Margaret Dickson, known as Maggie Dickson and later Half-Hangit Maggie, lived in the early 18th century as a fish seller. When her husband deserted her in 1723, she was forced to leave the city and move to Kelso, near the Scottish Borders.
Baby Death
In return for basic lodgings, she worked for an innkeeper. Soon after she arrived, she started a relationship with the innkeeper’s son and fell pregnant. Afraid that she would be dismissed from her job, she kept the pregnancy secret.
The baby was born prematurely and died within a few days of birth. She carried on hiding the baby’s existence, planning to throw the child into the River Tweed. In the end, she couldn’t do this, so she left the baby on the riverbank.
The same day, the baby was discovered and traced back to Maggie. She was arrested and tried in Edinburgh. The Act Concealing of Child-Baring (1690) made concealing a pregnancy grounds for a presumed murder charge if the infant died, so she was tried under this specific statute which carried a mandatory death penalty.
She was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.
Resurrection
Maggie was hanged on 2 September 1724 and pronounced dead. Her body was cut down, nailed into a coffin, and put into a cart. On the route to Musselburgh to be buried, a knocking and banging was heard coming from the coffin.
When the lid was lifted, there was Maggie, quite alive. She was well enough to walk the rest of the way to Musselburgh.
Under Scottish law, you were sentenced to be “hanged until dead.” Maggie was freed because her sentence had been carried out and her official death certificate was treated as fulfilled The public viewed her survival as an act of God, making a second execution politically and socially dangerous to attempt. Incidentally, she was now free from her marriage. This would not have been the case had she been hanged in England.
Maggie lived for another forty years. She became a local celebrity and picked up the nickname of “Half-Hangit Maggie”.
Some are happy to see her survival as an act of God, while others state she may have seduced and manipulated the rope maker into making a weaker noose. Whatever the story, Maggie survived to see old age.
An Edinburgh pub was named after Maggie, and free beer is given to all patrons on the day of her resurrection.
Be sure to check out our deep-dive article on Monday, where we look at another amazing feat of survival against the odds.
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I assume hearing Maggie pounding inside her coffin caused those thinking she was dead to soil their trousers!
I love this story!! This is God’s work, no doubt. How evil to sentence a woman to death for concealing a baby’s birth and death.