Treason Act 1814

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The Treason Act 1814 (citation 54 Geo. III c. 146) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which modified the penalty for treason for male convicts. Originally the mandatory sentence for a man convicted of treason was hanging, drawing and quartering. The 1814 Act changed this punishment and replaced it with death by hanging, followed by posthumous quartering. In 1870 the Act was amended so that the penalty became simply hanging, which was the method of execution for murder. The original penalty for women was burning at the stake, which was abolished by the Treason Act 1790 in Great Britain and in 1796 in Ireland. The Act also permitted the King to authorise the use of an alternative method, beheading, which was not abolished until 1973 in England and 1949 in Scotland (although obsolete long before then). The Act was amended by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 when the death penalty was abolished and replaced with imprisonment at the discretion of the court, up to life imprisonment.

The last execution under the Act was of William Joyce in 1946, for assisting the Third Reich during the Second World War.