Today in History—March 26: Great Britain Passes the Murder Act

In 1752 Britain decided that homicide was punishable by dissection.

It was during the era of the Bloody Code—a series of British laws that made even the most minor crimes punishable by death—that Britain imposed the Murder Act. The penalties stipulated by the act, which differed from almost all systemic legislation in British history till that point, ordered convicted murderers’ bodies to be put on display—in the most visible and shocking manner. (No, really. Get ready for this.)

Prior to passage of the Murder Act, there had been a series of homicides in London. The press wasted no time in sensationalizing the supposed “spike” in murders. The ensuing panic made it easy for the Murder Act to pass Parliament and become law in 1752.

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The act allowed murderers’ bodies to be claimed by anatomists for research. Cadavers were hard to come by, and surgeons were constantly looking to acquire them for teaching purposes. Some even resorted to body snatching in the name of education. In England there was an understanding that the bodies of criminals were ultimately the king’s property. That meant that the higher powers had the authority to enact a punishment on an unlucky criminal postmortem.

Dissection wasn’t a murderer’s only punishment, though.

The practice of “gibbeting” also came into fashion with the Murder Act. This involved hanging and displaying the body in a luridly public cage. Suspended midair, the body would be left to the elements. Nature would take its course, and eventually some bones would be all that remained. Yikes.

Despite all of this, very few people were actually sentenced to death during the time of the Murder Act. Many were skeptical of the act, and public juries (understandably) protested its brutality by convicting accused men and women of manslaughter instead (which came with a short prison stint) or acquitting them entirely.

In 1832 Britain had had enough. The Anatomy Act, passed that year, repealed a number of clauses in the Murder Act—and made it easier to acquire corpses for medical research. Arguably still classist, bodies that had not been claimed after 48 hours could legally be used for medical research. And the last gibbet? The cage and body were taken down, also in 1832, just three days after going up.

Famous Birthdays

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1941: Richard Dawkins—British biologist

1944: Diana Ross—American singer

1991: Ramy Youssef—American comedian and actor