The Forerunner of the Guillotine

31 March 1307 marks the first recorded use of an execution machine that was to be the forerunner of the guillotine. In this instance, the victim was an Irishman, Murcod Ballagh. The machine, however, is believed to have been used in the Yorkshire town of Halifax from as early as 1280, and it is because of this association with the town that it came to be known as the 'Halifax Gibbet'. By 1564 a similar device, called 'The Maiden', was being used in Scotland.

On 10 October 1789, Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin attended the debate held by the National Assembly concerning France's Penal Code. He was against the death penalty, but when he saw that the government was determined to retain it, he proposed six articles, one of which recommended that death by decapitation and without torture should be the standard form of capital punishment in France. He researched various methods, including the Halifax Gibbet and The Maiden, and came up with the device that still bears his name, the Guillotine. Initially, the blade was straight or crescent-shaped, and legend has it that Louis XVI, himself interested in machinery and locks, suggested that the blade should be set at an angle for greater efficiency. Of course, Louis would become the highest ranking victim of the new machine, followed shortly by his queen, Marie-Antoinette and, later, the revolutionary, Maximillien Robespierre.