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27-540: Hangmen is the plural of hangman; an executioner who carries out a death sentence by hanging. Hangmen , or The Hangmen , may also refer to: Executioner The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorising or ordering him to execute the sentence. The warrant protects the executioner from the charge of murder . Common terms for executioners derived from forms of capital punishment—though they often also performed other physical punishments—include hangman ( hanging ) and headsman ( beheading ). In

54-565: A cup of sherbet , and if the sherbet was white, they would avoid death, but if it was red, they would be executed on the spot by janissaries . Grand viziers could avoid execution by racing the bostancibaşi. If they reached the Fish Market Gate (on the southern side of the palace complex) from the Central Gate of the palace complex before the bostancibaşi, they would be banished instead of being executed. If they were slower than

81-459: A jewel robbery which resulted in the death of Constable Byrnes and the wounding of two other policemen. They were executed on February 8, 1886 at Carlisle Prison. He executed the serial poisoner, Mary Ann Britland on August 9, 1886 at Strangeways Prison in Manchester. Britland was the first woman executed at Strangeways. He executed William Chadwick on April 15, 1890 at Kirkdale Prison. This

108-410: A life sentence, and she acted as the county 's hangwoman from then on. An unidentified woman hanged two men for murder on 13 November 1782 at Kilmainham , near Dublin. The men were also quartered . The sheriff received abuse for making a hangman of a woman. James Berry (executioner) James Berry (8 February 1852 – 21 October 1913) was an English executioner from 1884 until 1891. Berry

135-539: A mask? Everybody knew who he was". While this task can be occasional in nature, it can be carried out in the line of more general duty by an officer of the court, the police , prison staff , or even the military . A special case is the tradition of the Roman fustuarium , continued in forms of running the gauntlet , where the culprit receives their punishment from the hands of the comrades gravely harmed by their crime, e.g. for failing in vital sentinel duty or stealing from

162-417: A policeman that tried to stop him. Shrimpton was executed on May 25, 1885 in the courtyard of Worcester Prison. Shrimpton’ s neck muscles were weak, resulting in him being decapitated during the drop. During the execution of Robert Goodale on 30 November 1885 at Norwich , the drop used was too long, and Goodale was decapitated by the rope. He executed Rudge, Martin, and Baker, a gang of three that committed

189-416: A ship's limited food supply. Many executioners were professional specialists who traveled a circuit or region performing their duty, because executions were rarely very numerous. Within this region, a resident executioner would also administer non-lethal physical punishments , or apply torture . In medieval Europe, to the end of the early modern period , executioners were often knackers , since pay from

216-411: Is easy for anyone who wants to commit suicide to open the door of his compartment and throw himself out of the train. This man purposed to throw himself out of the train in a certain tunnel just as the train coming from an opposite direction would be about to dash past and he thought this would be a quick end to his life. There was a young man at the depot that night who had been saved the night before. He

243-547: Is part of the Eyüp Cemetery in Istanbul . The town of Roscommon has the distinction of having had Ireland 's most notorious hangwoman, Lady Betty , who was given the post in exchange for her life being spared when the hangman due to execute her death sentence took ill on the day that she and 25 others were due to be hanged. Lady Betty offered to carry out the task in exchange for her death sentence being commuted to

270-532: The Ottoman Empire , the role of executioners was given to the Ottoman gardeners , bodyguards who guarded the sultan's palace. Members of the gardeners conducted executions of anyone whom the sultan wanted executed, but the most senior officials who were sentenced to death were dealt with by the head of the gardeners ( Turkish : bostancıbaşı ) in person. Bostancibaşi would give the person sentenced to death

297-702: The Whitechapel murders for which there have always been multiple suspects . However, his belief that Bury and "Jack the Ripper" were one and the same was published in his memoirs which appeared in Thomson's Weekly News of 12 February 1927. Following his retirement, Berry toured as an evangelist and gave lectures on phrenology . In his book The Hangman's Thoughts Above the Gallows (1905) he complains that "the law of capital punishment falls with terrible weight upon

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324-522: The burakumin class (today executions in Japan are not carried out by professional executioners, but by prison guards). In Memories of Silk and Straw , by Junichi Saga, one of the families surveyed in the Japanese village of Tsuchiura is that of an executioner family ("The Last Executioner", p. 54). This family does suffer social isolation, even though the family is somewhat well-off financially. In

351-553: The guillotine since the French Revolution ) persisted until 1977, and the French Republic had an official executioner; the last one, Marcel Chevalier , served until the formal abolition of capital punishment in 1981. In Western Europe and its colonies, executioners were often shunned by their neighbours, with their work as knackers also disreputable. In Alexandre Dumas ' The Three Musketeers and in

378-501: The book My Experiences as an Executioner , in which he describes his methods and recalls the final moments of some of the people he executed. He served eight years with the Bradford Police Force, then tried himself as a boot salesman. Since he did not earn enough for the upkeep of his family, he applied for the post of executioner after William Marwood died in 1883 but was unsuccessful despite being shortlisted, until

405-673: The bostancibaşi, they would be executed and their body would be thrown into the sea. This custom lasted until the nineteenth century. The last recorded person to participate in a race with the bostancibaşi was grand vizier Hacı Salih Pasha who, in November 1822, outran the bostancibaşi and saved his life. He was so widely esteemed for winning the race that he got appointed governor general of the Damascus province. Executioners had their own graveyards, with uncarved and unpolished simple rough stones used as gravestones. The biggest of these graveyards

432-469: The execution of men who had committed murder, that the demon power that was in them would come upon him and that in consequence he was possessed with a legion of demons. His life was so miserable that he purposed to make an end of life. He went down to a certain depot and purchased a ticket. The English trains are much different from the American. In every coach there are a number of small compartments and it

459-719: The film La veuve de Saint-Pierre ( The Widow of Saint-Peter ), minor character executioners are ostracized by the villagers. The profession of executioner sometimes ran through a family, especially in France, where the Sanson family provided six executioners between 1688 and 1847 and the Deibler dynasty provided five between 1879 and its 1981 abolition. The latter's members included Louis Deibler, his son Anatole, Anatole's nephew Jules-Henri Desfourneaux, his other nephew André Obrecht , and André's nephew Marcel Chevalier . In Britain,

486-499: The hangman and that to allow a man to follow such an occupation is doing him a deadly wrong". Smith Wigglesworth , the evangelist and preacher, records his conversion to Christianity, in a sermon which was later published in Faith that Prevails (1938): In England they have what is known as the public hangman who has to perform all the executions. This man held that appointment and he told me later that he believed that when he performed

513-447: The military, the role of executioner was performed by a soldier, such as the provost . A common stereotype of an executioner is a hooded medieval or absolutist executioner. Symbolic or real, executioners were rarely hooded, and not robed in all black; hoods were only used if an executioner's identity and anonymity were to be preserved from the public. As Hilary Mantel noted in her 2018 Reith Lectures , "Why would an executioner wear

540-505: The most notable dynasty was the Pierrepoints, who provided three executioners between 1902 and 1956 – Henry, his brother Thomas, and Henry's son Albert . Unlike in France and many other European countries, far from being shunned, British executioners such as William Marwood , James Berry , Albert Pierrepoint , and Harry Allen were widely known and respected by the public. In Japan, executioners have been held in contempt as part of

567-540: The previous year the Home Office had already decided that "the employment of Berry as Executioner should no longer be recommended to the High Sheriffs ." Berry carried out 131 hangings in his seven years in office, including those of five women. In 1889, he hanged William Bury , a man suspected by some of being Jack the Ripper . In his book My Experiences as an Executioner James Berry makes no mention of

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594-403: The rare executions was not enough to live off. In medieval Europe executioners also taxed lepers and prostitutes, and controlled gaming houses. They were also in charge of the latrines and cesspools, and disposing of animal carcasses. The term is extended to administrators of severe physical punishment that is not prescribed to kill, but which may result in death. Executions in France (using

621-667: The short period of Bartholomew Binns in office was over. Berry was the first British hangman literate and communicative enough to be able to write freely about his work. He considered that the hangman was the last link in what he called the "chain of legal retribution". His very first execution was of Robert F. Vickers and William Innes, two young poachers who murdered two gamekeepers named John Fortune and John McDiarmid while stealing game in Gorebridge, Scotland. They were executed on March 31, 1884 at Calton Prison in Edinburgh. He

648-411: Was all on fire to get others saved and purposed in his heart that every day of his life he would get someone saved. He saw this dejected hangman and began to speak to him about his soul. He brought him down to our mission and there he came under a mighty conviction of sin. For two and a half hours he was literally sweating under conviction and you could see a vapour rising up from him. At the end of two and

675-624: Was born in Heckmondwike in the West Riding of Yorkshire , where his father worked as a wool-stapler . His most important contribution to the science of hanging was his refinement of the long drop method developed by William Marwood , whom Berry knew quite well. His improvements were intended to diminish mental and physical suffering and some of them remained standard practice until the abolition of capital punishment for murder . An insight into Berry's behaviour and methods can be read in

702-475: Was the executioner who failed to hang John Babbacombe Lee – "The Man They Couldn't Hang" – in 1885. After three attempts, in which the trap door repeatedly failed to open, Lee's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He executed an old Birmingham man named Moses Shrimpton who had already been arrested for poaching in February 1848, and as he was stealing game many years later, he murdered Constable Davies,

729-518: Was the first execution when a slope level with the prison was used to get to the gallows platform instead of stairs. Berry's time in office came to an end following interference in his judgement by the prison medical officer at Kirkdale Prison regarding the appropriate length of drop; Berry compromised but the condemned man John Conway was nearly decapitated. In March 1892 Berry wrote his letter of resignation, probably without knowing that in October of

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