Salem’s witches were pardoned, but Britain’s weren’t. There’s now a movement to change that

While the women accused in the infamous Salem witch trials in colonial America have long since been pardoned, the convictions of hundreds of British women executed under similar laws officially still stand. Now, one local authority in southern England is campaigning to change that.

Decades before Salem, hysteria over witchcraft was already sweeping through England – and perhaps nowhere more fervently than in the southeast, such as in the neighboring counties of Kent and Essex, which border London.

Between 1560 and 1700, more than 500 women were tried for witchcraft in the southeast region, according to UK Parliament estimates. Of those, 112 were executed.

But one trial in…