Tales of the hangman

ANY delving into the murkier aspects of York's past is bound to yield copious details - some true, some mere legend - about the lives and deaths of the city's two most notorious villains, Guy Fawkes and Dick Turpin.

But the lives of the scarcely less colourful men who sent them and other criminals to their deaths have been less well chronicled. Until now.

Thanks to a new book from historian and author of popular true crime books James Bland, the gruesome lives of some of the country's most infamous hangmen are brought vividly to life.

In The Common Hangman, you can read about such colourful characters as Jack Ketch, the executioner of the Duke of Monmouth, whose name became the traditional appellation for hangmen; Gregory Brandon, himself convicted of manslaughter and Gregory's son Richard, who allegedly confessed to being the executioner of Charles I.

But the hangmen of York, for anyone from this area, hold the most fascination. And, throughout its long and frequently bloody history, the city has had plenty.

According to the Criminal Chronology of York Castle, published in 1837, the first 'official' gallows in the city was set up at Knavesmire some time after 1379. The York Tyburn quickly became known as the 'three-legged mare' and private soldier Edward Hewison had the dubious honour of being the first man to put it through its paces, after being convicted of rape.

It wasn't at the York Tyburn that the city's most famous son met his end, however. Fawkes and six other Gunpowder Plot conspirators, Mr Bland relates, were almost certainly hanged, drawn and quartered by the then hangman of London, a man named Derrick, in 1606. A Dutch engraving from the time reproduced in The Common Hangman depicts the gruesome scene.

In York, the holder of the hangman's post was usually himself a convicted villain under sentence of death, who was pardoned on condition he accept the unsavoury job. That was true of Thomas Hadfield, who on April 7 1739 brought to an untimely end the sordid career of Dick Turpin. Hadfield had himself been sentenced to death for highway robbery, making Turpin's death at his hands especially ironic.

It was Hadfield's first hanging, and he wasn't the only person whose life was spared that day. Turpin and one other man were executed. But, as the York Courant's report of the proceedings made clear: "Laurence Roberts, Thomas Hadfield (who was hangman) and Naomi Hollings, who pleaded her Belly, and were all under the Sentence of Death, are repriev'd."

Probably York's most notorious hangman, however, was convicted sheep-stealer William Curry, commonly known as 'Mutton' Curry because of the crimes of which he was found guilty. Twice sentenced to death, his sentence was twice commuted to transportation. He was in York Castle waiting to be sent to Australia when the post of hangman became vacant, and he was prevailed on to accept it.

A 'new drop' or new gallows had been erected at York Castle about the time of his appointment in 1802, Mr Bland says. There and at a nearby gallows on Baile Hill, Curry presided over the hanging of several dozen people over the next 33 years - including 14 who were hanged in one day in 1813.

"It is generally Acknowledged," says a report of his retirement in the Yorkshire Gazette quoted by Mr Bland, "that he filled the situation with sufficient ability; but it is to be much regretted that, whilst preparing the noose for his unfortunate victims, gin was apt to provide a snare to him."

Given the grim nature of his profession, it was Hardly surprising that Curry should have turned to drink. His tendency to overindulge in gin, however, led to more than one execution being shockingly bungled. On April 14, 1821, having already hanged one man at York Castle, he had to perform a second hanging an hour later at Baile Hill. By the time he got there, he was drunk.

While waiting on the platform for the condemned man, convicted robber William Brown, to appear, he began shaking the noose at spectators with apparent glee, Mr Bland says, and calling out to them: "Some of you come up and I'll try it!"

By the time Brown appeared, Curry was so drunk he needed the help of the gaoler and one of the sheriff's officers to complete the hanging. "The executioner, in a bungling manner and with great difficulty (being in a state of intoxication), placed the cap over the culprit's face and attempted several times to place the rope round his neck, but was unable," says a report in The Times of April 24 that year.

"He missed the unfortunate man's head with the noose every time that he tried. The cap was each time removed from the malefactor's face, who stared wildly around upon the spectators."

Once the hanging was finally over, the crowd was so incensed at the way it had been bungled that several people called for the hangman himself to be hung and, on his return home, Curry was 'repeatedly knocked down and beaten by the mob,' according to a report in the Yorkshire Gazette.

It wasn't the only time 'Mutton' Curry found himself in trouble. Just a few months later, on September 1 1821, five men were to be hanged together at York Castle.

The Yorkshire Gazette of September 8 relates what happened. "On Saturday last, a few minutes before 12 o'clock, the five unfortunate men ... were conducted from their cells to the fatal drop.

"After a short time spent in prayer.... they were launched into eternity. None of them seemed to suffer much.

"(However), by an unaccountable neglect of the executioner (Curry) in not keeping sufficiently clear of the drop when the bolt was pulled out, he fell along with the malefactors."

Luckily for him Curry did not have a noose around his neck when he released the gallows trapdoor and plunged through 'the drop' alongside the men he was executing, and his fall produced little more than bruises.

The hangmen who succeeded Curry appear to have been less colourful characters - though Nathan Howard, who took over the post in 1840, bungled one hanging so badly - "when the drop fell and the rope tightened around his neck, the condemned man struggled violently," says Mr Bland - that he was dismissed.

Howard, who was reportedly 'old and infirm', died just six days later, so can perhaps be forgiven the botched hanging.

Howard was succeeded in 1856 by York's last hangman, debtor Thomas Askern. He held the job until 1878, despite many botched hangings, in York and elsewhere, which left his unfortunate victims struggling violently at the end of the rope before they died. He himself died in Maltby, at the age of 62, on December 6 1878 - apparently, according to Mr Bland, the last hangman to hold a provincial post anywhere in Britain.

- The Common Hangman, by James Bland, is published by Zeon Books, price £14.95.