Margaret Dickson

Margaret Dickson, better known as Maggie and nicknamed Half-Hanged or Half-Hangit Maggie, was a Scottish salt maker from Musselburgh who was found guilty for the concealment of her pregnancy and subsequent murder of her newborn and likely illegitimate child, though this child may have instead been stillborn. Dickson survived being hanged in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh in 1724, and sat up in her coffin at the village of Peffer Mill while being transported to her grave in Inveresk. Under Scottish law, her sentence had already been carried out, and so she was not re-hanged. She had technically legally died and so had to re-marry her husband, then lived for at least four decades after her hanging. The hanging sparked public discontent with the treatment of infanticidal mothers in Scotland, and may have been a cause of violent protest in opposition to grave robbery and body snatching in 1725.

Early life and career The parents of Margaret Dickson are unknown, though she was born in Inveresk, near Musselburgh. She had a brother James, a weaver. Living as an adult in Musselburgh, six miles away from Edinburgh, she was part of Musselburgh's industry in salt-making. She lived with her husband Mr Dickson, a fisherman, and they had a number of children before impressment forced him into the Royal Navy.

Concealment of pregnancy and death of child After her husband left, Dickson underwent a sexual extra-marital affair with another local man and became pregnant. The judge described her "horrid and barbarous occult crime", which he said was committed by "an unnatural woman",