The Bloody Code: where crime meets punishment

If you’ve ever worried that your parking fine was a bit excessive, spare a thought for the poor souls of 18th century England, where stealing a handkerchief could land you on the gallows. Yes, dear reader, welcome to the era of the Bloody Code, a time when lawmakers looked at a petty thief and thought, You know what would really fix this? A public hanging.

Let’s rewind to 1689. England, land of powdered wigs and plagues, had 50 crimes that could earn you a one-way ticket to the afterlife. By the end of the 1700s, that list had swelled to 220. That's right: 220 capital offences, including such treasonous activities as:

• damaging a fishpond

• being out at night with a blackened face (presumably not due to sweeping your chimney)

• stealing something worth more than 12 pence (the ultimate menace to society).

• stealing from a shipwreck

• an unmarried mother concealing a stillborn baby

• forgery

• impersonating a Chelsea pensioner

• begging without a licence if you’re a soldier or sailor

• stealing horses or sheep

• arson

• strong evidence of malice in children aged 7-14 (now that's an anti-bullying campaign)

• cutting down trees

• destroying turnpike roads

• stealing from a rabbit warren

• writing a threatening letter.

The Code:

It wasn’t called the Bloody Code at the time, of course. That name came later - likely when future generations looked back and said, Blimey, they hanged someone for what now? The whole system was mainly designed to protect property, which sounds fine until you realise it was less about guarding your grandma’s teapot and more about ensuring the gentry’s hedgerows remained unmolested.

As George Savile, the 1st Marquess of Halifax, bluntly put it:

“Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.”

Translation: Your life is less important than Lord Butterworth’s pony. Jurors, to their credit, often rebelled in the most British way possible; by undervaluing stolen items just enough to keep them below the "off with their head!" threshold. Twelve pence? No, this silk handkerchief looks like it came from a clearance rack.

The Code’s bloodthirsty efficiency eventually caused a well-known problem: too many criminals, not enough nooses (or perhaps a public conscience stirring ever so faintly).

Penal Transportation

That’s right - if the law didn’t kill you, it packed you off to the colonies, which at the time meant either the American frontier (until they revolted, the ungrateful lot) or the newly-discovered good-for-nothing-but-suffering land of Australia (you know, the place I call home). The Transportation Act of 1717 made convict shipping official. By 1785, Britain had decided Australia - sunburnt, snake-infested, and suspiciously upside-down - was perfect for this purpose. Thus began the great tradition of dealing with overcrowded prisons by inventing an entire nation.

Between 1788 and 1867 over one-third of convicted criminals were shipped off to Australia where, instead of hanging, they could toil in the sun and contemplate the many life decisions that led them here. Others, lucky devils, could avoid Australia by joining the British Army, which some considered a different kind of death sentence.

Legal legend William Blackstone lamented the absurdity:

William Blackstone

“It is a melancholy truth, that among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, no less than a hundred and sixty have been declared by Act of Parliament to be felonious without benefit of clergy; or, in other words, to be worthy of instant death..”

That’s a pretty stiff penalty for impersonating a pensioner.

The Crimes That Could Get You Killed:

Radzinowicz (no, not a Bond villain, but a legal scholar) listed 21 categories of crimes that once carried a death sentence, including:

• Forgery (of anything from banknotes to bonds to bad poetry)

• Burglary

• Smuggling

• Setting fire to royal dockyards (oddly specific)

• Destroying ships to defraud insurers (you know, just casually)

• Piracy with violence (everyone’s favourite).

The slow un-bloodening

Eventually, someone decided that maybe, just maybe, this was all a bit extra. The Judgement of Death Act 1823 made the death penalty optional for most crimes, except for classic favourites like murder and treason. By 1861, only five capital crimes remained. And by 1964, the UK was officially done with hanging its citizens (unless you count hanging onto tradition, in which case, guilty as charged).

The final nail in the Bloody Code’s coffin came with the UK signing Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2004, which said: “No more hangings, floggings, or Australia-bound boat rides. Ever.”

The Bloody Code shows what happens when lawmakers get too excited about crime prevention and not nearly excited enough about proportionality. It’s a historical lesson in the dangers of over-legislating, under-empathising, and just generally needing a long nap and a good therapist.

So next time you misplace a library book, be thankful you’re not living in 1750 - or you'd be reading this article from a penal colony (like me).