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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: suttontrust on Sunday 23 May 10 20:07 BST (UK)
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Having read about William Calcraft the executioner (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calcraft) I was interested in finding him on the censuses to see what they say about his occupation. In 1851 he's down as a "boot and shoe maker" but there's something added underneath in what looks like a different hand - "His Honour - the ...... of the LAW". What's the word? - "punisher", perhaps?
I'm going to look at the 1961 to see what that says ;D
Still just "shoemaker" in 1861 (with no added comment). I wonder if the enumerator knew who he was.
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I go with punisher as well.
Carole
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I also wonder if his neighbours knew what he did !
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could it be ...'furnisher' isnt that an old term for provider ... or have i totally lost it... :D ;)
xin
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Punisher; A person who or thing which imposes punishment on an offender or for an offence. OED
Stan
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It's intriguing - who put the comment on the page?
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Probably a clerk in the Census Office.
Stan
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Looks more like "finisher" to me. Isn't that just the truth!!
Jude
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In 1871 he's in the County Goal Bedfordshire - listed as a servent :o
Oh and he's a widower looks like Louisa had died
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He was there because he executed a William Bull at eight o'clock on Monday morning, 3rd April in the Bedford Prison. As he was on the premises at midnight of 2nd April he was included in the census.
Stan
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Stan - Fantastic. Amazing - Roots Chatters rock.
Been reading all I can about him for the afternoon. Thanks for that. Bedford wasnt mentioned in anything I read on the net.
William Bull is on the census too.
Condemned Prisoner age 21 occupation Ag Lab born Little Straughton, Bedfordshire.
Oooh and someone has William on their family tree in Ancestry too
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Execution at Bedford
William Bull, aged twenty-one, who was convicted at the last Bedford Assizes of the murder of a poor imbecile named Sarah Marshall, fifty-one years of age, at the village of Little Staughton, was executed by Calcraft at eight o'clock on Monday morning, within the walls of the county prison at Bedford.
Penny Illustrated Paper (London, England), Saturday, April 08, 1871; pg. 211; Issue 497.
William Bull appears in the 1871 census as a "Condemned Prisoner" RG10 Piece: 1541 Folio: 72 Page: 4
Stan
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Thanks Stan, As I said before fascinating
I wonder who poor Sarah Marshall "Imbecile" was.
I think I found her in 1851, with her parents James and Elizabeth. She is a lace maker - no indication of "imbicile" though
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Beats all those ag labs, doesn't it ;D
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Erm ... I don't quite like to ask ... ummm ... is this man an ancestor of yours ??
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;D ;D ;D
Sorry to disappoint you, but no.
Wonder what it's like to have someone so notorious in your family tree.
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Exciting I should think !
I remember being very excited when I found we had a convict sent to Oz! I phoned up all the family ... and all they said was 'Oh ? So ... ?'
Huh !
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Family legend (not proved the connection yet) that the first man to be hung in private was related some how to my family.
Thomas Wells was executed by guess who :o :o :o
in August 1868 Yes ::) none other than William Calcraft. If you google Maidstone Jail they have a very detailed report of the occasion.
regards panda
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How exciting! How far have you got in researching the connection?
I try to imagine Calcraft going home and his wife saying, "Had a good day, dear?"
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(Why do I suddenly feel this might be the start of some of the more gruesome RootsChat humour ... ?? ;D )
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...as if we'd come up with some ropey old jokes. ;)
meles
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Execution at Bedford
William Bull, aged twenty-one, who was convicted at the last Bedford Assizes of the murder of a poor imbecile named Sarah Marshall, fifty-one years of age, at the village of Little Staughton, was executed by Calcraft at eight o'clock on Monday morning, within the walls of the county prison at Bedford.
Penny Illustrated Paper (London, England), Saturday, April 08, 1871; pg. 211; Issue 497.
I have a large collection of old Bedfordshire lace bobbins.
One of them is inscribed 'W. Bull. Hung April 1871'.
It was quite common for such bobbins to be made and distributed to 'celebrate' the execution.
Jennifer
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I have a large collection of old Bedfordshire lace bobbins.
One of them is inscribed 'W. Bull. Hung April 1871'.
It was quite common for such bobbins to be made and distributed to 'celebrate' the execution.
Jennifer
You learn something new every day :)
The commercial nature of bobbin making, however, is probably best illustrated by the phenomena of the 'hanging bobbin': bobbins that were made to commemorate the public hangings and proved extremely popular souvenirs. They were inscribed with the name of the criminal and the year of their execution ('Joseph Castle hung 1860'). http://england.prm.ox.ac.uk/englishness-lace-makers-bobbins.html
Stan
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(http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/7319/bobbin1.jpg) (http://img198.imageshack.us/i/bobbin1.jpg/)
(http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/1925/bobbin2.jpg) (http://img38.imageshack.us/i/bobbin2.jpg/)
(http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/8418/bobbin3.jpg) (http://img695.imageshack.us/i/bobbin3.jpg/)
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This is absolutely true, My late father( he wasn't hung!) used to go for a drink in Oldham Lancashire. In the late 1940's early 50's The owner of the pub was Albert Pierpoint, who was the hangman in the north of England. The name of the pub was "Help the poor Struggler".
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Gosh this is awful and fascinating all at the same time ;D
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I'd much rather have been hanged by Pierpoint than Calcraft - Calcraft didn't always make a very good job of it :o
Carole
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Albert Pierpoint, who was the hangman in the north of England.
Albert Pierrepoint was on the Home Office list of qualified executioners for Great Britain and Ireland (he was accepted by the Irish Republic when it became independent).
Stan
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This is gruesomely fascinating ... I know hanging has been abolished in this country (UK) but what about the rest of Europe ??
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Thanks Stan, I often wondered if the Home Office had a say in the position. Am I right in thinking his son took over from him? or have I been watching too much TV!! JO
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His father Henry Pierrepoint and his uncle Thomas Pierrepoint (the longest serving hangman since Calcraft) were executioners before Albert, who held the post from 1931-1956. He resigned in 1956, keeping his reasons for doing so confidential. He subsequently changed his mind about capital punishment, in his autobiography he says "I now sincerely hope that no man is ever called upon to carry out another execution in my country. I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing....". He had no children.
Stan
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Thank you so much for explaining that to me I wonder do you know the title of the book I would love to read it.Thanks again Stan. JO
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The book is "Executioner:Pierrepoint" ISBN 0340213078, first published in 1974. It is available online
Stan
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Thanks again I will order that today!! JO
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I saw a very interesting documentary a couple of weeks ago called the Hangmen, which went into a lot of detail about Pierrepoint and previous Hangmen, it was fascinating,and said he was very proficient at his job! I would be interested to read the book as well. Thanks Stan.
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My wife makes lace for a hobby and she says that the "death" bobbins are now very rare and worth quite a bit of money.
Bob.
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Pierrepoint also had a pub at Much Hoole and he eventually moved to Southport. My father met him, after he had the bad luck to knock down his garden wall one day - and he worked swiftly to make sure he did an extra good job of repairing it, so the story goes! ;)
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He died of bronchopneumonia at 1 Westbourne Road, on 10 July 1992, aged eighty-seven. His wife survived him.
Stan
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hi just read your post about calcraft you may be interested to know my neighbour is the great grandaughter way down the line to him this was her family name , she tells me there were no males in her family to carry the name on and is now none existent , she has i believe traced her family tree and may have more info , she is the kindest lady and is now into her 80s , when i speak to her i will let her know about your interest she will be pleased , and maybe she can enlighten your research regards eda
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When you say the name is "non existent" do you mean just for the descendants of William Calcraft? There are 131 people called Calcraft in the Office of National Statistics database, which contains a list of surnames in use in England, Wales and the Isle of Mann in September 2002.
http://www.taliesin-arlein.net/names/search.php
Stan
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Apparently Calcraft was not very good at his job, being clumsy, bungling, and unable to calculate the correct length of rope for the individual weight of each person to be executed. Calcraft had to often rush below to pull his victim's legs to hasten his death. :o
Stan
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Thanks Stan, I often wondered if the Home Office had a say in the position.
There was a Home Office list of qualified executioners for Great Britain and Ireland (they were also accepted by the Irish Republic when it became independent). Albert Pierrepoint was the last 'Number One' executioner when he resigned in February 1956, after which the decision was taken to appoint two executioners with equal precedence. They carried out thirty four executions in the next seven years, ending with the two single executions on 13th August 1964, which were the last ones in Great Britain.
Stan
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Eda, thanks for the information. How does your neighbour feel about her ancestor?
Stan, you say Calcraft was "clumsy", but I think most hanging was clumsy then. They hadn't worked out that a properly calculated drop was needed to snap the neck rather than cause the victim to die of strangulation. And let's face it, there often wasn't a great deal of interest in hastening the death. Before public executions were stopped, there was the entertainment value to consider. Sorry, it's a macabre topic; but I've just been reading a history of Tyburn. :(
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hi thanks for your reply , Iwont tell her that her great grandfather was a clumsey old --- but i think she was proud of him he did a service that not many would do . as for the name colcfaft maybe it was just in her family that the name was not carried on when i see her i will tell her he has been mentioned and let you know her story , regards eda .
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albert pierrepoint was my cousin, albeit a distant one, but a cousin none the less!
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I have read through these posts again and something stuck me from when I was a child that I had forgotten about.
In the 1950,s I lived in Oldham and as a child I was forever told to " Dont dump your coat there hang it up!!" my mother would then shout" And use the Calcraft!! " This is what we were told was the name for the loop in the inside of the collar.
Has anyone else heard of this?
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William Bull is my 3x great uncle who was also convicted at the tender age of 14 years to 14 days hard labour for rape but of who I do not know as of yet .
All this has been a shock but existing at the same time to find out
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There's an interesting blog about Calcraft here, including a photo.
https://blog.findmypast.com/william-calcraft-the-man-who-hanged-450-1406156991.html
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Correct me If I'm wrong , wasn't it Calcraft who accidently decapitated a prisoner? A Jamaican friend told me about a hangman they had there. Apparently he enjoyed his job a bit too much and then one day he had to hang his own son.
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Correct me If I'm wrong , wasn't it Calcraft who accidently decapitated a prisoner?
That was James Berry. During the execution of Robert Goodale on 30 November 1885 at Norwich, the prisoner was given too long a drop so that the rope decapitated him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Berry_%28executioner%29
Stan
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I have read through these posts again and something stuck me from when I was a child that I had forgotten about.
In the 1950,s I lived in Oldham and as a child I was forever told to " Dont dump your coat there hang it up!!" my mother would then shout" And use the Calcraft!! " This is what we were told was the name for the loop in the inside of the collar.
Has anyone else heard of this?
Jethorp - I wonder if it is a spin off from the term "hanging loop" which was apparently a tailoring or dressmaking term used to refer to that loop inside a collar? Certainly makes sense! Also sometimes called a locker loop!
I'm not at all clever, but Mr Google is always clever!! 😄😄
Cert
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Stan,thankyou very much for the information, much appreciated.
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Oh my word!! So mum was right bless her. How I wish mum was around so she would know her "loud instuctions" (as we used to call her tellings off!! ) were based on an actual person. Well done Ma !!!!
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;D ;D ;D ;D Jethorp tch tch!
Surely you should have learnt by now that Mothers (and wives of course) are ALWAYS right!
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There's also a very distant family link by marriage, from my lot to the Pierrepoint family - more than one held the office of hangman, I think, off the top of my head, father, uncle, and a son ... two generations, certainly.
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There was his father Henry Albert Pierrepoint, his uncle Thomas William Pierrpoint, and Albert Pierrepoint, who was the last 'Number One' Official Exxecutioner, he did not have a son. He was succeeded by Harry Allen and Robert Stewart when he resigned in February 1956.
Stan
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That's it! Knew there were two generations involved, somehow....
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I remember there was one hangman who hanged a woman who haemorrhaged badly (modern historians wonder if she miscarried as she was hanged) and he was so traumatised that he committed suicide.
I have one ancestor who was tried basically for attempted murder at the Old Bailey and was in my mind exceptionally lucky he was found not guilty (despite having done it). He would have been hanged. I don't know how I'd feel about an ancestor who was a hangman.
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I remember there was one hangman who hanged a woman who haemorrhaged badly (modern historians wonder if she miscarried as she was hanged) and he was so traumatised that he committed suicide.
Are you referring to John Ellis?
In his autobiography Albert Pierrepoint states that "it is a matter of historical fact that the executioner Ellis attempted suicide once and succeeded in a second attempt years later: the fact has been falsely manipulated to indicate that his mind became unhinged because of alleged unnerving scenes at the execution of Mrs. Thompson."
Edith Thompson was executed 9th January 1923. John Ellis attempted suicide in August 1924, and he was found dead 20th September 1932.
Stan
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This is gruesomely fascinating ... I know hanging has been abolished in this country (UK) but what about the rest of Europe ??
You can whet your whistle here
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/
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The whole subject is rather awful.
"Ever since Edith Thompson's execution in 1923, condemned female prisoners had been required to wear thick padded calico knickers"
Wikipedia article on Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK.