The Last Hangings in UK.

[j.sabourn]

#8... I'm putting in for John Ps apprentice. 2c squared wasnt that the breaking strain for rope. Or maybe a heaving Line knot before its tightened would do the trick. Could try out all sorts of knots to make the job fit the crime. A timber hitch maybe to slowly throttle, this breaking the neck with fall maybe too good for some of the crimes commited, for those who try to behead, would bring back the guillotine so that they knew they were gong to have the same obstacles as their victims on reaching their final goal. Make the punishment fit the crime. JS

[Tony Frost]

Last one in the USA was Robin Williams:mymy

[Dennis McGuckin]

Some time ago, we had a similar post.At that time, I mentioned renting the movie 'The last Hangman'
It was the story of Peirpoint.
He learnt the trade from his father, who had the record for the quickest execution. Didn't think they kept records for that!
The son was to beat that record. Monty sent him to Nuremberg for the war trials.
Cant recall how many he hung in one day.

[George]

I wish they would bring hanging back for the murder and abuse against children.
George
in Southampton

[Captain Kong]

This is a man who by sheer luck cheated the Hangman,
........from this site............
James Camb - The Porthole Murder - HorrorFind
usersites.horrorfind.com/home/horror/bedlambound/.../porthole.html‎CachedSimilar
There are several famous tales of murder aboard ocean liners - two or three of
them are ... Captain Patey conducted an investigation on board as Durban Castle
.
.

The steward's own admission that he had callously shoved the victim's body through a porthole worked against him, along with the impressive forensic evidence provided by the prosecution. After four days of trial and following a forty-five-minute deliberation, the jury found Camb Guilty of murdering Gay Gibson. The steward, who had posed like a peacock in the dock, was stunned at the decision. Before sentence was passed by Justice Hilbery, he was asked if he had anything to say. He replied in a quavering voice: "My Lord, at the beginning of this case...I pleaded not guilty. I repeat that statement now. That is all." He was then sentenced to death. His attorneys filed an appeal and while this was being considered, the House of Commons added an amendment to the new Criminal Justice Bill then before Parliament, one which would abolish capital punishment. The Home Secretary, while this bill was still being debated in the House of Lords (which later rejected it), decided to commute all capital sentences still pending to life terms and Camb was one of the condemned who cheated the hangman due to this briefly-open legal loophole.



It was after this commutation that several women came forward to tell how Camb had sexually attacked them on previous voyages of the Durban Castle, two of them claiming they had been raped. Another woman said that she had been attacked on deck by Camb who dragged her into a tool room where she fought desperately as he tried to strip her clothes away. He had lost patience and strangled her. She passed out, she claimed, and when she regained consciousness, she said that Camb was standing over her, grinning.

Camb was paroled in 1959; he changed his name to Clarke and was working as a head waiter in May 1967 when he was convicted of sexually attacking a 13-year-old girl. He was, incredible as it may seem, merely placed on a two-year period of probation. He later went to Scotland where he worked once more as a head waiter in a restaurant. A short time later he was charged with sexual misconduct with three schoolgirls; this time Camb's parole was revoked and he was returned to prison to serve out a life term.

[happy daze john in oz]

In the days when hanging was common here in Oz it was done under very different conditiond to UK. In Melbourne jails, both Pentrige nad Melbpurne Gaol there was no execution room. The prisons had a beam fitted to the roof of the top deck of the cell walk. The trap door was on the next level surrounded by cells all with prisoners in them. On the morning of an execution the prisoner in the cell opposite the gallows was moved to another for the morning. The condemned man was brought to the trap and treated in the usual manner. When the hangman pulled the lever to release the trap he imidiately went into the empty cell slamming the door behind him and had to stay there for the next 30 minutes. the prisoners in all the cells knew what was occuring and were kept locked up until 1000 hours before being let out.
The fastest execution nrecorded here in Oz was 7 seconds from standing on the trap to going through.

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[Captain Kong]

A couple of years ago I went into the Execution room in Fremantle Gaol during a tour.
From the condemned cell they took out the prisoner along a short corridor through a door down some steps and along a court yard, up some more steps and in the room was a steel plate the man was stood on. A beam overhead held the rope and noose. They have executed up to three men at a time there alongside each other. on the right was a big iron lever, I pulled the lever and the trap door dropped down. Strange feeling knowing so many people had gone out that way.
An interesting tour if you get into Freo.
Cheers
Brian.
.
PS.
In Liverpool`s Walton Gaol
the condemned cell had a bed, a wardrobe and a table and chairs, Two warders sat with the prisoner, When Albert and his assistant came in, the prisoner had his hands tied behind him, at the same time the Warder slid the wardrobe to one side revealing a door that led into the execution chamber. the man was walked in there, stood on the trap door, the assistant strapped the legs together as Albert put the hood and then the noose on the man. and then the lever was pulled. The whole operation only taking seconds.
The first vertibrae had to be snapped to be an instant death. The body is left hanging for about an hour before being lowered down to the bottom of the chamber and placed in a coffin.
This description is in George Skelly`s famous book, "Cameo Conspiracy" of when George Kelly was excuted in 1950.
He found new evidence saying that George Kelly did not die instantly. it broke the third vertibrae instead.
He had interviewed the Warders on duty at the time.
He has a vivid description of the execution from the men he interviewed.
Buy the Book, a very very interesting story from start to finish. You wont put it down once started should be on Amazon.
Cheers
Brian.

[Jim Brady]

THE MAN THEY COULD'NT HANG.
This was in Ivan' neck of the woods.John Lee was found tobe guilty of murder and was sentenced tobe hanged in 1885,the hangman tried three times to hang him and each time the trap failed to open although the hangman could not find fault with it.The Home Secretary commuted the sentence to penal servitude for life stating."It would shock the feeling of anyone if a man had twice to pay the pangs of imminent death".As it happened it was found many years later that he did not commit the murder.
Regards.
Jim.B.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/south...ombe-lee.shtml

[happy daze john in oz]

Here in Oz it was the practice of removing vital organs from the hanghed prisoner jsut after he had been cut down. With the case of Ryan, last man hanged in Victoria, the doctor performing this said later in a book he wrote about it.
"it is never easy trying to remove parts from a dead body that is still warm, the flesh is soft and not easy to work with. then with Ryan I had to get out of the prison surrounded by the public many saying the death penalty must be abolished, his vital organs in a plastic bag as I climbed into the car waiting to take me to the hospital where we would conduct the usual post mortem'.


Parts of Pentrige are still open to the public though much has been pulled down do town houses can be built there. To do this the grave yard where many including Kelly were burried had to be exhumed and remains moved to an undisclosed cemetry, though the remains of Kelly, minus head, were returned to the family for burial at an undisclosed spot not far from wher he was born. His head has never been found. After his execution in the old Melbourne Jail his head was cut off, the flesh boiled off and the skull used as a paper weight for many years by the jail govenor, then at some time went missing.

There is a very good living museum set up in what is left of the old goal showing Kelly at his last moment.