www.lesswrong.com/posts/SGRNbiMi8cojHYtk5/a-400-year-timeline-of-failed-attempts...
3 corrections found
13-year-old Andrew Benning was hanged for stealing... a spoon.
The boy’s name is recorded as Andrew Branning/Brenning, not “Benning,” and archival records show he was still alive after 1801, so the claim that he was hanged is incorrect.
Full reasoning
The linked TIME article itself names the boy Andrew Brenning, not “Benning.” More importantly, a record in The National Archives (UK) shows a petition concerning Andrew Branning in September 1802, describing him as a convict on board the hulks at Langston Harbour after his 1801 conviction for burglary of a silver spoon. If he was on a prison hulk in 1802, he was not hanged in 1801.
So there are two factual problems here:
- The name is wrong in the post (
Benningvs. archival formsBranning/ later retellingsBrenning). - The execution claim is wrong: archival evidence shows he survived the 1801 sentence and was still in custody in 1802.
This does not make the underlying point about the brutality of the law false — he was apparently sentenced to death for stealing a spoon — but the post overstates what happened to him.
2 sources
- National Affairs: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: A FADING PRACTICE
In 1801, for example, Andrew Brenning, 13, was hanged for breaking into a house and stealing a spoon.
- Folio(s) 497-504. Letter from Robert Joseph Flinn requesting help with regard to 12 year... | The National Archives
Also letter of 9 September from Flynn enclosing the petition to the Home Secretary of Andrew Branning (in his 12th year) and John Branning (in his 17th year), convicts on board the hulks, lying at Langston Harbour, near Portsmouth. The convicts were tried and convicted at the Old Bailey, Middlesex, in February 1801, for burglary of a silver spoon at the house of Sarah Dane in Oxford Road and were sentenced to death.
In the time of King Athelstan, 12 pence would buy you a sturdy ox.
This overstates the buying power of 12 pence. In Æthelstan’s reign, an ox was valued at a mancus, and a mancus was worth 30 silver pennies.
Full reasoning
A scholarly discussion in the British Numismatic Journal notes that in an ordinance from Æthelstan’s reign, “an ox is valued variously at a mancus and at thirty pence.” Separately, Art Fund’s description of an Anglo-Saxon mancus explains that a mancus had a nominal value of 30 silver pennies.
So if an ox was priced at one mancus, and one mancus was 30 pence, then 12 pence would not buy an ox. The article’s sentence appears to understate the price of an ox by roughly a factor of 2.5.
2 sources
- Mancus of Coenwulf, King of Mercia - Art Fund
A mancus has a nominal value of 30 silver pennies.
- Historical Problems of Anglo-Saxon Coinage—(3) (British Numismatic Journal)
In the ordinance of the bishops and reeves of the London district in Athelstan's reign an ox is valued variously at a mancus and at thirty pence.
Professor of Medicine at Oxford
William Petty was not Oxford’s professor of medicine. He studied medicine and held anatomy posts there, especially Tomlins Reader/Professor of Anatomy.
Full reasoning
The Oxford history page for the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics identifies William Petty as “Tomlins Reader of Anatomy” at Oxford. Standard biographical references likewise describe him as a physician and professor of anatomy at Oxford, not as Oxford’s professor of medicine.
So the post confuses Petty’s medical training and career as a physician with the specific academic office he actually held at Oxford, which was in anatomy, not medicine.
2 sources
- 17th Century - Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics (DPAG)
William Petty, Tomlins Reader of Anatomy, and Thomas Willis, the Sedlian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford, in 1650 revived a domestic servant...
- Sir William Petty | Scientific Method, Surveying, Cartography | Britannica
He was successively a physician, a professor of anatomy at Oxford, a professor of music in London, inventor, surveyor and landowner in Ireland, and a member of Parliament.