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Robert Baxter (executioner)
Robert Orridge Baxter (c. 1878 – 1961) was an English executioner from Hertfordshire. His career lasted from 1915 to 1935, during which he carried out 44 hangings and assisted at 53 others. Career Baxter worked at his first hanging, as an assistant to Thomas Pierrepoint, on 15 July 1915. He assisted both Pierrepoint and John Ellis (executioner), John Ellis sporadically over the next few years. On 12 August 1924, he participated in his first job as chief executioner when he hanged Frenchman Jean-Pierre Vaquier. He would, for the next decade, be the second-most active executioner in England, behind only Pierrepoint. They each received jobs on a regional basis, and Baxter was responsible for nearly every execution carried out in London. He carried out 24 consecutive hangings at Pentonville (HM Prison), Pentonville Prison. He and Pierrepoint soon became rivals, and they then started writing to under-sheriffs to request specific jobs, even though that was not allowed. They were both ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For government statistical purposes, it forms part of the East of England region. Hertfordshire covers . It derives its name – via the name of the county town of Hertford – from a hart (stag) and a ford, as represented on the county's coat of arms and on the flag. Hertfordshire County Council is based in Hertford, once the main market town and the current county town. The largest settlement is Watford. Since 1903 Letchworth has served as the prototype garden city; Stevenage became the first town to expand under post-war Britain's New Towns Act of 1946. In 2013 Hertfordshire had a population of about 1,140,700, with Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford and St Albans (the county's only ''city'') each having between 50,000 and 10 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hertford
Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a ford on the River Lea, near its confluences with the rivers Mimram, Beane, and Rib. The Lea is navigable from the Thames up to Hertford. Fortified settlements were established on each side of the ford at Hertford in 913AD. The county of Hertfordshire was established at a similar time, being named after and administered from Hertford. Hertford Castle was built shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066 and remained a royal residence until the early seventeenth century. Hertfordshire County Council and East Hertfordshire District Council both have their main offices in the town and are major local employers, as is McMullen's Brewery, which has been based in the town since 1827. The town is also popular with commuters, being only north of central London and conn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executioner
An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who executes a sentence of capital punishment on a legally condemned person. Scope and job 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 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 a mask? Everybody k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Executioner
An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who executes a sentence of capital punishment on a legally condemned person. Scope and job 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 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 a mask? Everybody k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. The first known account of execution by hanging was in Homer's ''Odyssey'' (Book XXII). In this specialised meaning of the common word ''hang'', the past and past participle is ''hanged'' instead of ''hung''. Hanging is a common method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death by suspension or partial suspension. Methods of judicial hanging ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Pierrepoint
Thomas William Pierrepoint (6 October 1870 – 11 February 1954) was an English executioner from 1906 until 1946. He was the brother of Henry Pierrepoint and uncle of Albert Pierrepoint. Personal life Pierrepoint was born in Sutton Bonington, Nottinghamshire, in 1870, the second child and eldest son of Thomas Pierrepoint, a plate layer on the railway, and Ann Pierrepoint, formerly Marriott. The Pierrepoint family were still living in Sutton Bonington at the time of the 1881 census, 1881 census: Sutton Bonington; RG11; Piece 3149; Folio 26; Page 3. but by the 1891 census they had moved to Clayton, near Bradford, Yorkshire, where Thomas and his father were employed as stone quarrymen. He was married to Elizabeth Binns on 5 December 1891. By 1914, Pierrepoint had taken on a number of "sidelines", including a carrier service founded by his brother, a small farm, and an illegal bookmaking business. Career Thomas Pierrepoint began working as a hangman in 1906 under the influenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Ellis (executioner)
John Ellis (4 October 1874 – 20 September 1932) was a British executioner for 23 years, from 1901 to 1924. His other occupations were as a Rochdale hairdresser and newsagent. Personal life Born in Balderstone, Rochdale on 4 October 1874, he first worked in a series of jobs as a casual labourer in and around Manchester before gaining a job at a spinning mill in Bury. After another stint in a factory he decided to follow his father's trade by becoming a barber and hairdresser in Rochdale, where he subsequently also opened a newsagent's shop, which he ran with his wife and children. Career At the age of 22 he applied to the Home Office to become an executioner and was invited to attend training at Newgate Prison. He first participated in an execution in Newcastle in December 1901, as assistant to William Billington. Ellis served as Chief Executioner from 1907 and was involved in a total of 203 executions. Among the executions he performed were those of Hawley Harv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-Pierre Vaquier
Jean-Pierre Vaquier (14 July 1879 – 17 August 1924) was a French inventor and murderer. He was convicted in Britain of murdering the husband of his mistress by poisoning him with strychnine. Vaquier was born in Niort-de-Sault on Bastille Day, 1879. In 1924 he was working as a lecturer in radio-telephony, when he met Mabel Jones in Biarritz; she had gone there to recover from a breakdown. He spoke no English and she spoke no French, so they conducted their affair through the medium of a dictionary. When Jones returned to Byfleet, Vaquier followed and took up residence in the Blue Anchor pub in Byfleet which Jones ran together with her husband Alfred George Poynter Jones. He said that he planned to market a new sausage-making machine he had patented. On the morning of 29 March Alfred Jones came downstairs and took his habitual glass of Bromo-Seltzer as a hangover remedy from a bottle in the bar parlour, where Vaquier had already been sitting for some time. Jones immediately be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major settlement for two millennia. The City of London, its ancient core and financial centre, was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans as ''Londinium'' and retains its medieval boundaries.See also: Independent city#National capitals, Independent city § National capitals The City of Westminster, to the west of the City of London, has for centuries hosted the national Government of the United Kingdom, government and Parliament of the United Kingdom, parliament. Since the 19th century, the name "London" has also referred to the metropolis around this core, historically split between the Counties of England, counties of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Kent, and Hertfordshire, which largely comprises Greater London ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pentonville (HM Prison)
HM Prison Pentonville (informally "The Ville") is an English Category B men's prison, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. Pentonville Prison is not in Pentonville, but is located further north, on the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury area of the London Borough of Islington, north London. In 2015 the justice secretary, Michael Gove, described Pentonville as "the most dramatic example of failure" within the prisons estate. The prison today Pentonville is a local prison, holding Category B/C adult males remanded by local magistrates' courts and the Crown Court, and those serving short sentences or beginning longer sentences. The prison is divided into these main wings: * A wing: Remand and convicted * J wing: Induction wing * C wing: Remands and convicted prisoners * D wing: Remands and convicted * E wing: Remands and convicted * F wing: Detoxification Unit (F4 F5 Vulnerable Prisoners) * G wing: remands and convicted (G5 enhanced only) G wing has an education department, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swansea (HM Prison)
HM Prison Swansea (Welsh: ) is a Category B/C men's prison, located in the Sandfields area of Swansea, Wales. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service, and is colloquially known as 'Cox's farm', after a former governor. History Swansea is a Victorian prison built between 1845 and 1861 to replace former prison accommodation at Swansea Castle. Both male and female inmates were incarcerated there until 1922, at which point all females were transferred to Cardiff Prison. Execution site A total of 15 judicial executions took place at Swansea prison between 1858 and 1958. All of the condemned prisoners were hanged for the crime of murder. Their names, ages and dates of execution are: * Panotis Alepis, 23 yrs & Manoeli Selapatana, 28 yrs, 20 March 1858 (executioner: William Calcraft) First public hanging, at the front of the prison * Robert Coe, 12 April 1866 (executioner: William Calcraft) Final public hanging at the prison * Thomas Nash, 1 March 1886 (executio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Allen (executioner)
Alfred Allen (c. 1888 – c. 1938) was an English executioner from Wolverhampton. His career lasted from 1928 to 1937, during which he carried out 3 hangings as a chief executioner and assisted at 14 others. Allen participated in his first hanging on 11 December 1928, when he assisted Robert Baxter. It did not go well for Allen. He failed to move clear of the trapdoor after securing the prisoner's legs and then fell into the pit when Baxter pulled the lever. Allen was not injured. Over the next few years, Allen did not receive many jobs. When he did, it was as an assistant to Thomas Pierrepoint. His first action as chief executioner came on 23 November 1932. He was reunited with Baxter one more time, in 1934; although there was no incident such as the one that had occurred during their first partnership, Baxter did state later that he found Allen "an unpleasant person to share sleeping quarters with." Allen carried out his last hanging on 17 August 1937.Fielding, Steve, p. 17 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
