The Remarkable Tale of Margaret Dickson: The Woman Who Survived the Hangman’s Noose
In 1724, a young woman from Edinburgh named Margaret Dickson was accused of concealing her pregnancy and killing her newborn child. Despite her insistence on her innocence, she was sentenced to be hanged at the age of just 22. Against all odds, Margaret survived the execution and went on to lead a long life, which she believed was saved by a divine miracle. However, some rumoured that her seduction the evening before of the hangman may have played a part in her miraculous survival. How Maggie managed to do that in prison and the high chance of gossip around a salacious execution as it was makes this a dubious theory. Margaret, known as Maggie, was born around 1702 in Edinburgh into a large family. She married a local fisherman from Musselburgh and supported their household by selling fish and salts around Edinburgh. Life then was difficult; conditions were poor in the city for most. It was not entirely easy to make a living but with two adults working it could be done. In 1722, her husband mysteriously disappeared, most likely having been forcibly impressed into the Navy. With her husband gone, Maggie struggled to make ends meet and eventually found work at an inn in the Scottish Borders.
While working at the inn, Maggie became pregnant, apparently by the innkeeper’s son. Facing the social and spiritual stigmas of being pregnant while her husband was absent, she concealed her condition. After giving birth prematurely, she was arrested when a newborn boy was found dead by the River Tweed. Despite unclear circumstances surrounding the baby’s death, Maggie was charged under the Concealment of Pregnancy Act, a crime punishable by death at the time.
The Trial
During the trial, no evidence of violence was found on the baby’s body. Maggie vehemently pled her innocence, never deviating from her insistence she did not murder her child. A doctor’s testimony that the baby’s lungs floated in water led the jury to believe the child had been born alive. Consequently, Maggie was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. While awaiting execution, she admitted to fornication but again maintained she had not committed murder, explaining she had concealed the pregnancy out of a consuming fear of public shame.
On August 2, 1724, Maggie was hanged in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. After she was pronounced dead, it’s rumoured a scuffle broke out over her body between her family and medical students. Fate possibly saved her from a gruesome future on a surgeon’s autopsy table because the corpses of criminals were commonly used for training future doctors. (A deeper insight into that world can be found by investigating two other notable Edinburgh characters, Burke and Hare. See Edward Duvall’s piece on the Arthur’s Seat Coffins.)
Half Hangit Maggie
Eventually, and fortunately for Maggie, her brother managed to place her in a coffin and began the journey back to Musselburgh for burial. During a stop at Peffermill, noises were heard from the coffin, and upon opening it, Maggie was found to be alive. To the shock of onlookers (and indeed Maggie herself) she sat upright, very much alive.
Scots law at the time meant the declaration of her death legally prevented a second execution. Speculation arose about how she survived, with some suggesting the hangman, John Dalgleish had forgotten to tie her hands before putting the noose on her so that she may have managed to somehow avoid her neck being broken. This is also where the rumour she had seduced him most likely came from. Out of gratitude for her survival Maggie dedicated her life to prayer and fasting every Wednesday. She eventually happily reunited with her husband, remarried, and had several more children, living for another 40 years until her death around 1765.
This has been the enduring Edinburgh tale of how many years ago an otherwise unremarkable woman named Margaret Dickson, affectionately now known as “Half-Hangit Maggie,” became a local legend. Today, a pub named ‘Maggie Dickson’s’ stands in the Grassmarket, in the very vicinity where she narrowly escaped death. Visitors to Edinburgh may wish to visit this popular little pub to raise a glass in memory of the woman who survived a hanging by being only and most fortunately ‘half hangit’.
