Halifax Gibbet
Encyclopedia
The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine
, or decapitating
machine, used in the town of Halifax
, West Yorkshire
, England. It was probably installed some time during the 16th century as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield
, where ancient custom and law gave the lord of the manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 13½ pence or more, or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value. Decapitation was a fairly common method of execution in England, but Halifax was unusual in two respects: it employed a guillotine-like machine that appears to be unique in the country; and it continued to decapitate petty criminals until the middle of the 17th century.
The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15 feet (4.6 m) tall uprights, mounted on a stone base about 4 feet (1.2 m) high. A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley, allowing it to be raised, after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base. The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the victim was in place.
Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650, but as the date of the gibbet's installation is uncertain it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many were dealt with by the Halifax Gibbet. By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an overly severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell
, and the structure was dismantled. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. The names of 52 people known to have been beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque.
of Wakefield, of which the town of Halifax was a part, the power to try and execute any felon for the theft of goods to the value of 13½ pence or more:
The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo-Saxon
custom of infangtheof
, which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates. Samuel Midgeley in his Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light, published in 1761, states that the law dates from a time "not in the memory of man to the contrary". It may have been the consequence of rights granted by King Henry III
to John de Warenne (1231–1304), Lord of the Manor of Wakefield. Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the 11th-century legal text entitled De Baronibus, qui suas habent curias et consuetudines (Concerning the barons who have their courts of law and customs). Neither was the decapitation of convicted felons unique to Halifax; the earls of Chester
amongst others also exercised the right to "behead any malefactor or thief, who was apprehended in the action, or against whom it was made apparent by sufficient witness, or confession, before four inhabitants of the place", recorded as the Custom of Cheshire.
A commission appointed by King Edward I
in 1278 reported that there were at that time 94 privately owned gibbets and gallows in use in Yorkshire, including one owned by the Archbishop of York
. What was unusual about Halifax was that the custom lingered on there for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere.
Suspected thieves were detained in the custody of the lord of the manor's bailiff
, who would summon a jury of 16 local men "out of the most wealthy and best reputed", four each from four local townships. The jury had only two questions to decide on: were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused, and were they worth at least 13½d. The jury, the accused, and those claiming that their property had been stolen, were brought together in a room at the bailiff's house. No oaths were administered and there was no judge or defence counsel present; each side presented their case, and the jury decided on guilt or innocence.
So strictly was the law applied that anyone who apprehended a thief with his property was not allowed to recover it unless the miscreant and the stolen goods were presented to the bailiff. The goods were otherwise forfeited to the lord of the manor, and their previous rightful owner was liable to find himself charged with theftbote
, or conniving in the felony. Halifax's reputation for strict law enforcement was noted by the antiquary William Camden
and by the "Water Poet" John Taylor
, who penned the Beggar's Litany: "From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us!"
Before his execution a convicted felon was usually detained in custody for three market days, on each of which he was publicly displayed in the stocks
, accompanied by the stolen goods. After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner
would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men, sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty, and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution, for the official records.
The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick, of which Halifax was a part. The gibbet was about 500 yards (457.2 m) from the boundary of the area, and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment. At least two men succeeded in cheating the executioner in that way: a man named Dinnis and another called Lacy. Dinnis was never seen in Halifax again, but Lacy rather unwisely decided to return to the town seven years after his escape; he was apprehended and finally executed in 1623.
The earliest known record of punishment by decapitation in Halifax is the beheading of John of Dalton in 1286, but official records were not maintained until the parish registers began in 1538. Between then and 1650, when the last executions took place, 56 men and women are recorded as having been decapitated. The total number of victims identified since 1286 is just short of 100.
Local weavers specialised in the production of kersey
, a hardwearing and inexpensive woollen fabric that was often used for military uniforms; by the 16th century Halifax and the surrounding Calder Valley was the largest producer of the material in England. In the final part of the manufacturing process the cloth was hung outdoors on large structures known as tenterframes and left to dry, after having been conditioned by a fulling
mill. Daniel Defoe
wrote a detailed account of what he had been told of the gibbet's history during his visit to Halifax in volume 3 of his A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain
, published in 1727.
He reports that "Modern accounts pretend to say, it [the gibbet] was for all sorts of felons; but I am well assured, it was first erected purely, or at least principally, for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters; and it seems very reasonable to think it was so".
Eighteenth-century historians argued that the area's prosperity attracted the "wicked and ungovernable"; the cloth, left outside and unattended, presented easy pickings, and hence justified severe punishment to protect the local economy. James Holt on the other hand, writing in 1997, sees the Halifax Gibbet Law as a practical application of the Anglo-Saxon law of infangtheof. Royal assizes
were held only twice a year in the area; to bring a prosecution was "vastly expensive", and the stolen goods were forfeited to the Crown, as they were considered to be the property of the accused. But the Halifax Gibbet Law allowed "the party injured, to have his goods restored to him again, with as little loss and damage, as can be contrived; to the great encouragement of the honest and industrious, and as great terror to the wicked and evil doers."
The Halifax Gibbet's final victims were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell. Wilkinson had been found guilty of stealing 16 yards (14.6 m) of cloth, 9 yards of which were found in his possession, and Mitchell of stealing and selling two horses, one valued at 9 shillings and the other at 48 shillings. The pair were found guilty and executed on the same day, 30 April 1650. Writing in 1834 John William Parker, publisher of The Saturday Magazine
, suggested that the gibbet might have remained in use for longer in Halifax had the bailiff not been warned that if he used it again he would be "called to public account for it". Midgeley comments that the final executions "were by some persons in that age, judged to be too severe; thence came it to pass, that the gibbet, and the customary law, for the forest of Hardwick, got its suspension".
Oliver Cromwell
finally ended the exercise of Halifax Gibbet Law. To the Puritans it was "part of ancient ritual to be jettisoned along with all the old feasts and celebrations of the medieval world and the Church of Rome. Moreover, it ran counter to the puritan objection ... to imposing the death penalty for petty theft." Felons were subsequently sent to York Assizes for trial.
The gibbet could be operated by cutting the rope supporting the blade or by pulling out the pin that held the rope. If the offender was to be executed for stealing an animal, a cord was fastened to the pin and tied to either the stolen animal or one of the same species, which was then driven off, withdrawing the pin and allowing the blade to drop.
In an early contemporary account of 1586 Raphael Holinshed
attests to the efficiency of the gibbet, and adds some detail about the participation of the onlookers:
An article in the September 1832 edition of The Imperial Magazine describes the victim's final moments:
In Thomas Deloney
's novel Thomas of Reading (1600) the invention of the Halifax Gibbet is attributed to a friar, who proposed the device as a solution to the difficulty of finding local residents willing to act as hangmen.
Although the guillotine as a method of beheading is most closely associated in the popular imagination with late 18th-century Revolutionary France
, several other decapitation devices had long been in use throughout Europe. It is uncertain whether Dr Guillotin
was familiar with the Halifax Gibbet, but its design was reported to have been copied by James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton
, in the production of a similar device that became known as the Scottish Maiden
, now on display in the National Museum of Scotland
. The Maiden was rather shorter than the Halifax Gibbet, standing only 10 feet (3 m) tall, the same height as the French guillotine.
A full-scale, fully functioning replica of the Halifax Gibbet was constructed by the cast of The History Channel
's Surviving History
series, broadcast on 15 June 2008.
Guillotine
The guillotine is a device used for carrying out :executions by decapitation. It consists of a tall upright frame from which an angled blade is suspended. This blade is raised with a rope and then allowed to drop, severing the head from the body...
, or decapitating
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
machine, used in the town of Halifax
Halifax, West Yorkshire
Halifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
, England. It was probably installed some time during the 16th century as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, where ancient custom and law gave the lord of the manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 13½ pence or more, or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value. Decapitation was a fairly common method of execution in England, but Halifax was unusual in two respects: it employed a guillotine-like machine that appears to be unique in the country; and it continued to decapitate petty criminals until the middle of the 17th century.
The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15 feet (4.6 m) tall uprights, mounted on a stone base about 4 feet (1.2 m) high. A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley, allowing it to be raised, after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base. The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the victim was in place.
Almost 100 people were beheaded in Halifax between the first recorded execution in 1286 and the last in 1650, but as the date of the gibbet's installation is uncertain it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many were dealt with by the Halifax Gibbet. By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an overly severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
, and the structure was dismantled. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. The names of 52 people known to have been beheaded by the device are listed on a nearby plaque.
History
What became known as the Halifax Gibbet Law gave the Lord of the ManorLord of the Manor
The Lordship of a Manor is recognised today in England and Wales as a form of property and one of three elements of a manor that may exist separately or be combined and may be held in moieties...
of Wakefield, of which the town of Halifax was a part, the power to try and execute any felon for the theft of goods to the value of 13½ pence or more:
The Gibbet Law may have been a last vestige of the Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon
Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...
custom of infangtheof
Infangthief and outfangthief
Infangthief and outfangthief were privileges originally granted to landowners in Anglo-Saxon law...
, which allowed landowners to enforce summary justice on thieves within the boundaries of their estates. Samuel Midgeley in his Halifax and its Gibbet-Law Placed in a True Light, published in 1761, states that the law dates from a time "not in the memory of man to the contrary". It may have been the consequence of rights granted by King Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
to John de Warenne (1231–1304), Lord of the Manor of Wakefield. Such baronial jurisdiction was by no means unusual in medieval England and was described in the 11th-century legal text entitled De Baronibus, qui suas habent curias et consuetudines (Concerning the barons who have their courts of law and customs). Neither was the decapitation of convicted felons unique to Halifax; the earls of Chester
Earl of Chester
The Earldom of Chester was one of the most powerful earldoms in medieval England. Since 1301 the title has generally been granted to heirs-apparent to the English throne, and from the late 14th century it has been given only in conjunction with that of Prince of Wales.- Honour of Chester :The...
amongst others also exercised the right to "behead any malefactor or thief, who was apprehended in the action, or against whom it was made apparent by sufficient witness, or confession, before four inhabitants of the place", recorded as the Custom of Cheshire.
A commission appointed by King Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
in 1278 reported that there were at that time 94 privately owned gibbets and gallows in use in Yorkshire, including one owned by the Archbishop of York
Archbishop of York
The Archbishop of York is a high-ranking cleric in the Church of England, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and metropolitan of the Province of York, which covers the northern portion of England as well as the Isle of Man...
. What was unusual about Halifax was that the custom lingered on there for so long after it had been abandoned elsewhere.
Suspected thieves were detained in the custody of the lord of the manor's bailiff
Bailiff
A bailiff is a governor or custodian ; a legal officer to whom some degree of authority, care or jurisdiction is committed...
, who would summon a jury of 16 local men "out of the most wealthy and best reputed", four each from four local townships. The jury had only two questions to decide on: were the stolen goods found in the possession of the accused, and were they worth at least 13½d. The jury, the accused, and those claiming that their property had been stolen, were brought together in a room at the bailiff's house. No oaths were administered and there was no judge or defence counsel present; each side presented their case, and the jury decided on guilt or innocence.
So strictly was the law applied that anyone who apprehended a thief with his property was not allowed to recover it unless the miscreant and the stolen goods were presented to the bailiff. The goods were otherwise forfeited to the lord of the manor, and their previous rightful owner was liable to find himself charged with theftbote
Theftbote
Theftbote, a misdemeanor, occurs when a crime victim accepts the return of stolen property or makes other arrangements with a felon in exchange for an agreement not to prosecute. Such private deals were criminalized by the King of England because they reduced fines and other forfeitures of...
, or conniving in the felony. Halifax's reputation for strict law enforcement was noted by the antiquary William Camden
William Camden
William Camden was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and officer of arms. He wrote the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.- Early years :Camden was born in London...
and by the "Water Poet" John Taylor
John Taylor (poet)
John Taylor was an English poet who dubbed himself "The Water Poet".-Biography:He was born in Gloucester, 24 August 1578....
, who penned the Beggar's Litany: "From Hell, Hull, and Halifax, Good Lord, deliver us!"
Before his execution a convicted felon was usually detained in custody for three market days, on each of which he was publicly displayed in the stocks
Stocks
Stocks are devices used in the medieval and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by...
, accompanied by the stolen goods. After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner
Coroner
A coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men, sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty, and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution, for the official records.
The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick, of which Halifax was a part. The gibbet was about 500 yards (457.2 m) from the boundary of the area, and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment. At least two men succeeded in cheating the executioner in that way: a man named Dinnis and another called Lacy. Dinnis was never seen in Halifax again, but Lacy rather unwisely decided to return to the town seven years after his escape; he was apprehended and finally executed in 1623.
The earliest known record of punishment by decapitation in Halifax is the beheading of John of Dalton in 1286, but official records were not maintained until the parish registers began in 1538. Between then and 1650, when the last executions took place, 56 men and women are recorded as having been decapitated. The total number of victims identified since 1286 is just short of 100.
Local weavers specialised in the production of kersey
Kersey (cloth)
Kersey is a kind of coarse woollen cloth.It derives its name from the village of Kersey, Suffolk, having presumably originated in that region. However the cloth was made in many places. By 1475, the West Riding of Yorkshire including Calderdale was also a major producer. Kersey was a lighter...
, a hardwearing and inexpensive woollen fabric that was often used for military uniforms; by the 16th century Halifax and the surrounding Calder Valley was the largest producer of the material in England. In the final part of the manufacturing process the cloth was hung outdoors on large structures known as tenterframes and left to dry, after having been conditioned by a fulling
Fulling
Fulling or tucking or walking is a step in woolen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker...
mill. Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson,...
wrote a detailed account of what he had been told of the gibbet's history during his visit to Halifax in volume 3 of his A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain
A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain
A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain is an account of his travels by English author Daniel Defoe, first published in three volumes between 1724 and 1727....
, published in 1727.
He reports that "Modern accounts pretend to say, it [the gibbet] was for all sorts of felons; but I am well assured, it was first erected purely, or at least principally, for such thieves as were apprehended stealing cloth from the tenters; and it seems very reasonable to think it was so".
Eighteenth-century historians argued that the area's prosperity attracted the "wicked and ungovernable"; the cloth, left outside and unattended, presented easy pickings, and hence justified severe punishment to protect the local economy. James Holt on the other hand, writing in 1997, sees the Halifax Gibbet Law as a practical application of the Anglo-Saxon law of infangtheof. Royal assizes
Assizes
Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to:Assize or Assizes may refer to::;in common law countries :::*assizes , an obsolete judicial inquest...
were held only twice a year in the area; to bring a prosecution was "vastly expensive", and the stolen goods were forfeited to the Crown, as they were considered to be the property of the accused. But the Halifax Gibbet Law allowed "the party injured, to have his goods restored to him again, with as little loss and damage, as can be contrived; to the great encouragement of the honest and industrious, and as great terror to the wicked and evil doers."
The Halifax Gibbet's final victims were Abraham Wilkinson and Anthony Mitchell. Wilkinson had been found guilty of stealing 16 yards (14.6 m) of cloth, 9 yards of which were found in his possession, and Mitchell of stealing and selling two horses, one valued at 9 shillings and the other at 48 shillings. The pair were found guilty and executed on the same day, 30 April 1650. Writing in 1834 John William Parker, publisher of The Saturday Magazine
The Saturday Magazine (magazine)
The Saturday Magazine was a British magazine published from July 7, 1832 to December 28, 1844 by the Committee of General Literature and Education, who were in turn sponsored by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It ran for 801 issues, with the latter issues being published by John...
, suggested that the gibbet might have remained in use for longer in Halifax had the bailiff not been warned that if he used it again he would be "called to public account for it". Midgeley comments that the final executions "were by some persons in that age, judged to be too severe; thence came it to pass, that the gibbet, and the customary law, for the forest of Hardwick, got its suspension".
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
finally ended the exercise of Halifax Gibbet Law. To the Puritans it was "part of ancient ritual to be jettisoned along with all the old feasts and celebrations of the medieval world and the Church of Rome. Moreover, it ran counter to the puritan objection ... to imposing the death penalty for petty theft." Felons were subsequently sent to York Assizes for trial.
Mechanism
It is uncertain when the Halifax Gibbet was first introduced, but it may not have been until some time in the 16th century; before then decapitation would have been carried out by an executioner using an axe or a sword. The device, which seems to have been unique in England, consisted of two 15 feet (4.6 m) tall parallel beams of wood joined at the top by a transverse beam. Running in grooves within the beams was a square wooden block 4 in 6 in (1.37 m) in length, into the bottom of which was fitted an axe head weighing 7 pounds (3.17514659 kg) The whole structure sat on a platform of stone blocks, 9 feet (2.7 m) square and 4 feet (1.2 m) high, which was ascended by a flight of steps. A rope attached to the top of the wooden block holding the axe ran over a pulley at the top of the structure, allowing the block to be raised. The rope was then fastened by a pin to the structure's stone base.The gibbet could be operated by cutting the rope supporting the blade or by pulling out the pin that held the rope. If the offender was to be executed for stealing an animal, a cord was fastened to the pin and tied to either the stolen animal or one of the same species, which was then driven off, withdrawing the pin and allowing the blade to drop.
In an early contemporary account of 1586 Raphael Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed
Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of his plays....
attests to the efficiency of the gibbet, and adds some detail about the participation of the onlookers:
An article in the September 1832 edition of The Imperial Magazine describes the victim's final moments:
In Thomas Deloney
Thomas Deloney
Thomas Deloney was an English novelist and balladist.He appears to have worked as a silk-weaver in Norwich, but was in London by 1586, and in the course of the next ten years is known to have written about fifty ballads, some of which got him into trouble, and caused him to keep a low profile for...
's novel Thomas of Reading (1600) the invention of the Halifax Gibbet is attributed to a friar, who proposed the device as a solution to the difficulty of finding local residents willing to act as hangmen.
Although the guillotine as a method of beheading is most closely associated in the popular imagination with late 18th-century Revolutionary France
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, several other decapitation devices had long been in use throughout Europe. It is uncertain whether Dr Guillotin
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a French physician who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a device to carry out death penalties in France. While he did not invent the guillotine, and in fact opposed the death penalty, his name became an eponym for it...
was familiar with the Halifax Gibbet, but its design was reported to have been copied by James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton
James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton
James Douglas, jure uxoris 4th Earl of Morton was the last of the four regents of Scotland during the minority of King James VI. He was in some ways the most successful of the four, since he did manage to win the civil war which had been dragging on with the supporters of the exiled Mary, Queen of...
, in the production of a similar device that became known as the Scottish Maiden
Maiden (beheading)
The Maiden is an early form of guillotine, or gibbet, once used as a means of execution in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Maiden is displayed at the National Museum of Scotland...
, now on display in the National Museum of Scotland
National Museum of Scotland
The National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the Royal Museum next door, with collections covering science and technology, natural history, and world...
. The Maiden was rather shorter than the Halifax Gibbet, standing only 10 feet (3 m) tall, the same height as the French guillotine.
Restoration
The Halifax Gibbet was dismantled after the last executions in 1650, and the site was neglected until the platform on which the gibbet had been mounted was rediscovered in about 1840. A full-size non-working replica was erected on the original stone base in August 1974; it includes a blade made from a casting of the original, which as of 2011 is displayed in the Bankfield Museum on the outskirts of Halifax. A commemorative plaque nearby lists the names of the 52 people known to have been executed by the Halifax Gibbet.A full-scale, fully functioning replica of the Halifax Gibbet was constructed by the cast of The History Channel
The History Channel
History, formerly known as The History Channel, is an American-based international satellite and cable TV channel that broadcasts a variety of reality shows and documentary programs including those of fictional and non-fictional historical content, together with speculation about the future.-...
's Surviving History
Surviving History
Surviving History was a series that aired on the History Channel. In the show, ancient weapons, devices, and execution methods were recreated and tested. -Description:...
series, broadcast on 15 June 2008.