|
William Calcraft (1800 – 13 December 1879) was a 19th-century English hangman, one of the most active of British executioners. It is estimated in his 45-year career he carried out 450 executions. A cobbler by trade, Calcraft was initially recruited to flog juvenile offenders held in Newgate Prison. While selling meat pies on streets around the prison, Calcraft met the City of London's hangman, John Foxton. After Foxton's death in 1829 the government appointed Calcraft the official Executioner for the City of London and Middlesex. Following this, his executioner services were in great demand throughout England. Nevertheless, some considered Calcraft incompetent, in particular for his controversial use of the short-drop hanging method in which the condemned were slowly strangled to death, rather than the traditional method of having a victim's vertebrae broken by the weight of the body falling through the gallows trapdoor. Because with Calcraft's methods the condemned took several minutes to die, to hasten death Calcraft would sometimes dramatically pull on legs or climb on shoulders in an effort to break a victim's neck. It has been speculated that Calcraft used these methods partly to entertain the crowds, sometimes numbering 30,000 spectators or more. Executions in England were public until 1868. That year the law changed, mandating executions would take place privately and inside the prison. In 1868 Calcraft carried out the last public and first private executions. Among his executions were Marie and Frederick Manning, the first husband and wife to be hanged together since 1700. ==Early life== Calcraft was born in Baddow, near Chelmsford, in 1800. He was a cobbler by trade, but had also worked as a nightwatchman at Reid's brewery in Clerkenwell, London. While attempting to earn a living by selling meat pies on the streets around Newgate Prison he made the acquaintance of John Foxton, who was the City of London's hangman for 40 years. That meeting led to his employment at Newgate to flog juvenile offenders, for which he was paid 10 shillings a week.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「William Calcraft」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|