Details of British crimes and executions often appeared in newspapers all over the world. While the details in this article constitute what can only be described as hearsay, the overall topic is very pertinent. The Davenport Daily Leader of 20 February 1902 ran the following article entitled ‘School for Hangmen’:
Training Prescribed for Public Executioners in Great Britain.
London Express: An interesting insight into the methods of the ‘Hangman’s Training School’ is given by a Sussex newspaper, which comments on the recent demand for a professional assistant executioner, which was supplied by the appointment, after due examination, of draper Mr John Ellis. For the work, more applications were received than would comfortably supply the United Kingdom and all the colonies. The artistic knotting of a rope and the easy way to make money, and the more gruesome side of the work apparently does not affect the majority of applicants.
Hangmen however, are made, not born, and the making thereof is an interesting process. No state secret was ever more jealously guarded than the course of instruction whereby novices are officially transformed into capable executioners. The authorities do not feel inclined to boast about this form of government training at least. ‘But then,’ said a case hardened though philosophical prison warden recently, ‘there must be hangings as long us there are capital crimes. Why not have the job done right? Of course, men must be trained for it or there would be frightful bungling. The ‘dean’ of the profession is, of course, Billington. But Billington is not ubiquitous and his inability to hang two different murderers in different parts of England at the same time has made the appointment of an assistant necessary. What Billington does not know about official methods of putting men to death is hardly worth knowing, and it is the most reasonable thing in the world that he should be selected as chief instructor in the ‘School of Applied Hanging’.
An execution means more than the mere tying of a noose and collapse of a trap door. The hangman must make certain nice calculations—how much of a fall is required to produce instantaneous death, and how to adjust the gallows to meet the requirements of each particular case. Every detail, from binding the malefactor in his cell to adjusting the fatal cord, is conscientiously gone through for the benefit of the novices. A week’s instruction is none too much. A time is chosen when the head executioner is not busy for a few days, and then, under his supervision, mock executions, it is said, take place within the prison walls.
As a sort of post-graduate course, a warden sometimes enacts the role of the codemned man. He is bound in the most approved fashion, and then led to the gallows, just as though he was about to suffer the death penalty. Sufficient to say, however, great care is taken that the trap door keeps in place while he is upon it. Skill is required to deftly secure a prisoner about to take the fatal drop. The hangman must show no nervousness or clumsiness. He must be able to adjust the straps quickly and securely. The students, who are carefully drilled in this branch of the work, go over and over each detail, and a mistake must be followed by increased practice.
The warden who acts as a lay figure during these pleasing processes must possess sublime patience. No instance is recorded of any prisoner, condemned or otherwise, offering himself as a subject. Thus the ‘School of Applied Hanging’ suffers in not possessing the same facilities for study as a school of medicine or dentistry. After the final examination of the candidates by the prison commissioners, before whom the entire program of an execution (minus the drop) is carried out, candidates who have ‘passed’, it is said, are granted licenses by the home secretary.
To many people this business-like method of training public executioners may seem repugnant. It is necessary, however, in order to avoid distressing scenes on the scaffold. The present increase in applications for enjoyment as hangman in England is due largely to the unusual number of executions pending in several parts of England. The ‘dean’ of the school will be a very busy man for the next few weeks and in a number of northern prisons he will be a Christmas holiday visitor bringing anything but peace and good cheer.