Britain Abolished the Death Penalty for Murder
On this day · 8 November 1965
On a single day in 1965, the gallows fell silent for murderers across Great Britain after centuries of judicial hanging.
On 8 November 1965, the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 received Royal Assent, ending capital punishment for murder across Great Britain. The law took effect the next day, 9 November 1965, replacing the rope with a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.
The measure began as a private member’s bill championed by Labour MP Sydney Silverman, a long-time campaigner against hanging. It cleared the House of Commons by 355 votes to 170 and survived the House of Lords by 204 to 104, reflecting how deeply the issue split Parliament and the public.
The Act suspended the death penalty for an initial trial period rather than scrapping it outright.
Abolition was made permanent in 1969, when MPs and peers voted to confirm it. The change closed a long chapter of British justice: the last executions had taken place in 1964. The Act covered England, Wales and Scotland, while Northern Ireland followed later, cementing a historic shift in how the state punished its gravest crime.
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