Friday, Sept. 19, Dr. Michelle D. Brock stood in front of a small and engaged audience at the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts at Pittsburg State University and lectured on one of Scotland’s historical tales to promote her upcoming book, “An Unnatural Woman: The Remarkable Life of Margaret Dickson.” The book tells the story of Margaret Dickson, an 18th century woman who survived execution in one of the most “shocking and intriguing” cases of its time.
Brock, a professor and head of the history department at Washington and Lee University, visited Pitt State as part of this fall’s women’s lecture series. She based her talk on the research for her upcoming book as she traced the transformation of a “humble fishwife” from the small town of Musselburgh into a national curiosity, folk legend, and women’s case study remembered and retold for centuries.
Her current work seeks to unravel fact from folklore and to offer a deeper and more refined view on a woman whose survival challenged ideas about religion, gender, culture, and the law itself.
“In her lifetime and ours, Margaret Dickson became a spectacle, a celebrity, a literary inspiration, and a stop on ghost tours,” Brock said.
Dickson’s story begins in the year 1724 when she was accused and convicted of murdering her newborn child. The baby was likely a stillbirth, but Dickson had hidden the pregnancy, which was then considered a criminal act under Scottish law. At that time, if a woman concealed a pregnancy and was later found with a deceased infant, they were presumed guilty of infanticide unless they could prove otherwise – an extremely difficult thing for women in her position.
Dickson was sentenced to death by hanging. Her public execution took place in Edinburgh’s Grass market, where crowds of witnesses gathered to watch the punishment be carried out. As her body was placed in a wooden coffin and sent on its way for burial, somewhere along the road, according to many historical recounts, the coffin began to shake and knock. Margaret Dickson had survived the execution.
“The law had no precedent for this,” Brock said. “She had technically been executed. So, could she be hanged again? The answer was no; she was allowed to live.”
After the events unfolded, she became known widely as “Half-Hangit Maggie.” Dickson became a well-known public sensation. Many debated the logical and legal implications of her survival, with some theorizing that the coffin’s shaking had jolted her heart back to life. Others believed she may have seduced the executioner to let her live. Either way, her story becomes a lasting part of Scottish folklore, and as Brock suggests, a mirror into society’s views on crime, gender, and remembrance.
Brock’s retelling was a sensational, yet critical exploration of how women, like Dickson, were bound by restrictive patriarchal norms.
“Margaret offers an insight into how normal women are misjudged and judged, both in their own time, and centuries after,” Brock said. “History has remembered Margaret Dickson as a villain, a witch, and a victim. But perhaps it is time we remember her as what she really was, an ordinary woman caught in quite incredible circumstances.”