British Executions

Edward Hartigan

Age: 58

Sex: male

Crime: murder

Date Of Execution: 27 Nov 1906

Crime Location: Peter Street, Portwood, Stockport

Execution Place: Knutsford

Method: hanging

Executioner: Henry Pierrepoint

Source: http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/

Edward Hartigan was convicted of the murder of his wife Catherine Hartigan 45 and sentenced to death.

He battered her to death in Stockport on 7 August 1906.

They were both addicted to drink and frequently quarrelled. On the evening of 7 August 1906 Edward Hartigan went home drunk and later Catherine Hartigan was found battered about the head and lying in a pool of blood with a bloodstained coal hammer by her side.

Edward Hartigan later surrendered himself to the police telling them that he had dashed his wife’s brains out.

His defence said that Catherine Hartigan had been so violent that Edward Hartigan had been afraid of her and that on one occasion she had thrown a lighted lamp at him and that he had not been right in the head ever since. The defence also stated that Edward Hartigan was so exasperated and so mad with drink that he was not the master of his understanding.

see National Archives - HO 144/839/146070

see Gloucester Citizen - Wednesday 07 November 1906

see Dundee Evening Telegraph - Monday 26 November 1906