whitehaven<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

At the same time, a conwoman called Violet Chambers<\/strong> was jailed for three months and ordered to stand in the pillory in Carlisle<\/strong> for three separate days.<\/p>\n

Over in Ireland, the sentence for murder in 1786 was to be hanged, quartered and beheaded, if you were a man, and; to be strangled and burned, if you were a woman. One can only wonder at the thinking behind the distinction.<\/p>\n

Branding out of favour<\/h2>\n

It would seem branding ceased to be a punishment for bigamy from 1795. However, while it crops up frequently in Irish court reports for other offences until 1822, it seems to have fallen out of favour elsewhere.<\/p>\n

A Cardiff judge in 1806, unhappy at a man being convicted of manslaughter for what he thought was closer to murder, said while branding was generally absurd or cruel of both, in some cases one half-regretted it had been superceded. And an anonymous poem in the Westmorland Gazette in 1821 laments the lot of the branded felon, unable to get work because of the mark and so forced to resort to crime, or starve.<\/p>\n

In 1822, the UK Parliament debated the subject of manslaughter and the fact the maximum sentence was one year in prison, plus burning in the hand. It was remarked that branding was so repugnant to judges in this enlightened age, that they never resorted to it unless the guilt was enormous.<\/p>\n

In June 1822, an Act of Parliament determined the penalty for manslaughter would never again be burning in the hand, but instead could range from transportation for life down to a simple fine, depending on the scale of the offence.<\/p>\n

First published April 2018<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Branded for life is a figure of speech; in the 18th Century, branding was a punishment dished out by judges for a range of offences. The old saying \u2018may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb\u2019 means most of us are aware the punishment for stealing livestock was once death. And thanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,3],"tags":[61,71,69,70],"class_list":["post-291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-social-history","tag-1700s","tag-18th-century","tag-crime","tag-punishment"],"yoast_head":"\nBranded, burned, hanged \u2013 punishments in the 18th century - Cumbrian Characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Judges in the 18th century had some grisly options for punishment, like burning at the stake, and branding. 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