1872: John Kewish, the last to hang on the Isle of Man
August 1st, 2020 Headsman
This 2004 episode from Manx Radio gives us the story of John Kewish, hanged on this date in 1872 for killing his father with a pitchfork. Kewish is the last person ever executed on the Isle of Man — indeed even at his own time such a punishment was so passe that the local gallows-makers were vexed by the contract.
Interestingly, because this Irish Sea island is a crown dependency rather than a part of the United Kingdom proper, capital punishment did not end on the Isle of Man when Westminster abolished in the 1960s. Death sentences continued to be handed down there until 1992, and thus it is that a Manx judge holds the distinction of being the last person in the British Isles to pronounce a death sentence from the bench, and a Manx criminal that of being the last to hear it. (Such latter-day sentences were always commuted by Queen Elizabeth II’s royal prerogative.)
On this day..
- 1630: Guglielmo Piazza and Giangiacomo Mora, colonna d'infamia - 2019
- 1938: Mikhail Viktorov, Soviet naval commander - 2018
- 1766: James Annin and James M'Kinzy - 2017
- 1595: Gabriel de Espinosa, the confectioner of Madrigal - 2016
- 1831: John Bell, age 14 - 2015
- 1548: Seraphin d'Argences - 2014
- 1556: Joan Waste, in Windmill Pit - 2013
- 1924: Felix McMullen, bank robber - 2012
- 1946: Andrei Vlasov, turncoat Soviet general - 2011
- Feast Day of the Holy Maccabees - 2010
- 1997: Norio Nagayama, spree killer and author - 2009
- 1917: Frank Little of the IWW lynched - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Hanged,History,Isle of Man,Milestones,Murder
Tags: 1870s, 1872, august 1, family, john kewish
