document_title: Fiddler on the Roof

question_text: who played the main character in fiddler on the roof

text: Fiddler on the Roof

text: Background[edit]

text: Fiddler on the Roof is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman), a series of stories by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 1914 about Jewish life in a village in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th century. It is also influenced by Life Is with People, by Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog.[2] Aleichem wrote a dramatic adaptation of the stories that he left unfinished at his death, but which was produced in Yiddish in 1919 by the Yiddish Art Theater and made into a film in the 1930s. In the late 1950s, a musical based on the stories, called Tevye and his Daughters, was produced Off-Broadway by Arnold Perl.[3] Rodgers and Hammerstein and then Mike Todd briefly considered bringing this musical to Broadway but dropped the idea.[4]

text: Investors and some in the media worried that Fiddler on the Roof might be considered "too Jewish" to attract mainstream audiences. Other critics considered that it was too culturally sanitized, "middlebrow" and superficial; Philip Roth, writing in The New Yorker, called it shtetl kitsch. For example, it portrays the local Russian officer as sympathetic, instead of brutal and cruel, as Sholom Aleichem had described him. Aleichem's stories ended with Tevye alone, his wife dead and his daughters scattered; at the end of Fiddler, the family members are alive, and most are emigrating together to America.[3][4] The show found the right balance for its time, even if not entirely authentic, to become "one of the first popular post-Holocaust depictions of the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry".[3] Harold Prince replaced the original producer Fred Coe and brought in director/choreographer Jerome Robbins.[5] The writers and Robbins considered naming the musical Tevye, before landing on a title suggested by various paintings by Marc Chagall that also inspired the original set design. Contrary to popular belief, the "title of the musical does not refer to any specific painting".[6] During rehearsals, one of the stars, Jewish actor Zero Mostel, feuded with Robbins, whom he held in contempt because Robbins had testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and hid his Jewish heritage from the public. Other cast members also had run-ins with Robbins, who reportedly "abused the cast, drove the designers crazy [and] strained the good nature of Hal Prince".[4]

text: Synopsis[edit]

text: Act I[edit]

text: Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters, explains the customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, where their lives are as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on a roof ("Tradition"). At Tevye's home, everyone is busy preparing for the Sabbath meal. His sharp-tongued wife, Golde, orders their daughters, Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze and Bielke, about their tasks. Yente, the village matchmaker, arrives to tell Golde that Lazar Wolf, the wealthy butcher, a widower older than Tevye, wants to wed Tzeitel, the eldest daughter. The next two daughters, Hodel and Chava, are excited about Yente's visit, but Tzeitel is unenthusiastic ("Matchmaker, Matchmaker"). A girl from a poor family must take whatever husband Yente brings, but Tzeitel wants to marry her childhood friend, Motel the tailor.

text: Tevye is delivering milk, pulling the cart himself, as his horse is lame. He asks God: Whom would it hurt "If I Were a Rich Man"? News from the outside world tells of pogroms and expulsions. A stranger, Perchik, hears their conversation and scolds them for doing nothing more than talk. The men dismiss Perchik as a radical, but Tevye invites him home for the Sabbath meal and offers him food and a room in exchange for tutoring his two youngest daughters. Golde tells Tevye to meet Lazar after the Sabbath but does not tell him why, knowing that Tevye does not like Lazar. Tzeitel is afraid that Yente will find her a husband before Motel asks Tevye for her hand. But Motel resists: he is afraid of Tevye's temper, and tradition says that a matchmaker arranges marriages. Motel is also very poor and is saving up to buy a sewing machine before he approaches Tevye, to show that he can support a wife. The family gathers for the "Sabbath Prayer."

text: After the Sabbath, Tevye meets Lazar for a drink at the village inn, assuming mistakenly that Lazar wants to buy his cow. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Tevye agrees to let Lazar marry Tzeitel – with a rich butcher, his daughter will never want for anything. All join in the celebration of Lazar's good fortune; even the Russian youths at the inn join in the celebration and show off their dancing skills ("To Life"). Outside the inn, Tevye happens upon the Russian Constable, who has jurisdiction over the Jews in the town. The Constable warns him that there is going to be a "little unofficial demonstration" in the coming weeks (a euphemism for a minor pogrom). The Constable has sympathy for the Jewish community but is powerless to prevent the violence.

text: The next morning, after Perchik's lessons with her young sisters, Tevye's second daughter Hodel mocks Perchik's Marxist interpretation of a Bible story. He, in turn, criticizes her for hanging on to the old traditions of Judaism, noting that the world is changing. To illustrate this, he dances with her, defying the prohibition against opposite sexes dancing together. The two begin to fall in love. Later, a hungover Tevye announces that he has agreed that Tzeitel will marry Lazar Wolf. Golde is overjoyed, but Tzeitel is devastated and begs Tevye not to force her. Motel arrives and tells Tevye that he is the perfect match for Tzeitel and that he and Tzeitel gave each other a pledge to marry. He promises that Tzeitel will not starve as his wife. Tevye is stunned and outraged at this breach of tradition, but impressed at the timid tailor's display of backbone. After some soul-searching ("Tevye's Monologue"), Tevye agrees to let them marry, but he worries about how to break the news to Golde. An overjoyed Motel celebrates with Tzeitel ("Miracle of Miracles").

text: In bed with Golde, Tevye pretends to be waking from a nightmare. Golde offers to interpret his dream, and Tevye "describes" it ("Tevye's Dream"). Golde's grandmother Tzeitel returns from the grave to bless the marriage of her namesake, but to Motel, not to Lazar Wolf. Lazar's formidable late wife, Fruma-Sarah, rises from her grave to warn, in graphic terms, of severe retribution if Tzeitel marries Lazar. The superstitious Golde is terrified, and she quickly counsels that Tzeitel must marry Motel. While returning from town, Tevye's third daughter, the bookish Chava, is teased and intimidated by some gentile youths. One, Fyedka, protects her, dismissing the others. He offers Chava the loan of a book, and a secret relationship begins.

text: The wedding day of Tzeitel and Motel arrives, and all the Jews join the ceremony ("Sunrise, Sunset") and the celebration ("The Wedding Dance"). Lazar gives a fine gift, but an argument arises with Tevye over the broken agreement. Perchik ends the tiff by breaking another tradition: he crosses the barrier between the men and women to dance with Tevye's daughter Hodel. The celebration ends abruptly when a group of Russians rides into the village to perform the "demonstration". They disrupt the party, damaging the wedding gifts and wounding Perchik, who attempts to fight back, and wreak more destruction in the village. Tevye instructs his family to clean up the mess.

text: Act II[edit]

text: Months later, Perchik tells Hodel he must return to Kiev to work for the revolution. He proposes marriage, admitting that he loves her, and says that he will send for her. She agrees ("Now I Have Everything"). They tell Tevye that they are engaged, and he is appalled that they are flouting tradition by making their own match, especially as Perchik is leaving. When he forbids the marriage, Perchik and Hodel inform him that they do not seek his permission, only his blessing. After more soul searching, Tevye relents – the world is changing, and he must change with it ("Tevye's Rebuttal"). He informs the young couple that he gives them his blessing and his permission.

text: Tevye explains these events to an astonished Golde. "Love," he says, "it's the new style." Tevye asks Golde, despite their own arranged marriage, "Do You Love Me?" After dismissing Tevye's question as foolish, she eventually admits that, after 25 years of living and struggling together and raising five daughters, she does. Meanwhile, Yente tells Tzeitel that she saw Chava with Fyedka. News spreads quickly in Anatevka that Perchik has been arrested and exiled to Siberia ("The Rumor/I Just Heard"), and Hodel is determined to join him there. At the railway station, she explains to her father that her home is with her beloved, wherever he may be, although she will always love her family ("Far From the Home I Love").

text: Time passes. Motel has purchased a used sewing machine, and he and Tzeitel have had a baby. Chava finally gathers the courage to ask Tevye to allow her marriage to Fyedka. Again Tevye reaches deep into his soul, but marriage outside the Jewish faith is a line he will not cross. He forbids Chava to speak to Fyedka again. When Golde brings news that Chava has eloped with Fyedka, Tevye wonders where he went wrong ("Chavaleh Sequence"). Chava returns and tries to reason with him, but he refuses to speak to her and tells the rest of the family to consider her dead. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading of the Russians expelling Jews from their villages. While the villagers are gathered, the Constable arrives to tell everyone that they have three days to pack up and leave the town. In shock, they reminisce about "Anatevka" and how hard it will be to leave what has been their home for so long.

text: As the Jews leave Anatevka, Chava and Fyedka stop to tell her family that they are also leaving for Kraków, unwilling to remain among the people who could do such things to others. Tevye still will not talk to her, but when Tzeitel says goodbye to Chava, Tevye prompts her to add "God be with you." Motel and Tzeitel go to Poland as well but will join the rest of the family when they have saved up enough money. As Tevye, Golde and their two youngest daughters leave the village for America, the fiddler begins to play. Tevye beckons with a nod, and the fiddler follows them out of the village.

text: Musical numbers[edit]

text:
Act I

"Prologue: Tradition" – Tevye and the Company
"Matchmaker, Matchmaker" – Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava
"If I Were a Rich Man" – Tevye
"Sabbath Prayer" – Tevye, Golde and the Company
"To Life" – Tevye, Lazar Wolf and the Company
"Tevye's Monologue" – Tevye
"Miracle of Miracles" – Motel
"Tevye's Dream" – Tevye, Golde, Grandma Tzeitel, Fruma-Sarah, Company
"Sunrise, Sunset" – Tevye, Golde, Perchik, Hodel and the Company
"The Bottle Dance" – Instrumental

Act II

"Entr'acte" – Orchestra
"Now I Have Everything" – Perchik and Hodel
"Tevye's Rebuttal" – Tevye
"Do You Love Me?" – Tevye and Golde
"The Rumor/I Just Heard" – Yente and villagers §
"Far From the Home I Love" – Hodel
"Chavaleh (Little Bird)" – Tevye
"Anatevka" – The Company

text: § The 2004 revival featured a song for Yente and some women of the village (Rivka and Mirala) titled "Topsy Turvy", discussing the disappearing role of the matchmaker in society. The number replaced "The Rumor/I Just Heard".

text: Principal characters[edit]

text: All of the characters are Jewish, except as noted:[7][8]

text:
Tevye, a poor milkman with five daughters. A firm supporter of the traditions of his faith, he finds many of his convictions tested by the actions of his three oldest daughters.
Golde, Tevye's sharp-tongued wife.
Tzeitel, their oldest daughter, about nineteen. She loves her childhood friend Motel and marries him, even though he's poor, begging her father not to force her to marry Lazar Wolf.
Hodel, their daughter, about seventeen. Intelligent and spirited, she falls in love with Perchik and later joins him in Siberia.
Chava, their daughter, about fifteen. A shy book lover, who falls in love with Fyedka.
Motel Kamzoil, a poor but hardworking tailor who loves, and later marries, Tzeitel.
Perchik, a scholar and Bolshevik revolutionary who comes to Anatevka and falls in love with Hodel. He leaves for Kiev and is exiled to Siberia.
Fyedka, a young Christian man. He shares Chava's passion for reading and is outraged by the Russians' treatment of the Jews.
Lazar Wolf, the wealthy village butcher. Widower of Fruma-Sarah. Attempts to arrange a marriage for himself to Tzeitel.
Yente, the gossipy village matchmaker who matches Tzeitel and Lazar.
Fruma-Sarah, Lazar Wolf's dead wife, who rises from the grave in Tevye's "nightmare".
Grandma Tzeitel, Golde's dead grandmother, also featured in the "nightmare".
Rabbi, the wise village leader.
Constable, a Christian man; the head of the local Russian police.

text: Productions[edit]

text: Original productions[edit]

text: Following its tryout at Detroit's Fisher Theatre in July and August 1964,[9] then Washington in August to September,[10] the original Broadway production opened on September 22, 1964, at the Imperial Theatre, transferred in 1967 to the Majestic Theatre and in 1970 to The Broadway Theatre, and ran for a record-setting total of 3,242 performances.[11] The production was directed and choreographed by Robbins – his last original Broadway staging.[12] The set, designed in the style of Marc Chagall's paintings, was by Boris Aronson.[13] A colorful logo for the production, also inspired by Chagall's work, was designed by Tom Morrow. Chagall reportedly did not like the musical.[4]

text: The cast included Zero Mostel as Tevye the milkman, Maria Karnilova as his wife Golde (each of whom won a Tony for their performances), Beatrice Arthur as Yente the matchmaker, Austin Pendleton as Motel, Bert Convy as Perchik the student revolutionary, Gino Conforti as the fiddler, and Julia Migenes as Hodel. Mostel ad-libbed increasingly as the run went on, "which drove the authors up the wall."[11] Joanna Merlin originated the role of Tzeitel, which was later assumed by Bette Midler during the original run. Carol Sawyer was Fruma Sarah, Adrienne Barbeau took a turn as Hodel, and Pia Zadora played the youngest daughter, Bielke. Both Peg Murray and Dolores Wilson made extended appearances as Golde, while other stage actors who have played Tevye include Herschel Bernardi, Theodore Bikel and Harry Goz (in the original Broadway run), and Leonard Nimoy. Mostel's understudy in the original production, Paul Lipson, went on to appear as Tevye in more performances than any other actor (until Chaim Topol), clocking over 2,000 performances in the role in the original run and several revivals.[14] Florence Stanley took over the role of Yente nine months into the run.[15] The production earned $1,574 for every dollar invested in it.[16] It was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, book, direction and choreography, and acting awards for Mostel and Karnilova.[11]

text: The original London West End production opened on February 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre and played for 2,030 performances.[17] It starred Topol as Tevye, a role he had previously played in Tel Aviv, and Miriam Karlin as Golde. Alfie Bass, Lex Goudsmit and Barry Martin eventually took over as Tevye.[citation needed] Topol later played Tevye in the 1971 film adaptation, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and in several revivals over the next four decades.[18] The show was revived in London for short seasons in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and in 1994 at the London Palladium.[citation needed]

text: Broadway revivals[edit]

text: The first Broadway revival opened on December 28, 1976, and ran for 176 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre. Zero Mostel starred as Tevye. Robbins directed and choreographed. A second Broadway revival opened on July 9, 1981, and played for a limited run (53 performances) at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater. It starred Herschel Bernardi as Tevye and Karnilova as Golde. Other cast members included Liz Larsen, Fyvush Finkel, Lawrence Leritz and Paul Lipson. Robbins directed and choreographed. The third Broadway revival opened on November 18, 1990, and ran for 241 performances at the George Gershwin Theatre. Topol starred as Tevye, and Marcia Lewis was Golde. Robbins' production was reproduced by Ruth Mitchell and choreographer Sammy Dallas Bayes. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival.

text: A fourth Broadway revival opened on February 26, 2004, and ran for 36 previews and 781 performances at the Minskoff Theatre. Alfred Molina, and later Harvey Fierstein, starred as Tevye, and Randy Graff, and later Andrea Martin and Rosie O'Donnell, was Golde. Barbara Barrie and later Nancy Opel played Yente, Laura Michelle Kelly played Hodel and Lea Michele played Sprintze.[19] It was directed by David Leveaux. This production replaced Yente's song "The Rumor" with a song for Yente and two other women called "Topsy-Turvy". The production was nominated for six Tonys but did not win any. In June 2014, to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, a gala celebration and reunion was held at The Town Hall in New York City to benefit The National Yiddish Theatre – Folksbiene, with appearances by many of the cast members of the various Broadway productions and the 1971 film.[10]

text: The fifth Broadway revival began previews on November 20 and opened on December 20, 2015 at the Broadway Theatre, with concept and choreography based on the original by Jerome Robbins. Bartlett Sher directed, and Hofesh Shechter choreographed. The cast starred Danny Burstein as Tevye, with Jessica Hecht as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Tzeitel, Adam Kantor as Motel, Ben Rappaport as Perchik, Samantha Massell as Hodel and Melanie Moore as Chava. Judy Kuhn replaced Hecht as Golde on November 22, 2016, for the last five weeks of the run.[20] Designers include Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes) and Donald Holder (lighting).[21] Initial reviews were mostly positive, finding Burstein and the show touching.[22] The production was nominated for three Tony Awards but won none. It closed on December 31, 2016 after 463 performances.[23]

text: London revivals[edit]

text: Fiddler was first revived in London in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre (a four-month season starring Topol) and again in 1994 at the London Palladium for two months and then on tour, again starring Topol, and directed and choreographed by Sammy Dallas Bayes, recreating the Robbins production.[24]

text: After a two-month tryout at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, a London revival opened on May 19, 2007, at the Savoy Theatre starring Henry Goodman as Tevye, Beverley Klein as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Hodel, Damian Humbley as Perchik and Victor McGuire as Lazar Wolf. The production was directed by Lindsay Posner. Robbins' choreography was recreated by Sammy Dallas Bayes (who did the same for the 1990 Broadway revival), with additional choreography by Kate Flatt.[25]

text: UK tours[edit]

text: A 2003 national tour played for seven months, with a radical design, directed by Julian Woolford and choreographed by Chris Hocking. The production's minimalist set and costumes were monochromatic, and Fruma-Sarah was represented by a 12-foot puppet. This production was revived in 2008 starring Joe McGann.[26]

text: The show toured the UK again in 2013 and 2014 starring Paul Michael Glaser as Tevye with direction and choreography by Craig Revel Horwood.[27]

text: Australian productions[edit]

text: The original Australian production opened on June 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. It starred Hayes Gordon as Tevye and Brigid Lenihan as Golde.[28] The production ran for two years.[29] The first professional revival tour was staged by the Australian Opera in 1984 with Gordon again playing Tevye. A young Anthony Warlow played Fyedka.[30]

text: In 2005 and 2007, Topol recreated his role as Tevye in Australian productions, with seasons in Sydney,[31] Brisbane,[32] Melbourne,[33] Perth, Wellington and Auckland.[34] The musical was again revived in Melbourne and Sydney in 2015–2016 with Anthony Warlow as Tevye, Sigrid Thornton as Golde and Lior as Motel.[35]

text: US tours[edit]

text: Topol in 'Fiddler on the Roof': The Farewell Tour opened on January 20, 2009, in Wilmington, Delaware. Topol left the tour in November 2009 due to torn muscles. He was replaced by Harvey Fierstein.[36]

text: International and amateur productions[edit]

text: The musical was an international hit, with early productions playing throughout Europe, in South America, Africa and Australia; 100 different productions were mounted in the former West Germany in the first three decades after the musical's premiere, and within five years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, 23 productions were staged in the former East Germany; and it was the longest-running musical ever seen in Tokyo.[37]

text: A Hebrew language staging was produced in Tel Aviv by the Israeli impresario Giora Godik in the 1960s.[38] This version was so successful that Godik soon produced a Yiddish version translated by Shraga Friedman.[39] A 2008 Hebrew language production ran at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv for more than six years. It was directed by Moshe Kepten, choreographed by Dennis Courtney and starred Natan Datner.[40][41]

text: Un violon sur le toît was produced in French at Paris's théâtre Marigny from November 1969 to May 1970, resuming from September to January 1971 (a total of 292 performances) with Ivan Rebroff as Tevye and Maria Murano as Golde. Another adaptation was produced in 2005 at the théâtre Comédia in Paris with Franck Vincent as Tevye and Isabelle Ferron as Golde.[42] The Stratford Shakespeare Festival produced the musical from April to October 2013 at the Festival Theatre directed and choreographed by Donna Feore. It starred Scott Wentworth as Tevye.[43]

text: The musical receives about 500 amateur productions a year in the US alone.[44]

text: Film adaptation and recordings[edit]

text: The film version was released in 1971, directed and produced by Norman Jewison, and Stein adapted his own book for the screenplay. The casting of Chaim Topol over Zero Mostel for the role of Tevye caused controversy at first.[citation needed] The film received mostly positive reviews from film critics[45] and became the highest-grossing film of 1971.[46] Fiddler received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Jewison, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Topol, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Leonard Frey (as Motel; in the original Broadway production, Frey was the rabbi's son). It won three, including best score/adaptation for arranger-conductor John Williams.[47]

text: In the film version, the character of Yente is reduced, and Perchik's song to Hodel "Now I Have Everything" is cut and replaced by a scene in Kiev. The "Chagall color palette" of the original Broadway production was exchanged for a grittier, more realistic depiction of the village of Anatevka.[48][49]

text: Theatre writer John Kenrick writes that the original Broadway cast album released by RCA Victor in 1964, "shimmers – an essential recording in any show lover's collection", praising the cast. The remastered CD includes two recordings not on the original album, the bottle dance from the wedding scene and "Rumor" performed by Beatrice Arthur. Kenrick writes that while the original Broadway cast version is the clear first choice among recordings of this musical, he also likes the Columbia Records studio cast album with Bernardi as Tevye; the film soundtrack, although he feels that the pace drags a bit; and some of the numerous foreign versions, including the Israeli, German and Japanese casts.[50]

text: Cultural influence[edit]

text: The musical's popularity has led to numerous references in popular media and elsewhere.[51] The show or its songs have been parodied and covered widely:

text: Parodies[edit]

text: Parodies relating to the show have included Antenna on the Roof (Mad Magazine #156, January 1973), which speculated about the lives of Tevye's descendants living in an assimilated 1970s suburban America.[51] The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society published a musical theatre and album parody of Fiddler on the Roof called A Shoggoth on the Roof, which incorporates the works of H. P. Lovecraft.[52] In the film Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Robin Williams parodies "Matchmaker".[53]

text: References to the musical on television have included a 2005 episode of Gilmore Girls titled "Jews and Chinese Food", involving a production of the musical.[54] A skit by The Electric Company about a village fiddler with a fear of heights, so he is deemed "Fiddler on the Chair". In the Family Guy episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" (2003), William Shatner is depicted as playing Tevye in a scene from Fiddler.[55] The second episode of Muppets Tonight, in 1996, featured Garth Brooks doing a piece of "If I were a Rich Man" in which he kicks several chickens off the roof. "The Rosie Show", a 1996 episode of The Nanny, parodied the dream scene, when Mr. Sheffield fakes a dream to convince Fran not to be a regular on a TV show. A 2011 episode of NBC's Community, entitled "Competitive Wine Tasting", included a parody of Fiddler titled, "Fiddler, Please!", with an all-black cast dressed in Fiddler on the Roof costumes singing "It's Hard to Be Jewish in Russia, Yo". Chabad.org kicked off their 2008 "To Life" Telethon with a pastiche of the fiddle solo and bottle dance from the musical.[56]

text: Broadway references have included Spamalot, where a "Grail dance" sends up the "bottle dance" in Fiddler's wedding scene.[57] The Producers (2001) includes a musical number in the style of Jerry Bock that features an actual fiddler on a roof. Also in 2001, Chicago's Improv Olympic produced a well-received parody, "The Roof Is on Fiddler", that used most of the original book of the musical but replaced the songs with 1980's pop songs.[58] The original Broadway cast of the musical Avenue Q and the Broadway 2004 revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof collaborated for a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit and produced an approximately 10-minute-long show, "Avenue Jew", that incorporated characters from both shows, including puppets.

text: Covers[edit]

text: Songs from the musical have been covered by notable artists. For example, in 1964, jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded the album Fiddler on the Roof, which featured jazz arrangements of eight songs from the musical. AllMusic awarded the album 4 stars and states "Cannonball plays near his peak; this is certainly the finest album by this particular sextet".[59] That same year, Eydie Gormé released a single of "Matchmaker".[60] In 1999, Knitting Factory Records released Knitting on the Roof, a compilation CD featuring covers of Fiddler songs by alternative bands such as The Residents, Negativland, and The Magnetic Fields.[61][62] Indie rock band Bright Eyes recorded an adaptation of "Sunrise, Sunset" on their 2000 album Fevers and Mirrors. Allmusic gave the album a favorable review,[63] and the online music magazine Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 170 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s.[64] In 2005, Melbourne punk band Yidcore released a reworking of the entire show called Fiddling on Ya Roof.[65]

text: Gwen Stefani and Eve covered "If I Were a Rich Man" as "Rich Girl" for Stefani's 2004 debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004. The song was inspired by the 1993 British Louchie Lou & Michie One ragga version of the same name.[66] Stefani's version reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for over six months.[67] It was certified gold by the RIAA[68] and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.[69] It was also covered in 2008 and 2009 by the Capitol Steps, poking fun at Illinois politics, especially then-Governor Rod Blagojevich.[70] The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps performs the "Bottle Dance" from Fiddler as a "recurring trademark", including at the Drum Corps International World Championships.[71]

text: Other song versions[edit]

text: The song "Sunrise, Sunset" is often played at weddings,[citation needed] and in 2011 Sheldon Harnick wrote two versions of the song, suitable for same-sex weddings, with minor word changes. For example, for male couples, changes include "When did they grow to be so handsome".[72]

text: Awards[edit]

text: Fiddler's original Broadway production in 1964 was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, and book, and Robbins won for best direction and choreography. Mostel and Karnilova won as best leading actor and best featured actress. In 1972, the show won a special Tony on becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history.

text: Its revivals have also been honored. At the 1981 Tony Awards, Bernardi was nominated as best actor. Ten years later, the 1991 revival won for best revival, and Topol was nominated as best actor. The 2004 revival was nominated for six Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards but won none. The 2007 West End revival was nominated for Olivier Awards for best revival, and Goodman was nominated as best actor.

text: Notes[edit]

text:
Jump up ^ Paulson, Michael. "Fiddler on the Roof Gets a Debated Update", The New York Times, December 18, 2015, accessed March 6, 2018; and TIME magazine, May 26, 2008 issue, p. 51 (reporting that Fiddler ranked as the seventh most frequently produced musical by U.S. high schools in 2007.
Jump up ^ Joselit, Jenna Weissman. "Fiddler on the Roof Distorted Sholem Aleichem", The New Republic, June 7, 2014, accessed November 3, 2014
^ Jump up to: a b c Solomon, Alisa. "How Fiddler Became Folklore", The Jewish Daily Forward, September 1, 2006, accessed January 29, 2015
^ Jump up to: a b c d Brustein, Robert. "Fiddle Shtick", The New York Review of Books, December 18, 2014, vol. 61, No. 20, pp. 82–83
Jump up ^ Fiddler on the Roof. Additional Facts, MTI, accessed May 6, 2010
Jump up ^ Wecker, Menachem. "Marc Chagall: The French painter who inspired the title Fiddler on the Roof", The Washington Post, October 24, 2014
Jump up ^ Bloom and Vlastnik, p. 98
Jump up ^ Fiddler on the Roof, The Guide to Musical Theatre, accessed April 29, 2018
Jump up ^ "Show Archive" Archived 2014-01-16 at the Wayback Machine., Broadway in Detroit, accessed January 15, 2014
^ Jump up to: a b Henneberger, Melinda. "50th anniversary of Fiddler on the Roof reunites Tevye's many daughters", The Washington Post, June 14, 2014
^ Jump up to: a b c Hernandez, Ernio. "Fiddler on the Roof – 1964" Archived 2004-06-03 at the Wayback Machine., Playbill, February 26, 2004, accessed June 17, 2015
Jump up ^ He staged Jerome Robbins' Broadway, a "greatest hits" collection of some of his most famous stagings, at the Imperial Theatre on February 26, 1989, which ran for 633 performances.
Jump up ^ Rich, p. 172
Jump up ^ Gussow, Mel. "Paul Lipson, 82, Who Appeared As Tevye Over 2,000 Times". The New York Times, January 5, 1996, accessed October 19, 2015
Jump up ^ "Florence Stanley", PlaybillValult.com, accessed July 29, 2015
Jump up ^ Kantor, p. 302: "The 1960s was the decade that nurtured long-running blockbusters in unprecedented quantities: ten musicals passed the rarefied 1,000 performance mark, three of them passed the 2,000 mark (Hello, Dolly!, a Merrick smash, grossed $27 million on Broadway), and one, Fiddler on the Roof, passed the 3,000 mark, earning back $1,574 for every dollar put into it."
Jump up ^ Fiddler On The Roof, Guide to Musical Theatre, accessed July 24, 2016.
Jump up ^ Heller, Aron. "Iconic Israeli Actor Chaim Topol Reflects Upon His Long Career", Haaretz, April 21, 2015, accessed August 4, 2016; and Propst, Andy. "Harvey Fierstein Replaces Topol in Fiddler on the Roof Tour", TheaterMania.com, November 11, 2009, accessed July 24, 2016
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document_title: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

question_text: who was the last person to be hanged in england

question_tokens: who was the last person to be hanged in england

root

text: Capital punishment in the United Kingdom

text: Background[edit]

text: Sir Samuel Romilly, speaking to the House of Commons on capital punishment in 1810, declared that "[there is] no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in England".[2] Known as the "Bloody Code", at its height the criminal law included some 220 crimes punishable by death, including "being in the company of Gypsies for one month", "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime". Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century, a notable example being the Black Act of 1723, which created 50 capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.[citation needed] Crimes eligible for the death penalty included shoplifting and stealing sheep, cattle, and horses, and before abolition of the death penalty for theft in 1832, "English law was notorious for prescribing the death penalty for a vast range of offenses as slight as the theft of goods valued at twelve pence."[3]

tag: p

text: Whilst executions for murder, burglary and robbery were common, the death sentences for minor offenders were often not carried out. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as benefit of clergy, official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty.[4] Between 1770 and 1830, an estimated 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, but only 7,000 executions were carried out.[5]

text: Reform[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

tag: table

text: In 1808 Romilly had the death penalty removed for pickpockets and lesser offenders, starting a process of reform that continued over the next 50 years. The death penalty was mandatory (although it was frequently commuted by the government) until the Judgement of Death Act 1823 gave judges the power to commute the death penalty except for treason and murder. The Punishment of Death, etc. Act 1832 reduced the number of capital crimes by two-thirds. In 1832, the death penalty was abolished for theft, counterfeiting, and forgery except for the forgery of wills and certain powers of attorney.[3][6] Gibbeting was abolished in 1832 and hanging in chains was abolished in 1834. In 1837, the death penalty for forging wills and powers of attorney was abolished. The death penalty for rape was abolished in 1841.[7] In 1861, several acts of Parliament (24 & 25 Vict; c. 94 to c. 100) further reduced the number of civilian capital crimes to five: murder, treason, espionage, arson in royal dockyards, and piracy with violence; there were other offences under military law. The death penalty remained mandatory for treason and murder unless commuted by the monarch.

text: The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1864–66[8] concluded (with dissenting Commissioners) that there was not a case for abolition but recommended an end to public executions. This proposal was included in the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868. From that date executions in Great Britain were carried out only in prisons. The punishment of beheading and quartering those executed for treason was abolished in 1870.[9] The last application of that punishment had been in 1820 and the last sentence to the punishment had been in 1839.[citation needed]

text: In 1908, the Children Act 1908 banned the execution of juveniles under the age of 16. In 1922 a new offence of Infanticide was introduced to replace the charge of murder for mothers killing their children in the first year of life. In 1930 a parliamentary Select Committee recommended that capital punishment be suspended for a trial period of five years, but no action was taken. From 1931 pregnant women could no longer be hanged (following the birth of their child) although in practice since the 18th century their sentences had always been commuted.

text: In 1933 the minimum age for capital punishment was raised to 18 under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The last known execution by the civilian courts of a person under 18 was that of Charles Dobel, 17, hanged at Maidstone together with his accomplice William Gower, 18, in January 1889. Harold Wilkins, at 16 years old, was the last juvenile sentenced to the death penalty in the United Kingdom, in 1932 for a sexually related murder, but he was reprieved due to age.[10]

text: In 1938 the issue of the abolition of capital punishment was brought before parliament. A clause within the Criminal Justice Bill called for an experimental five-year suspension of the death penalty. When war broke out in 1939 the bill was postponed. It was revived after the war and to everyone's surprise was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons (245 to 222). In the House of Lords the abolition clause was defeated but the remainder of the bill was passed. Popular support for abolition was absent and the government decided that it would be inappropriate for it to assert its supremacy by invoking the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 over such an unpopular issue.

text: Instead, then Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, set up a new Royal Commission (the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949–1953) with instructions to determine "whether the liability to suffer capital punishment should be limited or modified". The Commission's report discussed a number of alternatives to execution by hanging (including the US methods of electrocution and gassing, and the then-theoretical lethal injection), but rejected them. It had more difficulty with the principle of capital punishment. Popular opinion believed that the death penalty acted as a deterrent to criminals, but the statistics within the report were inconclusive. Whilst the report recommended abolition from an ethical standpoint, it made no mention of possible miscarriages of justice. The public had by then expressed great dissatisfaction with the verdict in the case of Timothy Evans, who was tried and hanged in 1950 for murdering his baby daughter. It later transpired in 1953 that John Christie had strangled at least six women in the same house; he also confessed to killing Timothy's wife. If the jury in Evans's trial had known this, Evans would probably not have been found guilty. There were other cases in the same period where doubts arose over convictions and subsequent hangings, such as the notorious case of Derek Bentley.

text: The commission concluded that unless there was overwhelming public support in favour of abolition, the death penalty should be retained.

text: Between 1900 and 1949, 621 men and 11 women were executed in England and Wales. Ten German agents were executed during the First World War under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914,[11] and 16 spies were executed during the Second World War under the Treachery Act 1940.[12]

text: By 1957 a number of controversial cases highlighted the issue of capital punishment again. Campaigners for abolition were partially rewarded with the Homicide Act 1957. The Act brought in a distinction between capital and non-capital murder. Only six categories of murder were now punishable by execution:

text:
in the course or furtherance of theft
by shooting or causing an explosion
while resisting arrest or during an escape
of a police officer
of a prison officer by a prisoner
the second of two murders committed on different occasions (if both done in Great Britain).

tag: ul

text: The police and the government were of the opinion that the death penalty deterred offenders from carrying firearms and it was for this reason that such offences remained punishable by death.

text: Abolition[edit]

text: In 1965 the Labour MP Sydney Silverman, who had committed himself to the cause of abolition for more than 20 years, introduced a Private Member's Bill to suspend the death penalty for murder. It was passed on a free vote in the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98. The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Lords by 204 votes to 104.[14][15]

text: The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 suspended the death penalty in Great Britain (but not in Northern Ireland) for murder for a period of five years, and substituted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment; it further provided that if, before the expiry of the five-year suspension, each House of Parliament passed a resolution to make the effect of the Act permanent, then it would become permanent. In 1969 the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, proposed a motion to make the Act permanent, which was carried in the Commons on 16 December 1969,[16] and a similar motion was carried in the Lords on 18 December.[17] The death penalty for murder was abolished in Northern Ireland on 25 July 1973 under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973.

text: Following the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the House of Commons held a vote during each subsequent parliament until 1997 to restore the death penalty. This motion was always defeated, but the death penalty still remained for other crimes:

text:
causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse (until 1971);
espionage[18] (until 1981);
piracy with violence (until 1998);
treason (until 1998); and
certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny[19] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences:

serious misconduct in action;
assisting the enemy;
obstructing operations;
giving false air signals;
mutiny or incitement to mutiny; and
failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.

tag: ol

text: However, no executions were carried out in the United Kingdom for any of these offences after the abolition of the death penalty for murder.

text: Nevertheless, there remained a working gallows at HMP Wandsworth, London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992. This gallows is now housed in the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.[20]

text: Last executions[edit]

text: England and in the United Kingdom: on 13 August 1964, Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year.[21]

text: Scotland: Henry John Burnett, 21, on 15 August 1963 in Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.

text: Northern Ireland: Robert McGladdery, 26, on 20 December 1961 in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, for the murder of Pearl Gamble.

text: Wales: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea on 6 May 1958, for the murder of William Williams, sub-postmaster of Fforestfach Post Office.[22]

text: Last death sentences[edit]

text: Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom: Liam Holden in 1973 in Northern Ireland, for the capital murder of a British soldier during the Troubles. Holden was removed from the death cell in May 1973.[23] In 2012 his conviction was quashed on appeal.[24]

text: England: David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the murder of a swimming pool nightwatchman in Scarborough. He was released from prison in 1979 and later died in a car accident.

text: Scotland: Patrick McCarron in 1964 for shooting his wife. He committed suicide in prison in 1970.

text: Wales: Edgar Black, who was reprieved on 6 November 1963. He had shot his wife's lover in Cardiff.

text: Final abolition[edit]

text: The Criminal Damage Act 1971 abolished the offence of arson in royal dockyards.

text: The Naval Discipline Act 1957 reduced the scope of capital espionage from "all spies for the enemy" to spies on naval ships or bases.[25] Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.[26] (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)

text: Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.[27] Hanging, however, remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.

text: On 20 May 1998 the House of Commons voted to ratify the 6th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting capital punishment except "in time of war or imminent threat of war". The last remaining provisions for the death penalty under military jurisdiction (including in wartime) were removed when section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 9 November 1998. On 10 October 2003, effective from 1 February 2004,[28] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty in all circumstances.[29]

text: As a legacy from colonial times, several states in the West Indies still had the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of final appeal; although the death penalty has been retained in these states, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these states severed links with the British court system in 2001 by transferring the responsibilities of the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice, to speed up executions.[30]

text: Crown dependencies[edit]

text: Although not part of the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey are British Crown dependencies.

text: In the Channel Islands, the last death sentence was passed in 1984; the last execution in the Channel Islands was in Jersey on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Huchet was hanged for murder.[31] The Human Rights (Amendment) (Jersey) Order 2006[32] amends the Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000[33] to give effect to the 13th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights providing for the total abolition of the death penalty. Both of these laws came into effect on 10 December 2006. Capital punishment was abolished in Guernsey in 2003, and the 13th Protocol was extended to Guernsey in April 2004. Sark formally retained it until January 2004, when the Chief Pleas in a 14–9 vote removed it from the statutes.[34][35]

text: The last execution on the Isle of Man took place in 1872, when John Kewish was hanged for patricide. Capital punishment was not formally abolished by Tynwald (the island's parliament) until 1993.[36] Five persons were sentenced to death (for murder) on the Isle of Man between 1973 and 1992, although all sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The last person to be sentenced to death in the UK or its dependencies was Anthony Teare, who was convicted at the Manx Court of General Gaol Delivery in Douglas for contract murder in 1992; he was subsequently retried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.[37] In 2004 the 13th Protocol was adopted,[38] with an effective date of 1 November 2006.[39]

text: Overseas territories[edit]

text: Like the Crown dependencies, the British overseas territories are constitutionally not part of the United Kingdom. However, the British government's ultimate responsibility for good governance of the territories has led it over recent years to pursue a policy of revoking all statutory provision for the death penalty in those territories where it had up until recently been legal.

text: The last executions in an overseas territory, and indeed the last on British soil, took place in Bermuda in 1977, when two men, Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, were hanged for the 1973 murder of the territory's then Governor Sir Richard Sharples.[40]

text: In 1991, the British government extended an Order in Council to its Caribbean territories whose effect was to abolish capital punishment for murder: Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.[41]

text: The British government was unable to extend the abolition via Order in Council to Bermuda, the UK's most autonomous overseas territory with powers of almost total self-governance—but warned that if voluntary abolition was not forthcoming it would be forced to consider the unprecedented step of "whether to impose abolition by means of an Act of Parliament".[42] As a result, the Bermudian government introduced its own domestic legislation in 1999 to rectify the problem.[43]

text: Further measures were subsequently adopted to revoke technicalities in British overseas territories' domestic legislation as regards use of the death penalty for crimes of treason and piracy. In October 2002 the British government abolished the death penalty for treason and piracy in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Since then, the death penalty has been outlawed under all circumstances in all the UK's overseas territories.[44]

text: Public support for reintroduction of capital punishment[edit]

text: Since the death penalty's suspension in 1965, there have been continued public and media calls for its reintroduction, particularly prompted by high-profile murder cases.

text: At the same time, there have been a number of miscarriages of justice since 1965 where someone convicted of murder has later had their conviction quashed on appeal and been released from prison, strengthening the argument of those who oppose the death penalty's reintroduction. These include the Birmingham Six (cleared in 1991 of planting an IRA bomb which killed 21 people in 1974), the Guildford Four (cleared in 1989 of murdering five people in another 1974 IRA bombing), Stephen Downing (a Derbyshire man who was freed in 2001 after serving 27 years for the murder of a woman in a churchyard) and Barry George (who was freed in 2007 when his conviction for the 1999 murder of TV presenter Jill Dando was quashed on appeal).[45]

text: Perhaps the first high-profile murder case which sparked widespread calls for a return of the death penalty was the Moors murders trial in 1966, the year after the death penalty's suspension, in which Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were sentenced to life imprisonment for the murders of two children and a teenager in the Manchester area (they later confessed to a further two murders).[46] Later in 1966, the murder of three policemen in West London also attracted widespread public support for the death penalty's return.[47] Other subsequent high-profile cases to have sparked widespread media and public calls for the death penalty's return include "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe, convicted in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others in the north of England,[48] Roy Whiting, who murdered a seven-year-old girl in West Sussex in 2000,[49] and Ian Huntley, a Cambridgeshire school caretaker who killed two 10-year-old girls in 2002.[50]

text: A November 2009 television survey showed that 70% favoured reinstating the death penalty for at least one of the following crimes: armed robbery, rape, crimes related to paedophilia, terrorism, adult murder, child murder, child rape, treason, child abuse or kidnapping. However, respondents only favoured capital punishment for adult murder, the polling question asked by other organisations such as Gallup, by small majorities or pluralities: overall, 51% favoured the death penalty for adult murder, while 56% in Wales did, 55% in Scotland, and only 49% in England.[51]

text: In August 2011, the Internet blogger Paul Staines—who writes a political blog as Guido Fawkes and heads the Restore Justice Campaign—launched an e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for the restoration of the death penalty for those convicted of the murder of children and police officers.[52] The petition was one of several in support or opposition of capital punishment to be published by the government with the launch of its e-petitions website. Petitions attracting 100,000 signatures would prompt a parliamentary debate on a particular topic, but not necessarily lead to any Parliamentary Bills being put forward.[53] When the petition closed on 4 February 2012 it had received 26,351 signatures in support of restoring capital punishment,[54] but a counter-petition calling to retain the ban on capital punishment received 33,455 signatures during the same time period.[55]

text: Also in August 2011, a representative survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion showed that 65% of Britons support reinstating the death penalty for murder in Great Britain, while 28% oppose this course of action. Men and respondents aged over 35 are more likely to endorse the change.[56]

text: In March 2015 a survey by the NatCen British Social Attitudes Report showed that public support for the death penalty had dropped to 48 per cent.[57]

text: Parliamentary debates on reintroduction[edit]

text: After Royal Assent for the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, supporters in Parliament have made several attempts to reintroduce capital punishment. On 23 November 1966, Duncan Sandys was refused leave to bring in a Bill to restore capital punishment for the murder of police or prison officers, by a vote of 170 to 292.[58] Motions to make the five-year suspension of capital punishment under the 1965 Act permanent were opposed, but agreed by 343 to 185 in the House of Commons;[59] in the House of Lords, an amendment to continue with a temporary suspension of capital punishment until 31 July 1973 was rejected by 174 to 220.[60] In April 1973, the House of Commons voted against reintroduction.[61]

text: The deaths of civilians in several IRA bombings in 1974 prompted a renewed debate. On 11 December 1974 Brian Walden moved a motion declaring that "the death penalty would neither deter terrorists nor increase the safety of the public"; Jill Knight moved an amendment calling instead for introduction of legislation providing for death to be the penalty for acts of terrorism causing death. Her amendment was rejected by 217 to 369.[62] A year later, Ivan Lawrence's motion "That this House demands capital punishment for terrorist offences causing death" was rejected by 232 to 361.[63]

text: After the Conservatives' victory in the 1979 general election, Eldon Griffiths (Parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation of England and Wales) moved a motion "that the sentence of capital punishment should again be available to the courts" on 19 July 1979.[64] While the motion was not expected to pass, the margin of its defeat (243 to 362) was much wider than expected.[65] Later in the same Parliament, the Criminal Justice Bill provided an opportunity on 11 May 1982 for several new clauses to be proposed which would have reinstated capital punishment. The first, which simply declared that "A person convicted of murder shall be liable to capital punishment", was tabled by Edward Gardner, and rejected by 195 to 357.[66] It was followed by an alternative under which capital punishment would be available "as the penalty for an act of terrorism involving the loss of human life"; this new clause was rejected by 176 to 332.[67] A further new clause proposing capital punishment "as the penalty for murder by means of firearms or explosives" was rejected by 176 to 343.[68] Then a new clause allowing for capital punishment "as the penalty for murder of a police or prison officer" was rejected by 208 to 332.[69] Finally a new clause allowing capital punishment "as the penalty for murder in the course of robbery and burglary which involves the use of offensive weapons" was rejected by 151 to 331.[70]

text: The new Parliament in 1983 again prompted supporters of capital punishment to put their case. Sir Edward Gardner's motion "That this House favours the restoration of the death penalty for murder" was debated on 13 July 1983, with several amendments moved to restrict capital punishment to certain categories of murder. The amendments were voted on first: capital punishment for murder "resulting from acts of terrorism" was rejected by 245 to 361, for murder "of a police officer during the course of his duties" by 263 to 344, for murder "of a prison officer during the course of his duties" by 252 to 348, for murder "by shooting or causing an explosion" by 204 to 374, and for murder "in the course or furtherance of theft" by 194 to 369. The main motion was then defeated by 223 to 368.[71] Towards the end of the Parliament, a new clause proposed to the Criminal Justice Bill proposed to return the death penalty for "A person convicted by the unanimous verdict of a jury of the premeditated killing of another person or of knowingly and intentionally killing another person in a manner, or for a reason, or in circumstances which a reasonable person would consider to be evil" was rejected by 230 to 342 on 1 April 1987.[72]

text: The Criminal Justice Bill in 1988 provided a further opportunity for a debate; the new clause proposed by Roger Gale allowed for the jury in a murder case to "have the power, upon reaching a verdict of guilt of murder, to recommend .. death in the manner authorised by law". It was rejected by 218 to 341.[73]

text: The aforementioned bills were rejected despite support from then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.[74]

text: On 17 December 1990 a new Criminal Justice Bill again saw amendments designed to reintroduce capital punishment. The first covered anyone over 18 "convicted of the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty" and was rejected by 215 to 350;[75] a general reintroduction of death as the penalty for murder (with special provision for the Court of Appeal to decide whether to substitute a life sentence) was then rejected by 182 to 367.[76] Capital punishment for "murder committed by means of firearms, explosives or an offensive weapon, or for the murder of a police or prison officer" was rejected by 186 to 349.[77]

text: The most recent Parliamentary debate on a question proposing reintroduction of capital punishment came on 21 February 1994 when new clauses to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill were moved. The first, providing for death as the sentence for "the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty", was rejected by 186 to 383;[78] A new clause providing for general reintroduction with power for the Court of Appeal to substitute life imprisonment was rejected by 159 to 403.[79] This would have been aimed at terrorists in the Northern Ireland conflict.[80]

text: In June 2013 a new bill for capital punishment in England and Wales was introduced. This Bill has been withdrawn and will not progress any further.[81]

text: Parties' stance on the issue[edit]

text: This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: The following parties support the reintroduction of capital punishment:

text:
National Front (NF)
British National Party (BNP)
British Democratic Party
Britain First

text: Notable executions in the United Kingdom[edit]

text: United Kingdom of Great Britain, 1707–1801[edit]

text:
16 November 1724: Jack Sheppard, housebreaker, was hanged at Tyburn for burglary after four successful escape attempts from jail. His partner-in-crime, highwayman Joseph "Blueskin" Blake, was executed for the same burglary five days earlier.
24 May 1725: Jonathan Wild, criminal overlord and fraudulent "Thief Taker General", was hanged at Tyburn for receiving stolen goods and thus aiding criminals.
7 April 1739: Dick Turpin, famous highwayman, was hanged.
30 July 1746: nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason at Kennington Common (now Kennington Park).
9 April 1747: Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, Jacobite leader and Scottish Clan chief, at Tower Hill, the last man to be publicly beheaded in Britain.
3 October 1750: James MacLaine, 'The Gentleman Highwayman', was hanged at Tyburn, London
14 March 1757: John Byng became the only British admiral executed, by firing squad by the Royal Navy. His crime was having failed to "do his utmost" at the Battle of Minorca during the Seven Years' War.
5 May 1760: Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers was executed at Tyburn for the murder of a servant.[82] He was the last peer to be hanged (reputedly by a silken rope) and is the only peer to have been hanged for murder.
18 March 1789: Catherine Murphy, a counterfeiter, was the last woman in England to be burned at the stake (though she was in fact strangled before the fire was lit, and thus not literally burned to death). The penalty of burning at the stake, which at the time applied to women and not to men, was abolished the next year.[83]

text: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1801–1922[edit]

text:
13 November 1805: Richard Harding was hanged for knowingly uttering playing cards with forged ace of spades.
18 May 1812: John Bellingham was hanged for the murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
8 September 1820: Andrew Hardie and John Baird were hanged and beheaded at Stirling after being tried for their part in the Radical War in Scotland.
11 August 1828: William Corder was hanged at Bury St Edmunds for the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn a year before.
9 August 1856: Elizabeth Martha Brown was the last woman to be hanged in public in the English county of Dorset; her hanging is notable in part because it influenced Thomas Hardy, an eyewitness, in his portrayal of the execution of the fictional heroine of Tess of the D'Urbervilles.
27 August 1861: Martin Doyle was the last person to be hanged for attempted murder, at Chester.
14 November 1864: Franz Muller was hanged for the murder of Thomas Briggs, the first murder committed on a British train.
2 April 1868: Frances Kidder was the last woman to be hanged in public in Britain.[84]
26 May 1868: Michael Barrett was executed at Newgate Prison for the murder of 12 people during the Fenian bombing at Clerkenwell, the last public hanging in the UK.
19 July 1899: Mary Ansell was hanged at St Albans, for poisoning her sister. At 22, she was the youngest woman to be hanged in the post-1868 'modern era' (non-public, and by the 'long drop' method).
23 November 1910: Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged in London's Pentonville Prison for poisoning his wife.
8 September 1914: Private Thomas Highgate was executed by firing squad, the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during World War I.
13 August 1915: George Joseph Smith was hanged in Maidstone Prison for the pattern of serial killings known as the "Brides in the Bath Murders".
3 August 1916: Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville for treason due to his colluding with Germany to smuggle weapons into Ireland in support of the Easter Rising.

text: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1922–1964[edit]

text:
9 January 1923: Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, in London's Holloway and Pentonville Prisons respectively, for the murder of Thompson's husband. The case was controversial because, although in letters Thompson had fantasised about the possible elimination of her husband, there was no firm evidence that she was in any way connected with the murder for which she was hanged.
3 January 1931: Victor Betts for murder committed during the course of a robbery. The case had established that a person need not be present when a crime is committed to be regarded as an accessory after the fact.[85]
31 July 1940: Udham Singh, an Indian independence activist, at Pentonville Prison. He had assassinated the Indian administrator Sir Michael O'Dwyer.
15 August 1941: Josef Jakobs, a German spy, was executed by firing squad, the last execution in the Tower of London.
19 December 1945; John Amery, a British fascist and Nazi collaborator, pleaded guilty of eight charges of treason. Hanged at Wandsworth Prison in London.
3 January 1946: William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw", for treason in London's Wandsworth Prison. He was an American citizen, but was convicted of treason because, as the holder of a British passport (albeit fraudulently obtained), he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign. Theodore Schurch, hanged for treachery the next day, was the last person to be executed for an offence other than murder; he was executed at Pentonville. As a member of the armed forces he had been tried by court-martial.
27 February 1947: Walter Rowland in Manchester for the murder of Olive Balchin despite maintaining his innocence. While he had been awaiting execution, another man confessed to the crime. A Home Office report dismissed the latter's confession as a fake, but in 1951 he attacked another woman and was found guilty but insane.[86]
12 January 1949: Margaret Allen, aged 43, for killing a 70-year-old woman in the course of a robbery, the first woman to be hanged in Britain for 12 years.
10 August 1949: John George Haigh, the "acid-bath murderer", at Wandsworth.
9 March 1950: Timothy Evans at Pentonville for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place, North West London. He initially claimed to have killed his wife, but later withdrew the claim. A fellow inhabitant at the same address, John Christie, later found to be a sexual serial killer, gave key evidence against Evans. Christie was executed in 1953 for the murder of his own wife. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966. In 2004 the Court of Appeal refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved. See John Christie (murderer).
28 March 1950: George Kelly at Liverpool for murder, but had his conviction quashed posthumously by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.
25 April 1952: Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns, for killing a woman during a robbery in Liverpool. They claimed that they had been doing a different burglary in Manchester, and others involved in the crime supported this. A Home Office report rejected this evidence. Huge crowds gathered outside Liverpool's Walton Prison as they were executed.
3 September 1952: Mahmood Hussein Mattan, a Somali seaman, in Cardiff for murder. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction posthumously in 1998[87] after hearing that crucial evidence implicating another Somali was withheld at his trial.
28 January 1953: Derek Bentley at Wandsworth Prison as an accomplice to the murder of a police officer by his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig. Craig, a minor, was not executed and instead served 10 years. Bentley was granted a partial posthumous pardon on 29 July 1993, and the Court of Appeal fully overturned his conviction on 30 July 1998.
15 July 1953: John Christie at Pentonville for the murder of his wife Ethel. Christie was a serial killer and had murdered at least six other women (see also entry on Timothy Evans above).
13 December 1954: Styllou Christofi, aged 53, penultimate woman executed in Britain.
13 July 1955: Ruth Ellis, aged 28, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was the 15th and youngest woman hanged in the 20th century.
6 May 1958: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea, the last person to be executed in Wales.
11 July 1958: Peter Manuel, aged 31, second to last person to be hanged in HM Prison Barlinnie and the third to last to be hanged in Scotland.
5 November 1959: Guenther Podola, the last person to be hanged for the murder of a policeman.
10 November 1960: Francis Forsyth, the last 18-year-old to be executed in Britain.
22 December 1960: Anthony Miller, 19, in Glasgow's Barlinnie Prison, the last teenager to be executed in Britain.
20 December 1961: Robert McGladdery, 25, in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland, for the murder of Pearl Gamble in Newry.
4 April 1962: James Hanratty at Bedford after a controversial rape-murder trial. In 2002 Hanratty's body was exhumed and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction after Hanratty's DNA was linked to crime scene samples.
15 August 1963: Henry Burnett, aged 21, at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan, the last hanging in Scotland.
13 August 1964: Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West, the last people executed in Britain.[21][88]