If you should happen to be stravaiging The Royal Mile today, near the corner of the High Street and George IV Bridge, you might notice three curious brass plates set into the pavement. If you were to then look around you, you might also notice a brass plaque on the wall nearest these plates, which records that it was on this spot, on the 21st of June 1864, that George Bryce became the last person to be publicly executed in Edinburgh. What it does not record, however, is why he was the last.
George Bryce's life was unremarkable. Born and raised in Ratho, just outside of Edinburgh, he was the son of an innkeeper and made his living as a carter. He was described at the time as being “simple”. In 1863, he took a job at a large house just outside of Ratho, where he met and began an affair with a young cook named Isabelle. This relationship drew some disapproval; most of all from Isabelle's friend Jane Seton, a 23-year-old nursery maid. Seton told the girl that Bryce was a drunkard, and that she should break it off with him for her own safety. Isabelle broke with Bryce shortly thereafter, telling him that he was “no good for her” on account of his drinking, and mentioning Seton’s distaste for him.
Enraged, Bryce returned to the house late at night, broke in, and attacked Seton in the nursery. After a struggle, during which the entire household attempted to restrain Bryce, Seton escaped the house. Bryce struggled free and took off in pursuit. He caught Seton at the door of a nearby cottage and cut her throat with a razor, before fleeing into the night. He was caught by the next morning, and offered no resistance to arrest.
Word of the brutal murder spread quickly through the region, and by the time Bryce came to trial everyone had heard about the viciousness of "The Ratho Murderer". Hearsay aside, Bryce knew that with so many witnesses to his crime, he had no chance of evading justice in the courtroom. He pled guilty, and despite pleas for leniency on account of his reduced mental capacity, the court sentenced him to hang.
Public executions were becoming less frequent events in Scotland by the middle of the 19th Century: although there remained over 200 crimes in Scots law for which death was the mandatory sentence, in practice the vast majority of those sentences were commuted to transportation to the colonies. As a result, where there had once been at least a dozen official places of execution scattered throughout Edinburgh (not counting the occasional temporary scaffold set up when the accused was sentenced to die on the site of their crime), there were now sufficiently few actual hangings that there was only need for a single gallows, located between the Lawnmarket and the High Street on the Royal Mile. The process had even been made somewhat more “civilised” since the introduction of the trapdoor mechanism which caused the condemned person's neck to break, ensuring a quick death. However, the rarity of the spectacle made it all the more thrilling for the public whenever a hanging did take place, and the execution of a criminal as renowned as Bryce was certain to draw a crowd.
So it was, on this morning in 1864, that thousands gathered on the Royal Mile to witness Bryce's death. Feelings were running high, and the atmosphere was a strange combination of lynch-mob and carnival. Stories of the brutality of the murder -- both accurate and exaggerated -- had circulated among the taverns and drawing-rooms of Edinburgh for months, and the sense of outrage had grown to fever pitch. When the prisoner was led out onto the Mile, he was greeted by a roar of triumphant hatred from the assembled mob. He was escorted to the scaffold, pelted with stones and spoiled produce, and jeered at as he went. The abuse was unrelenting even as he stood on the trapdoor with the noose about his neck, and the bombardment continued while the attending minister attempted to give Bryce his final prayers. A hush eventually fell, in the moments before the final, fatal signal was given.
Most of those attending the execution would have known what to expect at that signal: the trap would open and the condemned man would drop out of sight through it, the area under the scaffold being screened off from public view by black drapes. Unfortunately, this execution would not go as planned, and ironically this was partly because of the reforms already accomplished. Since there were far fewer executions taking place in Edinburgh at that time, the council had long since retired the permanent post of hangman for the city, preferring instead to loan executioners from other cities as and when they were needed. On this occasion, they chose to go with the lowest bidder for the job: one Thomas Askern, previously the hangman for York.
Reports from the time allege that Askern was drunk, malicious, or had lied about his qualifications. Whatever the truth may have been, the fact is that he failed to measure out the length of rope needed to drop Bryce to his death. When the trap opened, far from meeting a quick and painless end, Bryce fell barely two feet and began to slowly strangle to death in full view of the now baying crowd. The mood changed swiftly, as was often the case at such an event: the mob's hatred for the condemned had peaked at the moment of execution and was now spent. Thus, as the minutes dragged on and they were forced to watch Bryce suffer terribly through his final moments, they began to redirect their abuse towards the authorities.
Those worthies were themselves helpless, since interference at this stage was impossible, and were compelled to flee the scene by a hail of stones. Reports of how long it took George Bryce to die vary, with the shortest estimate being around twelve minutes, and the longest being nearly forty. In any case, it was hours before the ensuing riot could be safely dispersed. Thomas Askern narrowly escaped being dragged from the scaffold and beaten to death, and had to be smuggled out of the city in disguise early the next morning.
In the aftermath of this dreadful mess, the town council gathered to assess its failings. The botched execution of George Bryce, and the unseemly behaviour of the crowd which had preceded it, had made it quite apparent that public executions no longer had any place in civilised society, least of all in a city which prided itself on being the "Athens of the North" and the birthplace of Scottish Enlightenment. It was decided that from that time onwards, all executions would be carried out in private, in a specially constructed cell of the new Calton Prison. Not only would this prevent the obscene spectacle of a mob taunting one about to die, but there the last drop could be carefully controlled to ensure that they were at least spared the painful death by slow strangulation which many had suffered on the public gallows. The decision was in keeping with the times: the very next year saw the last ever public execution in Scotland, at Glasgow Green. Scotland had, seemingly, finally lost the taste for such barbarity.