While some countries still practice it, the UK stopped punishing people convicted of murder with the death penalty almost 50 years ago.

But before that date dozens of people every year would be sent to the gallows to receive the ultimate sentence of their crimes, many of which would take place take in Bristol.

Initially executions took place at Gallows Acre at the top of St. Michael's Hill until 1816. After that they were conducted at New Gaol  on Spike Island until 1849 before public executions were prohibited and they were done in Horfield Prison.

Gaol Ferry Bridge where convicts would be taken to Spike Island

While never used again in the country, the death penalty remained a technical option for punishment of those found guilty of treason until it was completely abolished in 1998, and further enshrined by the European Convention of Human Rights in 2004.

Below is a list of the people hanged by the state for committing murder in Bristol, compiled by Capital Punishment UK., in the last 100 years.

It shows many were found guilty of killing either relatives or loved ones with all perpetrators between the ages of 21 and 34, bar one.

Name Age Date Victim(s)
Frederick Morse 34 25th July 1933 Doris (Dorothy) Winifred Brewer (niece)
Reginald Hinks 32 3rd May 1934 James Pullen (father in law)
Frederick Austin 28 30th April 1942 Lillian Austin (wife)
Ernest Digby 34 16th March 1944 Dawn Digby (daughter)
Eugeniusz Jurkiewicz 34 30th December 1947 Emily Bowers
Ronald Atwell 24 13th July 1950 Lily Palmer
Edward Woodfield 49 14th December 1950 Ethel Worth
Thomas Eames 31 15th July 1952 Muriel Bent (girlfriend)
Miles Giffard 27 24th February 1953 Charles & Elizabeth Giffard (parents)
John Greenway 27 20th October 1953 Beatrice Court
Russell Pascoe and Dennis Whitty 24  17th December 1963  William Garfield Rowe
Edward Palmer 23 19th March 1913 Ada Louisa James (girlfriend)
William Bressington 21 31st March 1925 Gilbert Caleb Amos
Edward Palmer 23 19th March 1913 Ada Louisa James (girlfriend)
William Bressington 21 31st March 1925 Gilbert Caleb Amos

The 'Half-Hanged'

There are two records of men having suffered half hangings in Bristol, meaning they had not actually died from the hanging but in were in fact later found to be alive.

While both suffered the painful treatment on the same day in September 1736, they would have very different outcomes.

HMP Bristol in Horfield

While he seemed to make a full recovery John Vernham, who has broken into a house, would die later that night "in great intestinal agony" as the sheriff waited to re-arrest him. As reported by Capital Punishment UK it was suspected to be a poisoning but a massive blood cut is believed more likely.

As for Joshua “Half-Hanged” Harding who had been found guilty of stealing from a shop, he was removed and returned to Newgate Prison (where you will now find the entrance to the Galleries Car park) where his sentence was later commuted to transportation to the colonies for 14 years after being deemed “defective in his intellects”.

One of the last death penalties was carried out in Horfield

One grim December morning in 1963, the last man to die at Bristol Prison took the long walk to the gallows.


The execution of the 24-year-old and his accomplice - staged simultaneously in two separate prisons - was the second-last ever to be carried out in Britain.

The night before Pascoe’s death Robert Douglas, a prison officer, took him a cream doughnut and they talked over a cup of tea.

“They weighed me today so they know how far I’ll drop,” Pascoe told the officer in a grim moment.

Pascoe’s brother arrived at 11pm. He was late because his scooter had broken down on the long ride up to Bristol from Cornwall.

The two brothers reportedly had a stilted conversation, neither knowing what to say to the other.

At 8am the following morning those in the prison heard the dull thud as the trapdoor swing open in the execution chamber.

About 50 people gathered outside to protest against capital punishment, which would be suspended two years later.

Pascoe’s accomplice, Dennis Whitty, 22, was also hanged on the same day, in Winchester Prison, for the same crime.

Both young men were labourers from Kenwyn Hill caravan site in Truro, Cornwall. They had murdered William Garfield Rowe, 64, a recluse who lived in an isolated farmhouse.

The killers suspected Mr Rowe had a fortune hidden at his house, near Falmouth.

On August 14, 1963, the pair armed themselves with a starting pistol, a knife and an iron bar, and knocked on his door at around 11pm. They claimed they had crashed a helicopter and needed to use his phone.

Whitty attacked Mr Rowe with a knife, while Pascoe used an iron bar. Their victim was left with wounds to the head, a fractured skull, a broken jaw, a severed finger and five chest wounds, including one knife wound to the heart.

After the slaying, the men bragged about what they had done to three women who lived at their caravan park, who went to the police.

The last person to be executed for a crime other than murder was Theodore Schurch, who was hanged for treachery in 1946.