¹ Neville George Cleveley Heath (1917–46) was sentenced to death on 27 September 1946 for the murder of Mrs. Margery Gardner in a London hotel.

² Mass Observation Archive (hereafter MOA), Topic Collection (hereafter TC) 72, Capital Punishment Survey, 1938–56, box 1, Survey on Capital Punishment, 1938–48, 72–1-A, “Opinions on Death Penalty, 1938–46,” “Heath’s Execution,” 1.

³ Daily Mirror, 25 April 1935, 3.

⁴ MOA, TC 72, box 1, 72–1-A, Violet Van Der Elst, “The Fresh Evidence.”

⁵ MOA, TC 72, box 1, 72–1-A, “Heath’s Execution,” 3.

⁶ Ibid., 5.

⁷ Madge, Charles and Harrisson, Tom, Mass-Observation (London, 1937), 40.Google Scholar

⁸ Abrams, Mark, Social Surveys and Social Action (London, 1951), 112.Google Scholar

⁹ Abrams, , Social Surveys, 105–13.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Moran, Joe, “Mass-Observation, Market Research, and the Birth of the Focus Group, 1937–1997,” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 4 (October 2008): 827–51, quote at 835CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Observation, Mass, The Press and Its Readers: A Mass-Observation Survey (London, 1949), 8Google Scholar.

¹² MOA, file report (hereafter FR) 3028, “The Qualitative Approach to Market Research,” August 1948, 6a.

¹³ See, e.g., Bailey, Victor, “The Shadow of the Gallows: The Death Penalty and the British Labour Government, 1945–51,” Law and History Review 18, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 305–40Google Scholar; Ballinger, Anette, Dead Woman Walking: Executed Women in England and Wales, 1900–1955 (Aldershot, 2000)Google Scholar; Black, Brian P. and Hostettler, John, Hanging in the Balance: A History of the Abolition of Capital Punishment in Britain (Winchester, 1997)Google Scholar; McHugh, John, “The Labour Party and the Parliamentary Campaign to Abolish the Military Death Penalty, 1919–1930,” Historical Journal 42, no. 1 (1999): 233–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Potter, Harry, Hanging in Judgement: Religion and the Death Penalty in England from the Bloody Code to Abolition (London, 1993)Google Scholar. Hugh Mcleod mentions the 1955–56 Mass Observation survey and provides a brief summary of its findings; see Mcleod, , “God and the Gallows: Christianity and Capital Punishment in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,” in Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation, ed. Cooper, Kate and Gregory, Jeremy (Woodbridge, 2004): 330–56, 353–54Google Scholar. The practice of capital punishment within British colonial Africa has also received recent scholarly attention. David Anderson has examined the widespread use of judicial hangings in the suppression of Mau Mau in 1950s Kenya in his Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (London, 2005); see also Hynd, Stacey, “Killing the Condemned: The Practice and Process of Capital Punishment in British Africa, 1900–1950s,” Journal of African History 49, no. 3 (2008): 403–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Public feelings about hanging in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are examined in Gatrell’s, V. A. C.The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770–1868 (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ For a discussion of the criticisms made of Mass Observation’s methods over time and a compelling account of the archive’s potential as a source for British social history, see Kushner, Tony, We Europeans? Mass-Observation, “Race” and British Identity in the Twentieth Century (Ashgate, 2004), 8–28Google Scholar. Kushner himself employs Mass Observation material “undefensively,” 5.

¹⁶ Bingham, Adrian, Family Newspapers? Sex, Private Life and the British Popular Press, 1918–1978 (Oxford, 2009), 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ On the early history of opinion polling in Britain, see Beers, Laura Dumond, “Whose Opinion? Changing Attitudes towards Opinion Polling in British Politics, 1937–1964,” Twentieth Century British History 17, no. 2 (2006): 177–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Capital punishment was abolished in Northern Ireland in 1973. It remained as a possible penalty for treason and piracy with violence until 1998.

¹⁹ On conscience in the legislative process, see Richards, Peter G., Parliament and Conscience (London, 1970)Google Scholar.

²⁰ For a recent survey, see Matt, Susan J., “Current Emotion Research in History: Or, Doing History from the Inside Out,” Emotion Review 3, no. 1 (January 2011): 117–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Rosenwein, Barbara H., “Writing without Fear about Early Medieval Emotions,” Early Medieval Europe 10, no. 2 (July 2001): 229–34, quote at 231CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² The work of Peter Stearns, William Reddy, and Barbara Rosenwein has been particularly influential.

²³ Pollock, Linda A., “Anger and the Negotiation of Relationships in Early Modern England,” Historical Journal 47, no. 3 (September 2004): 567–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ Roper, Michael, “Between Manliness and Masculinity: The ‘War Generation’ and the Psychology of Fear in Britain, 1914–1950,” Journal of British Studies 44, no. 2 (April 2005): 343–62, quote at 345CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Slipping Out of View: Subjectivity and Emotion in Gender History,” History Workshop Journal 59 (Spring 2005): 57–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ See, e.g., Swanson, Gillian, Drunk with the Glitter: Space, Consumption and Sexual Instability in Modern Urban Culture (London, 2007)Google Scholar; Mort, Frank, Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society (New Haven, CT, 2010)Google Scholar; Bingham, Family Newspapers?

²⁶ Thomas, Nick, “Will the Real 1950s Please Stand Up? Views of a Contradictory Decade,” Cultural and Social History 5, no. 2 (June 2008): 227–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ Reason and Emotion, film, director Bill Roberts, Walt Disney Productions/RKO Radio Pictures, 1943.

²⁸ Akehurst, Thomas, The Cultural Politics of Analytic Philosophy: Britishness and the Spectre of Europe (London, 2010), 111Google Scholar.

²⁹ See, e.g., Hilton, Matthew, “The Fable of the Sheep; or Private Virtues, Public Vices: The Consumer Revolution of the Twentieth Century,” Past and Present 176 (August 2002): 222–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hinton, James, “Militant Housewives: The British Housewives’ League and the Atlee Government,” History Workshop Journal 38, no. 1 (Autumn 1994): 129–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Francis, Martin, “Tears, Tantrums, and Bared Teeth: The Emotional Economy of Three Conservative Prime Ministers, 1951–1963,” Journal of British Studies 41, no. 3 (July 2002): 354–87, quote at 362CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³¹ Passed by 114 votes to 89. The Select Committee on Capital Punishment had recommended suspension for five years in 1930.

³² Hinton, J., Thompson, P., and Liddell, I., British Institute of Public Opinion (Gallup) Polls, 1938–1946 (Colchester, 1996)Google Scholar, http://www.esds.ac.uk/doc/3331/mrdoc/ascii/3811.txt.

³³ Just 24 percent of those questioned by Gallup favored abolition, while the retentionists accounted for 69 percent of the sample (Gallup, George H., The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain, 1937–1975, vol. 1, 1937–64 [London, 1976], 156)Google Scholar.

³⁴ Evans, Richard J. asserts that “attitudes to capital punishment obviously reflect attitudes to death in a broader sense” (Richard J. Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany, 1600–1987 [Oxford, 1996], 900)Google Scholar.

³⁵ Bloxham, Donald, “British War Crimes Trial Policy in Germany, 1945–1957: Implementation and Collapse,” Journal of British Studies 42, no. 1 (January 2003): 91–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ Judt, Tony, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (London, 2005), 51Google Scholar.

³⁷ McHugh, “The Labour Party”; Davies, Christie, “The British State and the Power of Life and Death,” in The Boundaries of the State in Modern Britain, ed. Green, S. J. D. and Whiting, R. C. (Cambridge, 1996): 341–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the execution of US soldiers in Britain during the Second World War, see Lilly, J. Robert and Thomson, J. Michael, “Executing US Soldiers in England, World War II: Command Influence and Sexual Racism,” British Journal of Criminology 37, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 262–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁸ HMSO, Report of the Departmental Committee on Corporal Punishment (London, 1938), Cmd. 5684Google Scholar.

³⁹ McHugh, “The Labour Party”; Bailey, “The Shadow of the Gallows.”

⁴⁰ The National Archives (hereafter TNA), CAB 128/10, Cabinet: Minutes (CM and CC Series), Cabinet Conclusions: 50 (47)–96 (47), Cabinet 89 (47), Conclusions, 18 November 1947, 110–11.

⁴¹ TNA, CAB 128/10, Cabinet 61 (47), Conclusions, 15 July 1947, 114.

⁴² The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment sat between 1949 and 1953. It was chaired by Sir Ernest Gowers and was instructed to consider mitigation, not abolition.

⁴³ There is, as yet, no comprehensive analysis of the social origins of Mass Observers stretching across the war and postwar period. On the social composition of the panel in its early days, see Nick Stanley, “The Extra Dimension: A Study and Assessment of the Methods Employed by Mass-Observation in Its First Period, 1937–40” (PhD thesis, Council for National Academic Awards, 1981).

⁴⁴ Publications drawing on Mass Observation’s directive responses include Hinton, James, “The ‘Class’ Complex: Mass-Observation and Cultural Distinction in Pre-war Britain,” Past and Present 199, no. 1 (May 2008): 207–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Langhamer, Claire, “Love and Courtship in Mid-Twentieth-Century England,” Historical Journal 50, no. 1 (March 2007): 173–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Savage, Mike, “Changing Social Class Identities in Postwar Britain: Perspectives from Mass-Observation,” Sociological Research Online 12, no. 3 (May 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ MOA, directives, June 1939, December 1943, May 1947.

⁴⁶ MOA, directive, January 1944.

⁴⁷ Wilcock, Bob, “Mass-Observation,” American Journal of Sociology 48 (January 1943), 450CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁸ MOA, directive, January 1948.

⁴⁹ MOA, directive, January 1948, directive response (hereafter DR), unnumbered. Married man aged 38. Wartime Mass Observers are allocated an identifying number by the Mass Observation Archive. Those who started writing in the postwar period do not currently have such a number.

⁵⁰ MOA, January 1948, DR, unnumbered, woman, 33, married, housewife.

⁵¹ MOA, January 1948 DR, unnumbered, woman, 40, married, housewife, and student.

⁵² MOA, January 1948 DR, unnumbered, man, 22, single, student.

⁵³ MOA, January 1948 DR unnumbered, man, 43, married, jute salesman.

⁵⁴ MOA, January 1948 DR, unnumbered, woman, 46, widowed, interpreter.

⁵⁵ MOA, January 1948 DR, unnumbered, man, 30, married, theological student.

⁵⁶ MOA, January 1948 DR, unnumbered, man, 40, married, local government officer.

⁵⁷ MOA, January 1948 DR, unnumbered, woman, 23, single, social worker.

⁵⁸ Francis, “Tears, Tantrums, and Bared Teeth,” 360.

⁵⁹ Mass Observation recorded that “this extremely large sample was taken at the special request of the Daily Telegraph to ensure that minority groups, such as Jews, Communists, etc., should be represented in adequate numbers for separate consideration” (MOA, FR 3001, “Three Surveys on Capital Punishment,” May 1948, 4).

⁶⁰ Mass Observation’s results were published in the Daily Telegraph on 28 May 1948. The survey was also published separately as “Capital Punishment: A Survey” (London, 1948).

⁶¹ News Chronicle, 24 May 1948, 1. The News Chronicle was the first British newspaper to publish public opinion polls in Britain, starting in October 1938.

⁶² Daily Express, 29 April 1948, 1. The Express Centre of Public Opinion was established in 1942.

⁶³ MOA, FR 3001, “Three Surveys on Capital Punishment,” May 1948, 3.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 6.

⁶⁵ England, Len, “Capital Punishment and Open-End Questions,” Public Opinion Quarterly 12, no. 3 (Fall 1948): 412–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mass Observation paid particular attention to the “don’t knows” in its late 1940s research precisely because they were so often ignored in quantitative polling.

⁶⁶ MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, man, 44, farmer. No address.

⁶⁷ MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, woman, 70, housewife, Portsmouth.

⁶⁸ MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, woman, 55, housewife, Grantham.

⁶⁹ MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, woman, 56, housewife living alone with private means, Kidderminster.

⁷⁰ MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, man, 42, chauffeur gardener, Cromer.

⁷¹ MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, man, 72, retired, Motherwell.

⁷² MOA, TC 72, 72–1-F, man, 38, store assistant, Aston.

⁷³ Viscount Simon, “Speech to the House of Lords, 2 June 1948,” Parliamentary Debates, Lords, 5th ser., vol. 156 (1947–48), cols. 105–6.

⁷⁴ Daily Mirror, 17 April 1948, 4. Although crime statistics can never be taken at face value, reported crime rates did not in fact begin to rise significantly until the mid-1950s, and recorded homicide rates for England and Wales at least were lower in 1948 than they had been in 1946 and 1947 (P. Richards, “Homicide Statistics,” House of Commons Research Paper 99/56, [May 1999], 10–13).

⁷⁵ Mr. John Paton, “Speech to the House of Commons, 15 July 1948,” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 453 (1947–48), cols. 1472–74.

⁷⁶ News Chronicle, 3 June 1948, 2.

⁷⁷ Beers, “Whose Opinion?” After 1964 progressive groups increasingly used opinion polls to convince parliamentarians that voting for liberalization would not alienate voters. See, e.g., the use made of polls by the Abortion Law Reform Association (Hindell, Keith, and Simms, Madeleine, Abortion Law Reformed [London, 1971])Google Scholar.

⁷⁸ Mr. Chuter Ede, “Speech to the House of Commons, 14 April 1948,” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 449 (1947–48), col. 1084. The cabinet discussed public opinion on the issue on many occasions across the period 1947–48. See, e.g., Ede’s memorandum dated 8 July 1947, in which he drew attention to a Gallup poll of June 1947 showing high support for the death penalty. TNA, CAB/129/19, “Abolition of the Death Penalty, Memorandum by the Home Secretary,” 8 July 1947, 3.

⁷⁹ This time his focus was upon the apparent miscarriage of judgment in the Timothy Evans case: “I have not met a single person who, in the course of conversation, has said that he believes that the execution of Timothy Evans was justified by the facts subsequently revealed” (Chuter Ede, “Speech to the House of Commons, 16 February 1956,” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 548 [1956–56], col. 2559).

⁸⁰ Manchester Guardian, 26 August 1955, 6. Letter from Victor Gollancz, Chairman, National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment. Ruth Ellis, a twenty-eight-year-old former nightclub hostess and mother of two, was hanged in July 1955 for the murder of her lover David Blakely. He was shot outside a London pub. The case attracted international attention and has been the subject of much controversy since.

⁸¹ A British Institute of Public Opinion poll conducted in August 1948 had found a desire for retribution to be a key driver of popular support for the death sentence (Gallup, , The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain, 1937–1975, 180)Google Scholar.

⁸² Morris, Terence, Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Oxford, 1989), 91Google Scholar.

⁸³ Francis, “Tears, Tantrums, and Bared Teeth.”

⁸⁴ Bingham, Family Newspapers?

⁸⁵ Daily Express, 27 January 1953, 4.

⁸⁶ Koestler, Arthur, Reflections on Hanging (London, 1956), 163Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Star, 16 February 1955, 5.

⁸⁸ Bailey, Peter, “Jazz at the Spirella: Coming of Age in Coventry in the 1950s,” in Moments of Modernity: Reconstructing Britain, 1945–1964, ed. Conekin, Becky, Mort, Frank, and Waters, Chris (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Mort, Frank, “Social and Symbolic Fathers and Sons in Postwar Britain,” Journal of British Studies 38, no. 3 (July 1999): 353–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steedman, Carolyn, Landscape for a Good Woman (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ Rose, Nikolas, Inventing Ourselves: Psychology, Power and Personhood (Cambridge, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (London, 1999)Google Scholar; see also Thomson, Mathew, Psychological Subjects: Identity, Culture and Health in Twentieth-Century Britain (Oxford, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁰ Critchell, Harry, “Even a Hangman Has Feelings,” Daily Mirror, 1 October 1949, 2Google Scholar.

⁹¹ Sunday Pictorial, 20 February 1955, 1.

⁹² Manchester Guardian, 3 September 1955, 4.

⁹³ Chuter Ede, “Speech to the House of Commons, 10 February 1955,” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 536 (1954–55), col. 2084.

⁹⁴ Daily Mirror, 14 December 1955, 2.

⁹⁵ Star, 9 March 1956, 3. Posthumous serialization of Rees, Judge Tudor, Reserved Judgement (London, 1956)Google Scholar.

⁹⁶ TNA, CAB/129/78, CM (55) 202, 16 December 1955, “Capital Punishment: Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Welsh Affairs,” 6.

⁹⁷ Gallup, , The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain, 1937–1975, 308Google Scholar.

⁹⁸ Daily Mirror, 18 July 1955, 1. Thirty-nine percent wanted to maintain it for particular types of murders only, 21 percent to abandon it completely, and 10 percent “did not know.” More approved of an experimental suspension than disapproved.

⁹⁹ Gallup, , The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain, 1937–1975, 369Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ TNA, CAB/128/30, CM (56), “First Conclusions,” 3 January 1956, 9.

¹⁰¹ Sydney Silverman, “Speech to the House of Commons, 12 March 1956,” Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th ser., vol. 550 (1955–56), col. 39.

¹⁰² MOA, TC 72, box 2: Capital Punishment Survey, 1956 (Mass Observation Survey no. 290), 72–2-A; letter from Colin R. Coote, editor of the Daily Telegraph, to Len R. England, Managing Director, Mass Observation Ltd, 12 December 1955.

¹⁰³ Daily Telegraph, 6 February 1956, 1, 9.

¹⁰⁴ MOA, TC 72, box 2: 72–2-A, letter from Len R. England to Michael Berry, Daily Telegraph, 31 January 1956.

¹⁰⁵ The first question posed was, “Generally speaking do you approve or disapprove of the death penalty for murder or haven’t you made up your mind?” Seven percent approved of it for degrees of murder only, 18 percent disapproved of it completely, 25 percent had not made up their mind, and 1 percent gave mixed replies.

¹⁰⁶ MOA, TC 72, box 2, 72–2-A, “A Report on Survey Results,” 2.

¹⁰⁷ They were asked, “How would you feel about the death penalty for murder being given up for five years?”

¹⁰⁸ MOA, TC 72, box 2, 72–2-B, “Notes on Survey and Extracts,” woman, 47, housewife, farmer, Romney Marsh.

¹⁰⁹ MOA, TC 72, box 2, 72–2-A, “A Report on Survey Results.”

¹¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹¹ The very last woman to be sentenced to death was Mary Wilson, the sixty-two-year-old “Widow of Wendy Nook,” who murdered at least two husbands. She had her sentence commuted.

¹¹² HMSO, Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949–1953 (London, 1953), Cmd. 8932, 65Google Scholar.

¹¹³ HMSO, Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 70Google Scholar. The 1930 “Report from the Select Committee on Capital Punishment” had also referred to murder as predominantly “the crime of men.” In fact it noted a greater tendency toward leniency in the treatment of women murderers in relation to insanity rulings and reprieves. “Sentiment,” it observed, drove some to protest the hanging of women if not men, but “if capital punishment is wrong for women, it is wrong for both sexes” (HMSO, Report from the Select Committee on Capital Punishment [London, 1930], 43–44)Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ HMSO, Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 213Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ Daily Mirror, 14 July 1955, 1.

¹¹⁶ Francis, “Tears, Tantrums, and Bared Teeth,” 386.

¹¹⁷ Daily Mirror, 18 July 1955, 1.

¹¹⁸ The Times, 14 July 1955, 5.

¹¹⁹ The cases of Allen, Merrifield, and Christofi, as well as those of the five other women executed after Edith Thompson, were examined in detail by Renee Huggett and Paul Berry in a book that went to print just after the execution of Ruth Ellis (Huggett, Renee and Berry, Paul, Daughters of Cain: The Story of Eight Women Executed since Edith Thompson [London, 1956]Google Scholar). On gender, race, and the criminal justice system, see Minkes, John and Vanstone, Maurice, “Gender, Race and the Death Penalty: Lessons from Three 1950s Murder Trials,” Howard Journal 45, no. 4 (September 2006): 403–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ballinger, Dead Woman Walking.

¹²⁰ Landy, Marcia, Cinematic Uses of the Past (Minneapolis, 1996), 208Google Scholar.

¹²¹ The star of this film, Diana Dors, denied this link in her autobiography For Adults Only (London, 1978), 251Google Scholar.

¹²² Pierrepoint, Albert, Executioner: Pierrepoint (1974; Cranbrook, 2005), 207Google Scholar.

¹²³ Pierrepoint, Executioner, 208.

¹²⁴ Yorkshire Observer, 27 August 1955, 4.

¹²⁵ Keith Waterhouse, “If We Hanged Five Pretty Women!” Daily Mirror, 25 August 1955, 2.

¹²⁶ Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 903.

¹²⁷ HMSO, Report of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 273.

¹²⁸ In 1935, she was fined £3 with 5 guineas costs for careless driving during a protest outside Wandsworth Prison. A policeman had ordered her driver to stop; she had ordered him to drive on. When the chauffeur decided to obey the law rather than his employer, she took the wheel, accelerated sharply, and ran into the police officer whom she claimed not to have seen (Daily Mirror, 11 July 1935, 7).

¹²⁹ TNA, MEPO 2/9481, Metropolitan Police: Office of the Commissioner: Correspondence and Papers, letter from Harold Scott to Sir Frank Newsom, 29 January 1953.

¹³⁰ TNA, MEPO 2/9481, letter from Sir Frank Newsom to Harold Scott, 3 February 1953.

¹³¹ Jesse, F. Tennyson, A Pin to See the Peepshow (London, 1934)Google Scholar.

¹³² Broad, Lewis, The Innocence of Edith Thompson: A Study in Old Bailey Justice (London, 1952)Google Scholar. On the Edith Thompson case itself, see Bland, Lucy, “The Trials and Tribulations of Edith Thompson: The Capital Crime of Sexual Incitement in 1920s England,” Journal of British Studies 47, no. 3 (July 2008): 624–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Houlbrook, Matt, “‘A Pin to See the Peepshow’: Culture, Fiction and Selfhood in the Letters of Edith Thompson,” Past and Present 207, no. 1 (May 2010): 215–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³³ Observer, 18 March 1956, 1.

¹³⁴ TNA, PCOM 9/1983, Prison Commission and Home Office, Prison Department: Registered Papers: series 2, Executions: parliamentary questions and debate arising from allegations about the execution of Mrs Edith Thompson in 1923, 1956.

¹³⁵ MOA, TC 72, box 2, 72–2-B, “Notes on Survey and Extracts,” man, 24, farmer, Stafford.

¹³⁶ MOA, TC 72, box 2, 72–2-B, “Notes on Survey and Extracts,” woman, 54, part-time waitress, widow, Bootle.

¹³⁷ Daily Telegraph, 17 February 1956, 6; Daily Express, 17 February 1956, 4; Daily Mirror, 17 February 1956, 1.

¹³⁸ Daily Mirror, 29 June 1956, 20.

¹³⁹ Manchester Guardian, 9 May 1959, 1.

¹⁴⁰ Daily Mirror, 21 August 1959, 5.

¹⁴¹ Daily Mirror, 14 May 1959, 7.

¹⁴² Daily Mirror, 28 March 1964, 19.

¹⁴³ Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain, 1937–1975, 774.

¹⁴⁴ It remained on the statute book as the punishment for some other offenses. However, the last execution in Britain took place in 1964.

¹⁴⁵ The Times, 17 April 1948, 5.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid.

¹⁴⁷ Huggett and Berry, Daughters of Cain, 244.

¹⁴⁸ Bingham, Family Newspapers? See also Bingham, Adrian, “The ‘K-Bomb’: Social Surveys, the Popular Press, and British Sexual Culture in the 1940s and 1950s,” Journal of British Studies 50, no. 1 (January 2011): 156–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴⁹ Brooke, Stephen, Sexual Politics, Sexuality, Family Planning, and the British Left from the 1880s to the Present Day (Oxford, 2012)Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁰ Jarvis, Mark, Conservative Governments, Morality and Social Change in Affluent Britain, 1957–64 (Manchester, 2005)Google Scholar.

¹⁵¹ On the European/American comparison, see Garland, David, McGowen, Randall, and Meranze, Michael, eds., America’s Death Penalty: Between Past and Present (New York, 2011), 72–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵² MOA, TC 72, box 1, 72–1-A, “Opinions on Death Penalty, 1938–46.”