Fan of the morbid, gruesome, gory history a Britain? Then this is for you! And me!
A great book and an awesome addition to my library.

This one isn’t for the faint hearted and I struggled with some of the gruesome parts but it’s a really interesting read as it explains how the horrific methods of torture have evolved over time. Not a pleasant read but very informative.

Thankyou to NetGalley, Pen and Sword History and the author, Simon Webb, for the opportunity to read a digital copy of A History of Torture in Britain in exchange for and honest, unbiased opinion.
From the outset, it is obvious that there was a lot of research done that went into creating this book. I thought it was very informative and highly interesting. It was horrific what some people had to endure.
Well worth a read.

A History of Torture in Britain by renowned historian and author Simon Webb is a thorough exploration of the different types of torture and their uses. Having been hired as a consultant on the subject of capital punishment for several television programmes it is safe to say he is very knowledgeable on both the death penalty, as it later became known, and methods of torture. This is a great introduction to the topic but also is informally written and accessible and requires no prior knowledge to enjoy (although this seems like the wrong word in this respect).

I found myself with goosebumps a few times and some of the descriptions were really wince-inducing as I thought of the hell those subjected to these tactics must have felt. As you may have guessed this is far from a lighthearted, easy read as it's quite graphic in places but very, very interesting. The author explores the way in which torture techniques tie in with colonisation and slavery which was the most fascinating aspect for me. Written in chronological order it gets more difficult to read as the book progresses and touches on uses of torture from our recent past. The only criticism I have is that the frequency of exclamation marks was really strange and somewhat inappropriate given the subject matter. Overall, the vivid descriptions of the horrors perpetrated by Britain both here and abroad cannot fail to provoke an emotional reaction from readers and will remain in one's mind for the foreseeable.

Many thanks to Pen & Sword History for an ARC.

I really enjoyed this book and learning about the.methods of torture and their historical uses.
I feel it's such a specialised subject and this book would be suited to someone who had a lot of patience though and not someone who wants a lighter read

Anyone who has taught History knows that nothing excites young learners quite as much as descriptions of medieval torture, this book certainly provides that in spades. This book follows a largely chronological account of the history of torture in Britain, up to and including the recent past. It covers the differences between torture methods utilised in Scotland and England, and torture suffered by those in more far flung parts of the British empire such as India and Kenya. It is perhaps easier for readers to feel less outraged by the distant past than the more contemporary accounts of torture and I certainly found the book more difficult to read as I progressed through it.

The author provides detailed accounts of a variety of different torture methods, and the vivid descriptions made me wince more than once. The accounts of torture suffered by slaves in the West Indies makes for particularly grim reading. The book is written in a chatty, accessible style which might not appeal to more academic readers, but I enjoyed it for the most part. I’ve noticed a trend in recent years for non-fiction historical books to adopt a more casual style. Whether or not that is a good thing is an argument for another day, but it certainly makes for an easier read for most and would appeal more to the casual reader. My only real critique of the writing style would be the author’s almost criminal overuse of exclamation marks. This was distracting and sometimes seemed inappropriate in the context given.

The first half of the book is stronger, it begins to lose it a little towards the end where the author begins to wax lyrical about modern torture and the slightly naïve suggestion that torture is a thing of the past, if only that were true.

Overall this was an interesting and engaging read. It provides vivid descriptions of a variety of different torture methods used past and present throughout the British Isles and doesn’t fail to confront the very real horrors perpetuated by the British Empire throughout history.

"The truth is that torture is as British as cricket or crumpets", argues a book at pains (ha!) to disabuse readers of the notion that the practice was banned by Magna Carta*. Yet in other ways it's an endearingly naive account: the opening line offers the definition "Torture is the practice of inflicting severe pain on people, either to punish them or persuade them to say or do something", apparently unaware that there have always been plenty of people for whom inflicting severe pain is its own reward. Still, there is a useful distinction to be drawn, in that back in the day, differences between English** and Continental law, the latter of which required either eyewitnesses or confession, meant there was more call for interrogatory torture there, whereas here it was generally a matter of punishment. Contrary to the default image of a mediaeval dungeon, there was only one rack in Britain – 'the Duke of Exeter's daughter' – and that only in use for about a century. And the Privy Council were obliged to witness what torture they authorised - would that the same stomach were obliged for politicians who allow 'enhanced interrogation techniques' nowadays.

The line between torture and execution is necessarily hazy in places, but while the deliberately gorier demises do belong here, I'm not so sure about the amount of space devoted to more borderline cases, in particular the execution which is torturous simply through being botched - though it is interesting that Jack Ketch became the Hoover or Biro of executioners despite seemingly being a bit of a bungler. Still, the difficulty of a firm border was partly down to the way in which even for a prescribed punishment the degree of cruelty could vary hugely, depending not only on the skill of the hangman but on luck or the mood of the crowd - who were often sated by the first cruelties, thereafter tending to sympathy with the condemned, which was very much not the desired impact. Webb is not the world's finest prose stylist – he has the amateur's telltale love of exclamation marks! – but this does work fabulously well when he describes one particularly gruesome death as being thought, even at that more bloodthirsty time, "a bit much". My other favourite quote here, incidentally, was from Pepys, on one of the regicides being hanged, drawn and quartered - "he looking as cheerful as any man could do in that situation".
(A passage which, worryingly, I encountered in two different books within 24 hours, because it turned out I was reading this during the week of the anniversary of the regicide-icide)

Still, there's all manner of interesting information and consideration here, such as the way in which many punishments which seem ridiculous could in fact be horrific and crippling - consider the scold's bridle, ducking stool, riding the horse – on top of which you have the way the indignity can compound the suffering. Or consider the detail in which Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, offered as proof of one victim's guilt the impossibility of any human mind conceiving of the name 'Pyewacket'; I found this oddly reminiscent of those numpties who insist that Lovecraft or Hubbard must have been in contact with genuine inhuman intelligences, because how else could they have thought this crazy stuff up?

Some of the grimmest sections of the book are inevitably those which cover Britain's colonies - in particular the West Indies, where some slaveowners seem to have used torture pretty much for shits (literally) and giggles. It's telling that even in a history of torture, this is the one place where the author advises readers that they may wish to skip the next bit. Elsewhere, though, he does slightly overplay his hand. It's indubitably true that Britain, like other colonisers since time immemorial, used divide-and-rule tactics in conquered territories, and towards the end of Empire in particular preferred to let the locals do the torturing for the sake of clean hands and deniability. But when this lapses into the implication that the animosity between Greek and Turkish Cypriots was solely the fault of perfidious Albion's machinations...well. Stranger still, the sections on authorised atrocities carried out well within living memory segue into a portrait of the current state of affairs, distinguished by an entire and touching faith that police brutality is now entirely extinct, and that Britain would definitely never deport anyone to anywhere they might suffer torture. Would that we could all be so confident.

*A confusion stemming from 1215 also being the year that the Pope ordered the end of clerical participation in trial by ordeal, and later fostered by Edward Coke's late-career turn against torture and consequent search for legal precedent.

**Scotland, on the other hand, was well up for a spot of torture, whether that be inventive ad hoc methods of execution, or crushing a seven-year-old's fingers to get her mother's confession. I'm 1/8th Scottish, which I reckon is just enough for me to get away with jokes about that discrepancy, but I reckon I can let you do your own punchlines.
And yes, the Stuarts being the Stuarts, of course this discrepancy bred early modern extraordinary rendition.