Elizabeth Martha Brown

Elizabeth Martha Brown (c. 1811 – 9 August 1856), née Clark, previously Bearn was the last woman to be publicly hanged in Dorset, England. She was executed outside Dorchester Prison after being convicted of the murder of her second husband, John Brown, on 6 July, just thirty-five days earlier. The prosecution said she had attacked him with a hatchet after he had taken a whip to her.

Life Martha Brown was born as Elizabeth Martha Clarke in 1811 in Whitehurch, Dorset. At 20, she married Bernard Bearn and had two sons Willam and Thomas who both died young and within a month of each other. Bernard Bearn died after 10 years of marriage, leaving her the sum of £50. She found work as the housekeeper to two farming brothers John and Robert Symes who held Blackmanston Farm in the Purbeck hills. Martha was housekeeper to the Symes brothers for 14 years and John Symes described her as “a most kind and inoffensive woman.”. The solicitor Harriet Wistrich, the founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice and the co-founder of the campaigning organisation Justice for Women, has stated that she thinks Brown "snapped".

Brown was hanged for the murder of her husband on Saturday 9 August 1856. "I remember what a fine figure she showed against the sky as she hung in the misty rain," he wrote elsewhere, "and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape as she wheeled half-round and back."

Remains In 2016, it was reported that remains unearthed at the site of Dorchester prison in Dorset may belong to Brown. In 2018 it was reported that Martha may be re-buried with others in the Poundbury Cemetery, should she not be buried in the churchyard at Blackdown, where her husband's remains lie.

Dorchester Prison mosaic It was the digging of Brown's grave within the Dorchester Prison precinct that led to the discovery of a mosaic from a Roman town house. Two years later it was re-exposed during the burial of James Searle, it was then laid into the floor of the prison chapel. It was moved to Dorset Museum in 1885 and can now be viewed on the wall of the stairs leading to the library.

In popular culture A Dorset-based company, Angel Exit Theatre, produced a play called The Ballad of Martha Brown based on the life and times of Martha Brown. The play premiered at Deverills Festival in Wiltshire on 3 May 2014 and continued on a tour of the South West and South East. In September – October 2015 it again toured the UK.

In 1995, Australian band The Lucksmiths released the track "Thomas & Martha" based on Thomas Hardy's recollections of the event.

The case was re-examined in the BBC programme Murder, Mystery and My Family (series 4, episode 9).

Brown was Featured on Lucy Worsley's Lady Killers in January 2026.