 The burning in 1789 of Christian Murphy , for coining , received practically no attention from the newspapers ( perhaps owing to practical limitations on how much news they could publish across only four pages ) , but it may have been enacted by Sir Benjamin Hammett , a former sheriff of London . Hammett was also an MP , and in 1790 he introduced to Parliament a Bill for <unk> the Sentence of Burning Women . He denounced the punishment as " the savage remains of Norman policy " which " disgraced our statutes " , as " the practice did the common law " . He also highlighted how a sheriff who refused to carry out the sentence was liable to prosecution . William Wilberforce and Hammett were not the first men to attempt to end the burning of women . Almost 140 years earlier , during the <unk> , a group of lawyers and <unk> known as the Hale Commission ( after its chairman Matthew Hale ) , was tasked by the House of Commons to take " into consideration what <unk> there are in the law " . Among the proposed reforms was the replacement of burning at the stake with hanging , but , mainly through the objections of various interested parties , none of the commission 's proposals made it into law during the <unk> Parliament . Hammett was confident though . He believed that public opinion was on his side and that " the House would go with him in the cause of humanity " . The change in execution venues , from <unk> to Newgate , also attracted criticism . Following Phoebe Harris 's burning in 1786 , as well as questioning the inequality of English law The Times complained about the location of the punishment and its effect on locals : 
