Catherine Murphy (counterfeiter)

Catherine Murphy (date of birth unknown, died March 18, 1789) was an English counterfeiter, the last woman to be officially sentenced and executed by the method of burning in England and Great Brittain.

Catherine Murphy, along with several co-defendants, including her husband, was charged with coining in London, judged guilty and sentenced to death. She was executed at Newgate prison on March 18 1789, for coining. Her co-defendants, including her husband, were executed at the same time by hanging, but as a woman, the law provided that Murphy should be burnt at the stake.

She was brought out past the hanging bodies of eight men and made to stand on a foot high 10in square platform in front of the stake. She was secured to the stake with ropes and an iron ring. When she finished her prayers, the hangman piled faggots of straw around the stake and lit them. According to testimony given by Sir Benjamin Hammett, then Sheriff of London, she was hanged before being burned, and thus, she was not actually burned alive. Whatever the case, Catherine Murphy remian the last person to have been sentenced and at least officially executed by the method of burning. In part through the efforts of Sir Benjamin Hammett, who took the execution of Murphy as an example when he critizised the execution of burning, burning as a method of execution was abolished the next year, in 1790.

References

* [http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/burning.html Burning at the Stake - Capital Punishment UK]