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Before 1815, when the Criminal Reform movement in England began to take shape, a person could be put to death for an astonishing two hundred and eighty-eight different crimes, up from fifty at the end of the 1600s. Because policing in England in the early 19th C. was still rudimentary, it was thought that the only way to protect the property rights of English citizens was to enforce a punishment severe enough that just the thought of it would be sufficient to deter crime. Consequently a person who broke into an empty house received the same punishment as if he had brutally killed the owner. A person was hung until dead for a minor theft as well as for murder, for forging a bank note, or committing high treason and for very nearly every other crime in between.
It was not until 1832 that the first major Parliamentary Reform Law in England was passed repealing the death penalty for the offense of housebreaking, stealing a horse, or a sheep, and for forgery. Over the next five years, the number of capital offences in England was reduced to only three crimes, that of murder, attempted murder and high treason.
You can read more about English Criminal law online.