Execution: A Guide to the Ultimate Penalty (33 page)

But who were these men who bestrode the scaffold over the centuries, the Ketches and Brandons, Calcrafts and Marwoods? Little is known of the earlier executioners. Records are sketchy, and the anonymity of such men was jealously guarded for obvious reasons. The year 1593 gave us an executioner called Bull, who dispatched Mary, Queen of Scots, not altogether tidily, and he was succeeded by Thomas Derrick, an ex-soldier who had himself been condemned to death on a charge of rape. He had been spared the gallows by the efforts of one of his officers, the Earl of Essex, but by a bizarre coincidence it was Derrick who presided over the scaffold in 1601 when the earl was beheaded for treason. Derrick’s assistant for many years was Gregory Brandon, he being succeeded in 1640 by his son, Richard, known as ‘Young Gregory’. Lowen followed, then Edward Dun, very likely he who hanged the exhumed bodies of Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw in 1661. He died on 11 September 1663, Jack Ketch, of infamous notoriety (though his wife was very proud of him) succeeding to the post.

Ketch, brutal and callous, hanged, slew and burned from 1663 to 1686, dispatching dukes and commoners alike, all with a complete disregard for mercy. He lost his job in January 1686 for insulting the sheriff, Pasha Rose taking over. This latter was well qualified, being a butcher by trade, but fell into evil ways himself and five months later was sentenced to death. The authorities reinstated Ketch just for one occasion, Jack dying in November of the same year.

John Price graced the stage for a year from 1714, a brutal ex-seaman who was no asset to the noble art, though his skill at naval knot-tying proved useful to him if not to his clients. Susceptible to drink, he got into debt and finished up in prison. This was unlucky for him but fortunate for his successor, William Marvell, because those condemned to death following the first Jacobite uprising were due on the scaffold, bearing gifts of gold coins to ensure a speedy execution. Escaping from prison in 1718, Price got thoroughly drunk and attacked Elizabeth White, a lady who sold apples, nuts and gingerbread, injuring her so severely that she died.

The evidence against Price was irrefutable, and he was found guilty, the public executioner Banks (Marvell having lost his job due to debt the previous November) tying Price’s thumbs together in court as a symbol that he was to be hanged. And so he was, on 31 May 1718, Banks officiating on the scaffold. William Marvell completed the trio, his skill as a blacksmith being utilised in making a gibbet suit of irons, a cage of iron bands in which Price’s pitch-covered cadaver was suspended from a gibbet near Holloway.

William Marvell regained his position, holding it until 1717. He garnered a rich harvest from the Scottish Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater and other Scots who were beheaded, for he received three pounds for each one dispatched, plus personal gifts from the victims themselves. Whether the profession drove hangmen to drink, or whether it was a personal failing, isn’t known, but Marvell succumbed, got into debt, and was actually served with a writ while escorting three malefactors in the cart to Tyburn.

The sheriff intervened and the bailiff apologised, but the crowds lining the route were delighted to see ‘Jack Ketch’ get his come-uppance. Dragging him out of the cart, they mauled him so violently that when rescued he was unconscious, and the tumbril had to return to the gaol with its load of unfortunates. Accordingly, Marvell was dismissed and took to stealing, this finally resulting in his being transported to His Majesty’s plantations in the colony of America.

Hangmen Banks and Richard Arnet were Finishers of the Law from 1717 to 1728, dealing more or less adequately with felons delivered into their care, men such as Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard. Just which hangman was on duty at Hertford on 25 March 1723 when Will Summers and John Tipping were to be hanged is not known, but it was reported that the executioner was so drunk that, believing there were three to be hanged that day, he attempted to put one of the ropes round the parson’s neck as he stood in the cart, and was with much difficulty prevented by the gaoler from doing so!

They were succeeded by John Hooper, ‘Laughing Jack’ as he was called, for he was a born jester, with an inexhaustible cache of humorous anecdotes. Hooper’s previous employment was as assistant turnkey, meaning warder, in Newgate Prison, his boss being a Richard Akerman. Upon Akerman’s promotion to keeper of the prison (Newgate then being tabbed ‘Ackerman’s Hotel’), Hopper became hangman.

If tradition is to be believed, his swearing-in ceremony was an awesome one. Summoned before the City Fathers clad in their imposing robes, Hooper stood in front of a table on which were laid out the symbols of his office: ropes and scourges, handcuffs and fetters. After taking the oath on the Bible, swearing that he would execute every criminal so condemned ‘without favouring father and mother or brother or sister or any friend whatsoever’, he, unloved by all, was dismissed with the words of contempt ‘Get thee hence, wretch!’

A kindly man, Hooper brought a certain humanity to the scaffold, treating his clients, wherever possible, with gentleness and humour, even when he had to slit nostrils and sever ears. His signature is still preserved in the Annals of the Barber Surgeons on receipts for Christmas bonuses of seven shillings and sixpence annually, paid to him in appreciation of his success in delivering the bodies of hanged men to them.

As a deterrent to crime, the government of the day had decreed that, instead of being buried, cadavers were to be handed over to the surgeons for anatomical research, though this practice was often complicated by the felon’s friends rushing the scaffold and making away with the corpse.

No record exists of the date of Hooper’s death, but the scaffold devotees must have missed his quips; perhaps his sense of humour enabled him to cope with the stresses of the work more successfully than turning to drink.

By contrast, the next hangman was John Thrift, a serious but nevertheless kindly man. His main problem was that, unlike his victims, he was too highly strung and vulnerable to human errors. Even when making his debut on the scaffold, things went wrong. Admittedly the two carts, packed with no fewer than 13 felons, posed a challenge, but he should have known better than to launch them simultaneously into the great hereafter without first covering their faces with their caps, thereby exposing their contorted features to the mobs surrounding the triple tree.

Later in the year misfortune struck again, a mishap that nearly cost John his life. Felon Thomas Reynolds having been duly hanged, the undertakers’ men were on the point of securing him in his coffin when to the shock and amazement of all concerned the ‘dead’ man suddenly sat up! Thrift, who knew his duty, promptly started to hang Reynolds all over again. But the crowd, doubtless considering that once was enough for anybody, rushed the scaffold; had it not been for a squad of foot-guards with loaded muskets, Thrift would have been the candidate for the coffin.

The apogee of his career came in July 1746 when he had to deal with those Scots who had taken part in the second Jacobite uprising. Competent with the rope, he was a non-starter with the axe and even worse when having to apply the disembowelling knife (see Hanged, Drawn and Quartered). His hectic life ended in May 1752, and even his funeral was far from peaceful.

In that year Thomas Turlis ascended the scaffold steps as hangman. A dedicated, able and efficient hangman, he could be classed as one of the all-time greats, unruffled in most crises except perhaps the one in which he encountered Hannah Dagoe, who threw him out of his own cart for his pains, as described earlier. He certainly needed to retain his composure on the scaffold, for the London mobs were virulent in their dislike of hangmen at that time, as extracts from the
Public Advertiser
show, that of 20 April 1768 reporting: ‘Turlis, the Common Hangman, was much hurt and bruised by the mob throwing stones at the execution of three malefactors at Kingston.’

The issue of 6 March 1769 confirmed this, saying: On Friday, a tradesman, convicted of wilful and corrupt perjury, stood in and upon the Pillory in High Street, Southwark, and was severely treated by the populace. They also pelted Turlis, the executioner, with stones and brickbats, which cut him in the Head and Face in a terrible manner.’

But there was ample compensation, for during his reign there was an upsurge in criminals sentenced to be whipped, both men and women, and this he accomplished in his usual competent manner, as the following excerpt from the court sessions of April and June 1767 shows:

Received 30 June 1767, of the Sheriff of Middlesex, the sum of six pounds ten shillings, in full of the Demands, signed, Thomas Turlis.

Incidentally, the horse was necessary because those whipped were tied to the back of a cart.

During nearly 20 years in the post of hangman, Turlis dispatched many common criminals, but the occupational hazard was always present, and it was on 27 March 1771, while leading five felons to the cart, that he sustained a blow in the face from one of them. Whether this was fatal is not known, but the fact remains that Thomas died ‘on the road’, on his way back from doing a job at Kingston. It was probably the way he would have chosen, had he been able.

Edward Dennis took over the post in the same year, and was to be the incumbent for a total of 15 years. He was reportedly a stolid and industrious workman. During his term of office both the site and the technique of executions underwent great changes: the scaffold moved from Tyburn to Newgate and, more important out went the horse and cart and in came the drop, as described earlier.