THE EXECUTIONER’S BOX, from Wandsworth prison where the last execution took place in 1961, contains a test bag that was filled with sand so that it could measure the strength and elasticity of the rope to be used for hanging the prisoner. A block and tackle was used for the process, and copper wire assisted in marking the upper end of the drop. Following a practice going back at least as far as Henry Pierrepoint – who conducted executions between 1901 and 1910 – a 6ft ruler was provided to assist in measuring the length of the drop, calculated from the height of the person being executed, but most executioners preferred using their own flexible measuring tape. Vaseline was supplied and used over the soft leather section of the rope to ensure the rubber washer would slide as smoothly as possible to tighten the noose. A hood was placed over the prisoner’s head when he or she was standing on the trapdoors. Straps for wrists and ankles were available as restraints, the wrist strap being applied in the condemned cell and the ankle strap applied at the trapdoors by the assistant executioner. Another item in the box was some chalk, to make a ‘T’ mark across the centre of the trapdoors. This would indicate where the feet of the condemned prisoner should be positioned. All execution boxes were transported by rail, as indicated by labels on the exterior of the box. There were never any reports of the boxes being lost or tampered with on these journeys. There were about twenty of the boxes in existence at one time and they were sent out immediately to one of the prisons with execution apparatus after each death sentence was pronounced. Fairly frequent reprieves would mean that the equipment was not needed for every occasion that the boxes were dispatched.
Old ropes used for executions are also in the Crime Museum’s collection. There were used for hanging Henry Fowler, Albert Milsom, William Seaman, John Platts, Amelia Dyer and Mary Pearcey. William Marwood, an executioner, visited the museum and signed the visitors’ book on 18 June 1883, not long before he died. Succeeding William Calcraft, Marwood hanged 176 people in nine years, and was paid an annual retainer of £20, plus £10 per execution. Marwood apparently introduced the ‘long-drop’ method of execution, which broke the person’s neck and resulted in a more humane death than by the ‘short-drop’ strangulation. In 1873, Mary Cotton’s executioner, William Calcraft, miscalculated the length of rope required for her execution; it apparently took three minutes for her to die of strangulation. Marwood appears to have changed his mind about donating ropes, having sent an original letter in 1876 refusing to part with any. He was better at executions than spelling:
aug 20th 1876
Sir
Pleas this is in Anser
to your Letter that you Sent
to me Conserning me to
Send you my Rope for som
Purpose or For me to Cut
a Pees of the Rope for
you Sir i feel very mutch
Surprised at your Letter
my Rope i never Let go
out of my hands to anywon
and i never Let any won
of my Ropes to be Cut
Sir if you would like
to see you Can by Coming
to the Prison
Sir i Remain yours
Wm Marwood
In 1849, Charles Dickens joined 30,000 others outside Horsemonger Lane prison to witness the public executions of Frederick and Maria Manning after their conviction for the murder of Patrick O’Connor. The travel company Thomas Cook ran excursions for those wishing to attend the spectacle. Dickens wrote a letter to The Times deploring the inhumane behaviour, language and temperament of the crowd and made an eloquent plea that executions should in future be undertaken within the privacy of prison walls. This change did not take place for another two decades.
The last public execution was on 26 May 1868 at Newgate and involved Michael Barrett, who had been convicted for his part in the December 1867 Clerkenwell explosion. The 2,000-strong crowd apparently booed, jeered and sang ‘Rule, Britannia’ and ‘Champagne Charlie’ during the execution proceedings.
Reynolds News commented:
Millions will continue to doubt that a guilty man has been hanged at all; and the future historian of the Fenian panic may declare that Michael Barrett was sacrificed to the exigencies of the police, and the vindication of the good Tory principle, that there is nothing like blood
In 1885, John Lee became known as ‘the man they couldn’t hang’. John Henry George Lee was born in Devon in 1864 and served in the Royal Navy, but had a number of convictions before being found guilty of the November 1884 murder of the woman he worked for, Emma Keyse, in Babbacombe. He was duly sentenced to death in February 1885 but on three occasions his execution at Exeter prison failed, despite the mechanism being tested by the executioner, James Berry, beforehand. Subsequent examination revealed that there was a fault in the trapdoor drawbar that prevented the door from dropping open when weight was placed upon it. The Home Secretary commuted his sentence to life imprisonment and he was released in 1907. A postcard written by Lee is an exhibit in the Crime Museum.
In 1803 an Englishman named Joseph Samuel survived three attempts to hang him in Australia when firstly the rope broke, then the noose slipped off his neck, and finally, on the third attempt, the rope broke again. It was a public execution and the crowd became boisterous, demanding that no further attempts should be made to hang him; the punishment was commuted to life imprisonment. The method of execution used was to stand the prisoners on a cart that was then driven away.
The practical effects of the Homicide Act 1957, which made certain categories of murder liable to attract the death penalty, were illustrated by the murder of Alan Jee in Hounslow on 25 June 1960. Four young men attacked him with the intent to rob him as he walked home on a footpath within a few yards of his front door. Jee was repeatedly kicked in the head. A shoe worn by Francis Forsyth, now an exhibit in the museum, had Alan Jee’s bloodstains on it and this formed a vital part of the prosecution evidence. Because Forsyth was just over 18 years old and had intended to steal, it was a capital murder, so he was hanged after being convicted. He was executed on 10 November 1960 at Wandsworth prison. One of his accomplices, 23-year-old Norman Harris, was executed on the same day at Pentonville prison. Terence Lutt had been 17 at the time of the incident, had struck the first blow and was convicted of capital murder, but was detained ‘at Her Majesty’s pleasure’ because of his age. He was released after ten years. The fourth assailant, 20-year-old Christopher Darby, claimed not to have struck Jee at all, but was convicted of non-capital murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The last executions in Britain, those of Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, took place on 13 August 1964 at Strangeways prison, Manchester, and Walton prison, Liverpool, respectively, for the murder of John West on 7 April 1964.
Also in the Crime Museum is a collection of twenty-seven death masks – casts of prisoners’ heads taken after their execution. Newgate prison, demolished in 1902, was the location of many of the executions, but some masks came from other places, such as Tyburn, York and Derby. The practice appears to be based on the theory of phrenology expounded in 1796 by the Viennese physician Dr Franz Joseph Gall, who believed that the way in which we think affects the shape of the brain according to seven faculties known as selfish propensities and moral sentiments, and forty-two faculties like combativeness and benevolence. This in turn would affect the shape of the skull and enable a person’s character to be determined by the ‘bumps’ on their head.
In one case, that of Frederick Deeming in 1892, the death mask was taken in Australia and sent to London, allegedly as possible identification evidence, as Deeming had supposedly admitted to the last two of the Whitechapel murders and thereby became a suspect for Jack the Ripper. The confession was denied by Deeming’s solicitor. Deeming had immigrated to Australia where he lived with Emily Mather in a rented house in Andrew Street, Windsor, New South Wales. On 3 March 1892, the new tenant complained of a nasty smell in one of the bedrooms, and, when the hearthstone was lifted, the body of Mather was found. Her skull had been fractured and her throat had been cut. This prompted the police in England to examine Deeming’s old home in Rainhill, Liverpool, where his former wife Marie and four children were found dead under the kitchen floor.
The collection of death masks, listed in Appendix III, and the execution equipment act as reminders of things that have passed into history: a medical theory, capital punishment, and public attitudes to executions.
1966
Diary for recording the crew’s duty hours and arrests