Executions 

Executioners: Pascha Rose; John Price; John Thrift; William Elliott; Edward Dennis; Edward Barlow; John Keenan; and Thomas Woodham.

 The meaning of Deterrent: A thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from doing something. Has hanging ever been a deterrent to stop people committing crimes? The simple answer is No!

 By the 19^th Century, there were 222 capital offences and most of the executioners were criminals themselves. The executioner would chop off a head, watch someone hanging, slowly being strangled to death, and then cut out their hearts or chop off the head. He would hold up the heart or the head (at different times) to the several thousand spectators, and call out, “behold the head/heart of a traitor.” And weeks later the executioner becomes the executed.

 Cratwell an executioner, was himself hanged on the 1^st of September 1538 at Clerkenwell, in London, alongside of two other men. Cratwell had executed Elizabeth Barton the Holy Maid of Kent on the 20^th of April 1534, at Tyburn in London, for being able to see into the future.

 Elizabeth Barton had been known by many names such as “The Holy Maid of London” “The Nun of Kent” “The Holy Maid of Kent” and “The Man Maid of Kent.”

 Elizabeth was born at Aldington, near Dymchurch in Kent, in about 1506, a servant to a local farmer named Thomas Cobb.

  At 19, in 1525, Elizabeth become very ill, and she started having vision and to prophesy, for her own protection, she was taken in by the Church, and it was arranged for her to be received in the Benedictine St Sepulchre’s Priory, at Canterbury in Kent.

 When some events she had foretold occurred, her reputation had spread. She was now in the public eye, and she urged people to pray to the Virgin Mary and to go on pilgrimages.

 Elizabeth had met King Henry VIII on two occasions, and he was happy with her until she opposed him, during his divorce to Catherine of Aragon, and he seized control of the Church of England, (just so he can get a divorce.) Elizabeth started prophesying that if Henry remarried, he would die within a few months.

 In May 1533, the marriage between Henry and Catherine was declared unlawful, five days later, the 28^th of May 1533, King Henry, married Anne Boleyn. If the marriage between Henry and Catherine was unlawful, that would make Queen Mary I of England 1516-1558, illegitimate.

 Elizabeth Barton was arrested in 1833 and was forced by Thomas Cromwell to confess that she had fabricated her revelations. Elizabeth was condemned without a trial. On Monday the 20^th of April 1534, she was taken from her cell at the Tower of London, stripped of her religious habit and bound to a broad which was dragged through the Streets of London to Tyburn (Marble Arch) where she was slowly hanged, she was cut down on the brink of death and decapitated, her head was boiled, and taken to London Bridge and stuck on a pole.

 The rest of her remains were buried at Christchurch Greyfriars Church Gardens near St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

 On the 2^nd of July 1556, five condemned men were hanged at Tyburn, one was a man with a stump-leg, who was condemned for theft, had been the finisher of the law for some time past, and hanged drawn and quartered, many a nobleman.

 Pascha Rose was born in about 1650, at Plympton in Devon, and was baptised Pascho Ross, on the 15^th of May 1650, at St Maurice Church, Plympton to respectable parents Thomas and Elizabeth Ross. He was a wild child who broke his father’s heart. The money left to him after his father’s death was spent on loose women and alcohol, after the money ran out, he became an apprentice to a butcher, and after three years’, he went to London and worked as a butcher in the London markets.

 Rose was a married man, but that did not stop him from marrying Rebecca Briggs, (whose husband had just been hanged,) at St James Duke’s Place, Aldgate, on the 27^th of October 1685, his first wife being still alive. Rose was sent down for 15 weeks for bigamy, inside Newgate, being released early to take the job of executioner.

 Rebecca was condemned to death on the 14^th of April 1686, for a felony and burglary, on the 4^th of March, along with one John Steers, they broke and entered the house of one Edward Wiseman, and stole 1s. 6d., the money of the said, Edward Wiseman, Rebecca, was reprieved due to being pregnant, no doubt the father was Pasch Rose himself. Ironically, Rose would have been her executioner.

 Pascha Rose was condemned to death on the 20^th of May 1668, for along with Edward Smith, he did steal a coat and other articles, upwards of 20s., the property of William Barnet, from his house at Stepney. Pascha Rose was executed by Jack Ketch, on the 28^th of May 1686, at Tyburn.

 John Price was born about 1677, at St Martin in the Fields, London, his father was a soldier, who had been blown up at Tangier in Moroccan, in about 1682. He had no education or religious beliefs; he could neither read nor write. He worked for a rag & bone man, for two years, and afterwards on a men-of-war ship in the Royal Navy, on and off for 18 years. He lived outside the law for many years and spent the money on whoring and drinking. It is unknown when Price became the executioner for London & Middlesex.

 After a triple execution in 1715, he was arrested for debt, but with his wagers, tips and the sale of the rope and the clothes from the condemned men, he avoided prison. It was not long before he was eventually imprisoned at Marshalsea Prison, in Southwark, South of the River Thames, for debt.

 On the 13^th of March 1718, he attacked and savagely beat and attempted to rape a woman called Elizabeth White, at Bunhill Field, burial ground, in Islington. She had bruises all over her face, neck and stomach, a broken arm and an eye had come out of its socket, Elizabeth the wife of William White a watchman at Cheapside, died four days later. Price was condemned to death at the Old Bailey, on the 23^rd of April 1718, while awaiting his execution, in Newgate Prison, he raped a young girl who had taken food to his cell. Price was hanged at the place of the crime Bunhill Fields, on Tuesday the 31^st of May 1718, and afterwards carried to Stonebridge, near Kingsland in Middlesex and hanged in chains.

  John Thrift, 1735-1752: The executioner for London, Middlesex, and Surrey. On Monday the 24^th day of May 1736, he hanged four men at Tyburn, Francis Owen, for arson; Christopher Freeman, for burglary; Thomas Tarlton, for horse-stealing; and George Ward, for housebreaking. Later the same day he knocked down and stole 3s 6d., from the pocket of Mary White. The outcome for the assault upon Mary White, was unknown.

 In June 1743, he apprehended a young theft called Evan Evans, who was tried with grand larceny, stealing 3 large silver spoons, 3 teaspoons, a salt-spoon, to the value of 33 ½ shillings, the goods of Sophia Wills, on the 29^th of June 1743, Evans was sentenced to seven years transportation.

 He executed Simon Fraser the 11^th Lord Lovat, four-score-years-old, on the 9^th of April 1747, at Tower Hill in London, the last beheaded in the U.K., he was born in Scotland the son of Thomas Fraser of Beaufort and Lady Sybella McLeod. Simon was noted for his violent feuds and changes of allegiance; he held the titles of Duke of Fraser; Marquis of Beaufort; Earl of Stratherrick; Viscount of the Aird and Strathglass; and Lord Lovat of Beaulieu. He was tried at Westminster Hall in March 1747, with high treason. On the day of his execution a wooden platform collapsed killing nine spectators, Fraser was still laughing when beheaded.

 Thrift was found guilty of murder and condemned to death in 1750 but pardoned to carry on the trade of executioner. On the 11^th of March 1750, Thrift had chased three men from his home down Drury Lane, into Archway, and Short Gardens. Where he struck down David Faris, with a cutlass. He was condemned to death for the murder of Faris, at the Old Bailey on the 25^th of April 1750, and by October, received a full pardon.

 Thrift died on the 5^th of May 1752. He was buried in private at night at St Paul’s Churchyard in Covent Garden, London, in an unmarked grave, afraid his corpse would be dug up.

  William Elliott was an old offender and executioner until he was transported, he returned to England, after his time was up, and went back to his old way. He was hanged on Wednesday the 10^th of June 1767, for housebreaking. Alongside Lawrence Sweetman, for highway robbery; Jacob Wood, and Samuel Knock for burglaries’; and John M’Donnel for forgery.

  John Benham, Elliott accomplice, was respited until further orders; after being used as a guinea pig, he had a leg amputated, to use the newly invented styptick (antihemorrhagic) which stops the fall of blood. He was transported for life. Several other convicts had signed a petition to undergo the same operation.

 Edward Dennis: Executioner from 1771-1786 at Tyburn and Newgate. He was condemned to death in 1780 but reprieved to hang again.

 Edward Barlow 1782-1812: Known as “Old Ned” the executioner for Lancashire. He had twice been condemned to death for housebreaking once in April 1785, when he was pardon and sent to Lancaster Castle for two years, and again in March 1806, but reprieved on the understanding that he continued as executioner, while commuted to ten years’ imprisonment inside Lancaster Castle, by this time Barlow was an old man of 70, and six years’ later he died inside Lancaster Castle aged 76, on the 9^th day of December 1812.

 Believed to have carried out over seventy executioners.

 John Keenan, he was the on and off executioner of Dublin in Ireland during the 1780’s, had been convicted five times for capital offences and each time let loose to commit more crimes and executions. He was a leader of a gang of thieves, and each time he was up in Court, he would save himself either by turning King’s evidence or becoming executioner to the City of Dublin and County.

 John Keenan was committed on the 26^th of February 1784, to the New Prison at Kilmainham, for robbing Adjutant Withers of Harold’s Cross, at Liberty Lane, between New Street and Camden Street, Dublin. Keenan said that at the time of the robbery he was on board a Whitehaven Ship, and that the captain would confirm it. The captain was in Cumberland, and while awaiting the return of the captain, Keenan was placed inside the New Prison. In June, Keenan along with another convict named Edward Doyle attempted to escape.

 The captain of the “Whitehaven” never cooperated with Keenan story, and he was finally hanged in front of Kilmainham Jail, Dublin in Ireland, a little after ten o’clock, in the morning of Wednesday the 21^st of July 1784.

 Thomas Woodham was another executioner hanged for highway robbery, Sixty-eight-year-old Woodham, was hanged at Ilchester in Somerset in August 1785.

 He had said of the crime, that he was in the company with his brother-in-law when the boy William Wiltshire was robbed, but that he ought not to have suffered, as he had none of the eighteen-pence which was robbed from the boy, and that he should not have minded it so much if he had. Declaring that whatever he had done was merely to support his wife and family. (That’s okay! if you don’t spend the proceeds of a robbery on yourself, that’s okay?)

 He was hanged on Wednesday the 10^th of August 1785, alongside John Williams and James Johnston for highway robbery, of John Bennet at Brislington common; Johnson alias Williams and O’Niel, and Williams alias Jones were both Irishmen, and said they only got into trouble since being in England. The halter slipped from Williams’s neck, and he fell to the ground watching the other five men struggling in agonies of death, he was put back in the cart and turned off.

Thomas Gummer aged 48 for stealing dowlas yard, from a bleaching yard; Thomas Winton alias Still for horse-stealing and being at large, and 17-year-old James Prig for highway robbery.