Dickens and the Last Sentence of the Law

• Published in: Dickensian Vol. 116; no. 511; pp. 121 - 108
• Main Author: Tambling, Jeremy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London The Dickens Fellowship 01.06.2020
• Subjects: Abolitionists; British & Irish literature; Capital punishment; Crime; Criminal law; Criminal sentences; Dickens, Charles (1812-1870); English literature; Law; Letters; Murders & murder attempts
• ISSN: 0012-2440

In April 1846, at a meeting in London's Exeter Hall, the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment was formed, with Dickens's support, though not his involvement, and with the support of Douglas Jerrold.2 Its inspiration came from the Quaker radical Charles Gilpin (1815-1874), MP for Northampton after 1857. Another organisation, the Society for the Diffusion of Information on the Subject of Capital Punishment, followed in 1828. Gatrell singles out the Tory Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel, as (in the 1820s) insistently reactionary in carrying out the death penalty, saying: 'it was right for the sake of example to let the law take its course'.5 Gatrell argues that in the end, squeamishness, not sympathy with the prisoner, led to the passing of the Act in 1868 which put capital punishment inside prison walls. [...]in the 1830s, under pressure from reformers, under a new sense of encouraging middle-class tastes and rational amusements, under a new desire to create a culture which defined violence more closely, a Royal Commission on Criminal Law (1833-1836) led to the reduction of crimes punishable by death, so that, practically speaking, and in peace-time, the death penalty stood in place only for murder.