At James Billington’s two final executions he was assisted by Henry Pierrepoint. On 19 November 1901, Billington executed Marcel Faugeron at Newgate, and on 3 December Patrick McKenna at Manchester. It is somehow fitting that the founder member of one family of executioners should hand the baton on to the founder member of another.
Henry Pierrepoint’s memoirs were published in 1916. In this rare and fascinating account he explains how his career began and describes his only two meetings with James Billington:
It was through reading about the appointment with Mr James Berry as executioner and the carrying out of his first job in London that I got the idea of going in for it myself. I was only a boy then, working as a half-timer in a worsted mill at Clayton (Bradford).
‘That’s just the sort of job I should like myself,’ I thought when I read about Berry’s appointment, and from that day forward I had my mind set on becoming an executioner.
No, I hadn’t any repugnance to the idea at all, though I saw it would be useless to say anything at home about it. Perhaps the notion of seeing so many different towns had something to do with my desire, for I was very fond of travel.
Being then only twelve years of age, it was obvious that I could do nothing for some years, and it might be thought that the fancy would pass away as a mere childlike freak of mind. Not it. No matter what occupation I went to – and I changed about a good deal in my early years – that intention to become an executioner whenever I was old enough remained firmly fixed in my brain.
My father kept horses, which were used for bringing stone from the quarries nearby, and there were ten of us children altogether. At the time of which I write only six were living, of whom one brother (who fought in South Africa) died this year.
After a time I left the mill, and was apprenticed to a butcher in Bradford. I did not care for this, and left in two and a half years, and went to Manchester when I was about twenty years of age.
I was now a grown big, strapping young fellow, and still had that idea of being executioner firmly fixed in my mind. But I told no one of it. Four years later I was reading about a number of murder cases which were then engaging public attention and the thought came into my mind that the time was now quite ripe for trying to get that long-desired post.
So I wrote as follows to the Home Secretary, Mr Ridley [the brother of Mr Justice Ridley]:
Dear Sir, - I beg to offer you my services as assistant to Mr James Billington, or for the post of executioner at any time Mr Billington resigns his position. My age is twenty-four, and I am strong in build and health. – I am, dear sir, your obedient servant, Hy. Pierrepoint.
In reply I was told the matter was receiving attention, and a few days later I got a letter from Governor Cruickshank at Manchester Gaol, stating that I must be at that prison by nine o’clock the following morning.
Naturally I was elated at getting a move on, and duly turned up at Strangeways, and told the gatekeeper I had an appointment with the Governor. It was the first time in my life I had ever entered a prison, and I thought it was a pretty dismal-looking place. But I was too excited over the object of my interview to be depressed by my environment.
They asked me what my business was with the Governor, but I did not dare to tell them I had come to try to get the hangman’s job. So I said I was wanting a post in the prison service, which was true enough in a way.
I was next interviewed by some other official, who placed me on the scales and weighed me. Then they took my physical measurements, and having done that, told me I was under the standard height, and therefore not eligible for appointment.
I was sent home much disappointed and surprised. I had been turned down before I even had a word with Governor Cruickshank.
However, I wrote again to that gentleman at once, and told him what had happened.
His reply gave me the key to the mystery. The gaol officials thought I wanted a job as warder!
Mr Cruickshank fixed another appointment, and told me to enquire at the gate for ‘The Governor,’ and to tell the officer there that I came on purpose for an interview with Mr Cruickshank. This I did, and everything worked smoothly this time.
I was taken up the steps to the Governor’s office, and found Mr Cruickshank to be a tall man, aged about fifty or sixty, wearing a beard, and looking more like a country gentleman than what I imagined a prison governor to appear. I understand that just prior to that period he had been Governor of Durham Prison.
Mr Cruickshank spoke to me in stern, dignified tones, but I must honestly say that he afterwards proved a very good friend to me.
He asked me why I wanted to be an executioner, and I told him I had always had an inclination for it. Then, after more talk, he said I would have to go to Newgate Prison for two weeks’ training, and consequently a few days later off I set for London.
Of course, now that things had gone so far I told my secret to my wife, for at that time I was married and had one child. As she had never known anything of my inner desires up till that moment she refused to believe me when I told her I was going to be an executioner.
She thought I was joking at first. Then when she saw I was in earnest she tried to dissuade me from going on with it. At length I got her to see things from my point of view – that when a man commits a crime he deserves punishment, and when that crime is murder he pays a penalty that is almost too lenient. For execution by hanging as carried out in the United Kingdom is almost the easiest and quickest death a man could have.
In the highest spirits I at last set off for my first visit to London, and when I got there I was at first afraid to ask anybody the way to Newgate in case they discovered my business. I summoned up courage to ask a policeman at last, and in due course reported myself at the Old Bailey.
I slept in the prison that night – or any rate tried to. Everything was so strange. The room I was in was known as the Hangman’s room, and it was a dismal attic apartment at the top of a narrow flight of stairs.
In the morning I was taken to see the scaffold, and the duties of executioners explained to me. I need not go into a full explanation of these duties now as they will be mentioned in the course of my future articles. All I need say is that on the second day of my training I carried out an ‘execution’ from beginning to end, and I had something of a shock over it.
I was taken to the condemned cell, and there in a dark corner the ‘victim’ was pointed out to me. I advance to pinion him as I had been instructed, and my heart did some heavy thumping when I found that the ‘condemned man’ was a stuffed dummy with a hideous grinning face and right hand up saluting me!
I had never expected this. I thought it was one of the warders whom I should have to practise upon, and no doubt the real nature of the ‘victim’ was purposely concealed from me in order to test my nerves.
But if they expected me to flinch they were disappointed. Certainly I had received a shock, but I had the sense not to show it. So I pinioned the dummy, carried it to the scaffold, and ‘hanged’ it just as if it had been the real man.
I had plenty of inward excitement, but I was very anxious to do well, and I seemed to satisfy the authorities. I succeeded in this, and eventually left for home with a feeling that I was all right. There was to be a searching investigation of my private character but I was not afraid of that.
I made good use of my time while in Newgate so as to get a good idea of how a prison is run, and got many a peep at some of the famous prisoners in the cells there.
For six months after my visit to London I heard nothing more about the business. I was just beginning to lose hope once more when I got a letter from Governor Cruickshank asking me if I would assist at the execution of William Goacher, who had been condemned for the murder of his wife at Bury. I accepted the engagement, but I never officiated, as the man was reprieved.
I contented myself with the thought that I had been prevented from helping to hang a possibly innocent man, and waited more or less patiently for the next engagement to come along.
This proved to be a request to help James Billington to hang Martial Faugeron.
His execution was fixed for Tuesday November 19, 1901, and on the Monday I went to London full of eagerness to experience my first proper execution. At the Old Bailey I met the famous James Billington for the first time, but he had not much to say to me.
After a brief greeting, we set off together to the execution shed to test the apparatus, and also to test the stretch of the new rope, which we left hanging over the pit all night with a sand bag attached to it. I was quite familiar with this part of the work, but I seemed to feel the difference in the occasion. Formerly I had done this merely in order to hang a dummy. Now I was doing it with the assurance that the following morning a real murdered, was to be hanged.
We left the execution shed in the charge of a warder whose duty it was to patrol there all night to ensure that the apparatus was in no way tampered with, and to see that nothing happened that could cause any hitch in the morning.
That night, after supper, I was escorted to my bedroom. Billington was to sleep in the attic-room I have already mentioned, but my place of retiral was a far more exciting spot. It was none other than the cell next to the one in which Martial Faugeron lay under sentence of death.
Of course, it had been made as comfortable as possible for me, and after I had been left alone for the night I soon got into bed.
Somehow I could not sleep. I was too excited. Yet I felt no nervousness. After tossing for a time without the slightest inclination for sleep, I got up, lighted my pipe, and started to explore the cell. Then I made a remarkable discovery.
In one of the walls there was an inspection hole, through which I could peer into Faugeron’s condemned cell!
Naturally I took advantage of the situation. Looking through, I could see Faugeron quite plainly. He was very pale and haggard, and wore a rough, dark beard, which had grown during his incarceration in prison.
He was bracing himself up well, and certainly was not in the distressed condition one would expect in a man who stood thus on the brink of eternity. He smoked innumerable cigarettes, and always had one in his mouth whenever I peeped through at him, which I did many times in the course of that sleepless night.
Faugeron spoke to himself several times, but as it was in French I could not understand a word of his talk. All I could make out was that whenever the hour struck on the deep-toned prison bell he would count off the strokes on his fingers.
No matter what the hour was, he would go on counting till he reached eight, when he theatrically pointed upwards. I took it that he meant that when eight o’clock came he would be up to heaven.
At last the weary night hours passed away. About six o’clock Billington came to my cell door, and we proceeded to the scaffold to put everything in readiness for the execution.
Having put everything through a final test, we were about to leave the spot when to our great surprise we came face to face with the condemned man.
Faugeron was taking his last few minutes of exercise in the old narrow yard, which was only separated from the outside world of life and freedom by one massive stone wall. He was walking briskly backwards and forwards with a special warder on each side of him, and was smoking his last cigarette with every sign of enjoyment.
The chief gaoler gave orders for Faugeron to return to his cell, and not long afterwards it was announced that the Sheriff had arrived. The doctor and the chaplain also came about the same time.
The dread moment was now fast approaching, and one could positively feel the tenseness in the air. Soon we were all assembled in the corridor close to the door of the condemned cell, and the Sheriff was demanding the body of Faugeron from the governor [Colonel Milman] for execution according to law.
I had myself well in hand, but could not help wishing it were all over. A moment or so later Billington and I got our signal from the Sheriff, and together we entered the condemned cell. In a few seconds Faugeron was pinioned, and the grim procession was on its way.
In front went a white-surpliced Catholic priest carrying a crucifix. Then followed Faugeron between two warders, Billington and I being close behind. The Sheriff and the others took up the rear of the procession.
We went slowly down the old narrow Newgate corridor, along which so many men had gone to meet their deaths, and in the dull grey light of that November morning we stepped out into the open air and crossed a flagged yard which was only a few feet wide.
We were now arrived at the place of execution. As we came in sight the waiting warder swung open the doors of the shed, and everyone stepped aside to allow us to take the condemned man forward on to the drop.
All the time the chaplain was mournfully reciting the last prayers for the dead and dying, and the solemnity of the occasion was most touching.
But there was no time for Billington and me to muse on the philosophy of the occasion. We had brisk work to do. It was up to us to put the condemned man out of his misery as cleanly and expeditiously as we could.
Faugeron was quite plastic in our hands, and made not the slightest resistance. We placed his feet on the trapdoors with his toes to a certain chalk mark which Billington had placed there for his guidance.
While I was on my knees strapping Faugeron’s legs, Billington was adjusting the noose about his neck and shutting out the light of the world with the white cap.
The fatal second had come. I sprang back and like a flash of lightning Billington had pulled the lever, and Faugeron was launched into eternity.
He had been given a drop of 7ft 6in and the doctor descending the pit at once stated the man had died instantaneously.
What a relief I felt! I was afraid that something might possibly go wrong at this, my first execution, and anxiety about this drove all other thoughts from my head.
It was not until I was afterwards asked how I felt at hanging a man that I realised that aspect of the affair had never once occurred to me in those last fateful moments.
From that time onwards through all of my career as executioner I never worried again as to whether I should be nervous over the idea of taking human life. That first execution had taught me that I had no personal responsibility in the matter at all. The responsibility lay upon the state which insists upon the death penalty, and I and my fellow executioners were merely instruments.
I was often pestered by folk who wanted to become executioners, and it would surprise you too if you knew how highly-placed were some of the aspirants to the office of ‘Jack Ketch’.
I myself had no influence whatever in the matter of such appointments. The Prison Commissioners are the only people who can do anything, and it is no use applying to anyone else.
Of course, when men did at length get on to the Home Office list of approved executioners it was always open for me, as senior executioner, to suggest a certain name on the list as assistant. Even then the Prison Governors pleased themselves whether they adopted my proposals or not.
It was in this way that my brother Thomas was introduced to so many jobs. I have retired – though he is still carrying on the work. I should just at this point like to make it clear that the rather commonly accepted impression that I was my brother’s assistant is quite erroneous. He is older in age than I am, but I was a fully qualified executioner a few years before he came before the public, and when he did so it was generally as my assistant.
To the ordinary man who is rather repelled by the idea of hanging a man I suppose these attempts to enter my profession would be rather puzzling.
One person, for instance, dangled a very fetching bait before my eyes. ‘If you will give me the chance to become your assistant,’ he wrote, ‘I will make you a present of a very good suit!’ I was not tempted.
One gentleman in South Shields seemed to think I went fishing around for an assistant in every town I visited for an execution. He wrote:-
‘Being under the impression that you might need an assistant at times when one might be awkward to procure, or that you would like to have one in this locality whom you could call upon when needed, I beg to offer my services, believing myself fully competent of fulfilling such duties as would be required by you in such a position.’
A Grimsby youth – he was only nineteen years of age – wrote to me as follows:-
‘Are you requiring an assistant? I heard you were, so I am taking the liberty of writing and asking if you do. Could you kindly let me know as I am wanting a situation? I have been a joiner and undertaker.’
He added his physical measurements and other qualifications, but so far as I know he may still be ‘wanting a situation’.
An application of a similar kind once came from Scotland, the writer’s name being Marwood. I never discovered whether he was related to my famous predecessor who hanged Charles Peace. Within four days of getting Marwood’s letter I had an application from a Leeds market gardener, who was in business on his own account.
I think about the most extraordinary one I every got was from a mysterious gentleman who, not knowing my private address, wrote to me at Warwick Gaol as follows:
Dear Sir, - Could you get me a berth under you as assistant? I am in a responsible berth at £200 a year, but I should not require to give that up. I would take berth with you for next to nothing, and would give you something for your trouble. If you can do anything for me, just put address where to write you privately in the Personal Column of the —— on Wednesday, January 3rd. Merely put the address and sign it ‘A. B. C.’
Of course I did not carry out his absurd suggestion.
All my correspondents laboured under the same mistake. They imagined that anybody could do the work of assistant. But really the assistant has to pass all the Home Office tests, and, in fact, must be qualified to carry through an execution on his own account if the necessity arises.
Although at the majority of executions I was the chief official, I myself served as assistant on several occasions, each time to one of the Billingtons, and I was assistant to the famous James Billington at his very last job.
His execution was fixed for December 3rd, 1901, and the previous afternoon Billington and I duly arrived at Strangeways Prison, Manchester. As soon as I saw Billington I knew he was very ill.
I had to give him the support of my arm and lead him round the prison.
He made the usual arrangements on the scaffold that evening. The execution chamber at Manchester is an excellent structure. It is built as a two-storey erection at the end of one of the wings close by the condemned cell.
It is one of the cleanest and neatest scaffolds I have ever seen. All the woodwork is neatly painted, and the floor is spotlessly clean and ideal for its purpose.
Our glimpse of M’Kenna in his cell showed us a man in the throes of deepest penitence. He was manifestly uneasy, and kept sitting down and getting up and stalking to and fro.
A subsequent walk round the prison grounds brought us to a railed-off, three cornered piece of ground in the shadow of the great high walls. At first glance it looked like a small garden, but little square stones let into the prison wall revealed its true purpose. It was, in fact, the spot where murderers are buried, and the square stones in the wall near their initials and the dates of their executions.
It was here that Pat M’Kenna, at present a living man, would be lying lifeless on the morrow.
Jim Billington was much upset by his ill-health and the thought of hanging his old friend, so I tried hard to amuse him that evening by games of cards and free chat. While we were thus engaged we were visited by the Governor, chaplain, and doctor, who told us the condemned man was keeping up fairly well.
They gave us the necessary physical information about M’Kenna – that he was 5ft. 10¼ in. in height and 160lbs in weight. We agreed upon a drop of 6ft 7in. His age was 53 years, but in appearance he looked much older.
Next morning Billington was again taken very ill, but he insisted on his ability to carry out the work in hand. I had to assist him to dress.
However, I got him to have a drink of coffee, and then we went to get all in readiness on the scaffold. Outside the prison a great crowd waited. There were several hundreds of persons there, many of whom had come in from Bolton for the occasion.
Poor M’Kenna was crying bitterly as we entered. He may have recognised Jim Billington, but he was so upset he made no sign. Yet, despite his nervousness and emotion, he placed no obstacle in the way, and in a very few seconds he was walking to his doom, with his hands strapped behind his back.
Deeply agitated though he was, he walked fairly well down that human lane of officials. Quicker than it takes me to tell it, his head was in the noose, his feet strapped, and the lever pulled that launched him into eternity.
He just had time to gasp ‘Lord have mercy upon me,’ before the end came.
When our work was completed it was no light job to get Jim Billington away. He had managed to control himself throughout the execution, but he was very ill again directly afterwards. I had to help him to the station, and as I was making him comfortable in the train he turned to me and said –
‘Harry, I wish I had never come.’
The ordeal, what with his ill-health and the shock of having to hang a personal friend, proved his death-blow, for the famous executioner died in Bolton on December 13, 1901 – ten days later – at the age of 54.
In fact there were several accounts of James Billington’s relationship with McKenna but William Billington’s seems to dispel the idea of there being any sort of friendship between them, but also explains the myth that there was:
Although I had nothing to do with the execution of M’Kenna, the Bolton murderer at Strangeways Prison, Manchester, on December 3, 1901, it happened to be the last execution at which my father officiated, and as all sorts of stories have been told about that execution, I think it right to set down here as exactly as I can, the facts of the case.
I had known Pat M’Kenna for some time. He had been a joiner, but somehow had lost his job and had to take what work he could get – principally labourer’s jobs.
My father had never known M’Kenna personally, although he must have seen him often enough and probably served him often enough when he came to our place as a customer.
At that time my father was keeping the Derby Hotel in Bolton. He had, therefore, every opportunity of getting to know many of the people in the neighbourhood by sight.
For some time my father had been suffering from dropsy, and at the time of the M’Kenna case he was sickening for an illness which was to be his last.
M’Kenna lived in Kestor Street,1 not very far from the Derby Hotel, and I knew all about his troubles. He had taken to drink after losing his job as a joiner, and this did not tend to make things any more comfortable for him at home.
His wife was worried about him, and tried to keep him straight and cheer him up. He was in a very depressed state however. You may have noticed, as I have, that once a man is in the grip of depression he thinks every man’s hand is against him.
He may have many good friends ready and willing to help him, but his attitude frightens them off, and he thinks they have deserted him.
Perhaps it was this way with Pat M’Kenna. At any rate he began to find fault with his wife. He saw in her continual reproaches indications that she no longer cared for him.
Incidentally, before he died he frankly acknowledged that in this respect he had sadly erred.
He began to notice little things, which, in a more healthy frame of mind, he would have passed over as unimportant, but now he began to exaggerate every trifle, and at last he came to the conclusion that a lodger was alienating his wife’s affections.
On September 30, 1901, I attended a football match between Bury and Bolton Wanderers. I was returning home along Kestor Street when I saw a little knot of people at the door of the house of M’Kenna’s daughter-in-law.
Naturally I paused and asked if anything serious had happened.
‘Pat M’Kenna’s killed his wife,’ I was told.
Scarcely crediting what I heard I pushed through the people and entered the house. There sure enough on a chair just inside the door sat Mrs M’Kenna with a knife through her throat, and blood pouring from the wound. Neighbours were doing all they could for her, and a doctor had been sent for.
‘Well,’ thought I, ‘whatever I may feel I had better get away from here: I can be of no use, and if I get mixed up in the affair it may injure me in my duties as hangman.’ So I set off for home.
A few doors away was a public-house, and I paused there a moment to talk to friends who were speaking of the tragedy which had been enacted.
As I stood I thought I heard a voice I knew raised above its natural tone inside the public-house.
It suddenly dawned on me that it was Pat M’Kenna I heard. The whole affair had affected me, and there was a strange temptation to go in and see the man, or to find out by some means if he had purposely stabbed his wife. But I knew full well that I ought not to risk having my name mentioned in connection with such an affair, and I went straight home.
As I learned afterwards, Mrs M’Kenna had been finding it hard to make ends meet. To eke out the week’s money she had been pawning little household articles. On the day of the tragedy she had got some money in this way, and M’Kenna asked her for it.
She refused to let him have it. He became angry, and the thought which had entered his head some time before now became a devil urging him to commit an act which would be irrevocable.
The idea that his wife might be getting fond of the lodger had been hidden away in the back of his mind I suppose for some days. Now it burst out like a sudden blaze. His wife was in love with the lodger, and she wanted this money to give to the man.
In his muddled mind a half-formed thought had become a maddening certainty. In a voice hoarse with suppressed passion M’Kenna promised his wife then and there that he would finish her off before night fell.
Poor Mrs M’Kenna seems to have felt the accusation her husband had made very deeply. She went to her daughter-in-law’s house, which was also in Kestor Street, and spent most of the day there. When M’Kenna called to inquire for her he was told she was not there.
It was at about five o’clock, only a few minutes before I arrived on the scene, that he found her. He dragged her to the front of the house and pushed her into a chair, then snatched up a big knife, which his daughter-in-law had been using.
The knife was taken from him, but he continued to threaten his wife, and managed to seize the weapon again.
He told his wife she had been taking beer to the lodger, and before she could escape he thrust the knife into her throat. He then turned on his heel and walked out of the house.
In ten minutes Mrs M’Kenna was dead.
The police quickly started a search for M’Kenna. By this time his wrath had burnt itself out, and some realisation of his crime in all its enormity seems to have come to him. He was not found for some time, but at last a search of his home led to his arrest in the coal cellar.
A constable conducted him to the police station at the Town Hall. He was warned and formally charged with taking his wife’s life,
He said to the officer on duty:-
‘I went to the house without premeditation or malice. She put the knife on the table and said, “if you want to do it, do it.” It was done in a minute.’
As will be seen, the case presented no difficulties. There was an inquest, of course, and later M’Kenna appeared before the Magistrates. There was little doubt of the sentence which would shortly be his in the minds of many people in Bolton.
The Assize trial was sensational by reason of its brevity. What there was to be said was quickly told, and the jury showed little hesitation in finding M’Kenna guilty of wilful murder.
The execution was fixed for December 3, and my father was asked if he would officiate. He was not at all well, and as the day drew nearer his condition became worse. He was on the point of declining the task when that came to his ears which made him change his mind.
‘Bill,’ he said, ‘they’re saying in Bolton that I’m a pal of M’Kenna’s, and that I daren’t go and hang him. I don’t feel well, but I can’t have a rumour like that going about.’
‘Oh, let me go,’ I said. ‘It’ll be just the same thing.’
‘No it won’t,’ he replied. ‘I must go to Manchester.’
Nothing we could say had any effect, and on the 2nd December he got up from his bed, and though he was hardly fit to move about the house he set out for Strangeways.
I was glad that Pierrepoint was to be his assistant. I owe Pierrepoint a debt of gratitude, in fact, as do all our family, for the way he looked after my father on that occasion.
What happened at the execution I only know from my father’s account, given when he returned home.
He told me that when they went to pinion the condemned man they found him crying bitterly. He walked to the scaffold, however, with a firm enough step.
After the execution I met my father at Bolton Station. I could see he was very ill, and I got a cab and hurried him home as fast as I could. He had performed his last execution, however. He rapidly grew worse, until on 13th Dec. he died at 10.15 at night.
Next morning I was glancing sorrowfully at an account of my father’s life and last moments in a morning paper, when I was startled to read the following as the introduction to the news item:- ‘William Billington, the executioner, died last night at a quarter-past ten o’clock.’
I was not feeling very cheerful at the time, and the discovery that the mistake had been made of putting my name instead of my father’s gave me a queer sensation.
There is something else I must relate. A man in the Bolton district had prophesied the deaths of my father, brother Tom, and of an aunt of mine. His prophecy came true even to the date. But this was not all. He said that I should be the next, and he had named a Friday some weeks after Tom’s death as the day of my passing.
I can say truthfully that, though I am not superstitious or nervous, when the forecast came true in three cases I spent some anxious Fridays for a few weeks.
The 1901 census record for the Derby Arms shows seven occupants: James and Alice, Thomas who is listed as a twenty-eight-year-old widower, eighteen-year-old Alice, fourteen-year-old James and his only child with his second wife, one-year-old May. The seventh person was his brother-in-law and barman Ellis Fletcher. It is assumed that Thomas had also lost his son, James E. Billington, who would have been ten years old as he does not appear in the Billington family records.
In a tragic twist, first Thomas, then his stepmother Alice died within a few weeks of James. The fate of James’ three youngest children is unknown, but assuming that they were able to benefit from their father’s estate they would not have been destitute. The value of the estate was made public with this summary:
Billington, James of 22 Churchgate, Bolton, Lancs., licensed victualler died 13th December 1901. Probate Manchester, 12th February to Alice Billington. Effects £266 4s 6d.
The cause of death appears on James Billington’s death certificate as ‘chronic bronchitic emphysema’. Dr R.H. Adam signed the certificate, and the death was registered by John Billington. Exactly four weeks later these details were repeated after Thomas’ bronchitis-related death. This obituary for Thomas Billington appeared in the Bolton papers on Friday 10 January 1902:
Following as it does, so closely upon the demise of his father, the death which took place shortly after 5 o’clock this morning of Thomas Billington, son of the late Hangman, James Billington, will be received with painful surprise. The deceased was a widower and 29 yrs of age, had been far from well for some time. Suffering acutely from colds, and had been under the care of a Dr Adam. The illness developed in Pneumonia. Yesterday the doctor held out little hopes of his recovery and he succumbed at the time stated in the ‘Derby Arms’, Churchgate, which was kept by his mother and was for many years in the occupation of his father. The deceased was the eldest son and had assisted along with his younger brother at many executions, notably in the Yarmouth Murder Case. During his father’s illness, he also assisted his brother William in the grim work and took part in the executions of the Uncle and Nephew in Newcastle. On the death of his father, William succeeded to the position of Hangman and the deceased continued to help his brother in the capacity of assistant but feeling the effects of his illness keenly when his father died, he never got over the trouble. Throughout the town the news caused a painful sensation and much sympathy is felt for the family.
John Billington continued to act as assistant. He would eventually act as number one at a small number of executions, but it was William who was trained and ready to step into his father’s shoes.
Endnote
1 In the 1871 census twenty-four-year-old James Billington, his mother Mary, father James, and younger siblings are residents of 21 Kestor Street.