MovieChat Forums > Oliver Twist (1951) Discussion > What was Fagin hanged for?

What was Fagin hanged for?

posted 16 years ago by that_ealing_feeling
8 replies | jump to latest

This is an implausibility in Dickens's novel that David Lean's splendid film follows, presumably for dramatic reasons. But the fact is that in the 1830s, when the novel is set, capital punishment in Britain had in law and in practice effectively become reserved for murder, and there's nothing in the book or the film to suggest that Fagin had committed that crime - he may, arguably, have been an accessory to Nancy's murder, at the very worst, but even that was not a capital crime.

[–] chris_slipknot2004 16 years ago

Judgement of Death Act 1823 only gave judges the discretion to pass a lesser sentence for less serious crimes so Fagin could still have been hanged for his crimes if a judge saw fit

[–] ender342 15 years ago

It's a bit more complicated than the above posts state.

Excerpts from the website 'Timeline of capital punishment in Britain.'
http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/timeline.html

# 31st of December 1829. Last hanging for forgery - Thomas Maynard at Newgate. This crime was reclassified as non capital in 1832.

# 16th of December 1830. Last hangings at Execution Dock, Wapping - George Davis and William Watts executed for piracy.

In all, 26 men were hanged at Execution Dock during the 19th century, mainly for murder and piracy, after conviction in the High Court of the Admiralty.

# 1831. A boy of just 9 was reputed to have been hanged at Chelmsford for arson. However, it is probable that William Jennings was in fact 19. There is little evidence of young children actually being hanged in the 19th century, although they were regularly sentenced to death up to 1836/7.

1832-1837. Sir Robert Peel's government introduced various Bills to reduce the number of capital crimes. Shoplifting, sheep, cattle and horse stealing removed from the list in 1832, followed by sacrilege, letter stealing, returning from transportation (1834/5), forgery and coining (1836), arson, burglary and theft from a dwelling house (1837), rape (1841) and finally attempted murder in 1861.

# 26th of July 1833. Last hanging of a juvenile – Thomas Knapton, aged 17, is hanged for the rape of 19 year old Frances Elstone

The last hangings for robbery took place at Shrewsbury on the 13th of August 1836 when Lawrence Curtis and Patrick and Edward Donnelly were executed. The last hanging for arson was that of Daniel Case at Ilchester in Somerset on the 31st of August 1836.

# 1861. Criminal Law Consolidation Act reduced the number of capital crimes to 4: Murder, High Treason, Arson in a Royal Dockyard, (this was a separate offence, not High Treason) and Piracy.

# 27th of August 1861. Last execution for attempted murder when Martin Doyle suffered at Chester. Doyle was hanged after Royal Assent was given to the 1861

30th of September 1902. John MacDonald is the first of 120 men to be hanged at London's Pentonville prison. 2 men were hanged for treason (Roger Casement and Theodore Schurch) and six men were hanged for espionage (spying) during World War II. All other executions were for murder.

[–] jschillig 15 years ago

Besides, did they have the "accessory to murder" charge in England in 1823? He incited Bill to murder Nancy--at the very least, he knew what Bill had in mind and did nothing to stop it.

[–] NSurone 15 years ago

But that wouldn't be a capital crime, jschillig, even in Victorian times. I fear that Fagin was hanged mostly because he was a Jew, that's all.
Maybe Dickens wasn't an anti-Semite himself (neither was Shakespeare), but anti-Semitism was pervasive all throughout the European penninsula and the British Isles--just like it is today.

[–] jschillig 15 years ago

True dat. Many years after writing this, Dickens became friends with a Jewish banker whose wife took him to task for his portrayal of Fagin. Dickens' own eyes had been opened to his past prejudices and in a new edition of the book, he replaced many (not all, though) of the epithet "the Jew" with the proper name "Fagin." (The chapter title "The Jew's Last Night Alive" became "Fagin's Last Night Alive", for example.)

[–] Coolguy-7 14 years ago

And of course Fagin was not charged for child abuse.

[–] marktayloruk (2375) 2 years ago

William.Joyce and.John.Amery also hanged for treason.

[–] Rueiro 8 years ago

Probably purely out of racial hatred. In those day Jews were not well regarded by the majority of Christians. And Fagin being a thief, a cheater, a liar, grooming children into pickpocketing and so, surely there would be many magistrates who would be keen on wiping him out of society once and for all and who would think he wasn't even worth all the trouble of deporting him to Australia. So hang him. And if his crimes were not enough to pass capital punishment upon him, they could always frame him for buggery with the boys whether this ever had taken place of not. Sodomy was then punished by death, and the officers of the law could easily get false confessions from the boys through severe threats. So it would be very easy to charge Fagin and get rid of him in no time.