The Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868 (31…

The Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict.\ c.24) receives Royal Assent on May 29, 1868, putting an end to public executions in the United Kingdom.

The Act requires that all prisoners sentenced to death be executed within the walls of the prison in which they are being held, and that their bodies be buried in the prison grounds.

The Act is prompted at least in part by the efforts of reformers such as Sir Robert Peel and Charles Dickens, who had called in the national press for an end to the "grotesque spectacle" of public executions.

Abolition of public executions had been one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1864-1866.

A similar measure, the Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill, had been introduced in 1867 but had failed for lack of parliamentary time.