Seems like the profession of executioner has nearly always attracted the most desperate and dissolute men around (have there been any/many women executioners?).
Fascinating trip and info on Ned Kelly's hangman. Another interesting character was Canada's 1920's hangman, Arthur Ellis (real name Arthur English - he took the name Ellis after UK's hangman John Ellis). UK born English answered a job advert for a hangman for Canada but by the time he came to execute US serial killer Earle Nelson (for the murder of my own ancestor, Emily Patterson, by the way), he was well past his game and was an alcoholic. Unfortunately, he bungled a few executions, subjecting two felons to decapitation and another couple to slow strangulation. I enjoyed researching this strange character for my own book about Nelson's forgotten victims - 'The Forgotten Forty-Four'. English went the way of several other hangmen, deserted by his wife, alone and in poor physical and mental health.
Seems like the profession of executioner has nearly always attracted the most desperate and dissolute men around (have there been any/many women executioners?).
Fascinating trip and info on Ned Kelly's hangman. Another interesting character was Canada's 1920's hangman, Arthur Ellis (real name Arthur English - he took the name Ellis after UK's hangman John Ellis). UK born English answered a job advert for a hangman for Canada but by the time he came to execute US serial killer Earle Nelson (for the murder of my own ancestor, Emily Patterson, by the way), he was well past his game and was an alcoholic. Unfortunately, he bungled a few executions, subjecting two felons to decapitation and another couple to slow strangulation. I enjoyed researching this strange character for my own book about Nelson's forgotten victims - 'The Forgotten Forty-Four'. English went the way of several other hangmen, deserted by his wife, alone and in poor physical and mental health.