Category Archives: Executions

1746: Hanged man found alive, “pissing in the chimney”

Unless carried out by a skilled executioner, hanging can be an unreliable method of capital punishment. History abounds with stories of hanged persons who survived the ordeal.

In a text on the mechanics of drowning, 18th century physician Rowland Jackson described several documented cases of failed hangings. In Aremberg in the Rhineland, a local merchant named Landthaler was hanged from a tree and swung “for a whole hour” before being cut down. He was discovered to be alive and complained of nothing other than sore eyes and toe-tips.

In Cologne, a hanged robber was brought back to life by a passing servant – and then repaid the favour by trying to steal the servant’s horse. A similar tale occurred near Abbeville, Picardie, where a miller took a hanged thief home and nursed him back to life – only for the thief to burgle his house.

In all three of these cases the victims were returned to the gallows and hanged again, this time successfully. More fortunate was a hanged man described by Mr Falconet, a “gentleman of strict probity and candour”. According to Falconet his family had a “foolhardy coachman” who:

“…falling into a quarrel at Lyon, killed a man, and being apprehended on the spot was forthwith condemned to be hanged, which sentence was accordingly put into execution. The surgeons of the town, having obtained his body in order to make a skeleton, brought it into a surgery where they left it upon a table. But when they came next day to dissect it, they were surprised to find the man not only alive, but in good health, and pissing in the chimney – for the want, as he said, of a chamberpot. This man had stood in no need of remedies… the circulation of the blood had not been so long suppressed that it could of its own accord restore itself.”

Source: Rowland Jackson, A Physical Dissertation on Drowning, &c., London, 1746. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1565: Abused mule has feet cut off, then burned alive

Historical records briefly mention a case of bestiality in 16th-century France. According to a chronicler named Ranchin, an unnamed Montpelleir farmer was surprised “behind his mule” in 1565. According to the witness, the farmer was committing an “act that cannot be mentioned”.

The farmer was put on trial, convicted of buggery and bestiality and sentenced to be burned alive. The mule, despite its passive role, was sentenced to the same fate. But according to Ranchin, the mule refused to go without a fight and turned nasty, prompting brutal action from the executioner:

“Mulus… erat vitiosus et calcitrosus. In primis abcissi fuere quatuor pedes ipsius et demun in ignem projectus et una cum homine combustus fuit.”

(‘The mule was vicious and kicking. He was dealt with first, all four of his feet were removed and cast into the fire, after which he and the man burned.’)

Source: Memoires des Antiquaires de France, v.8. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1889: Three Bald Knobbers endure botched hangings

The Bald Knobbers were a vigilante gang active in southern Missouri during the 1880s. The group came together in 1883 to deal with bandits and cross-border raiders plaguing local farmers. By 1885, the Bald Knobbers had grown in size and become troublemakers as much as trouble-stoppers. They also adopted a crude but intimidating uniform: a black hood with eye and mouth holes removed and the corners tied to resemble ears or horns.

The lawless behaviour of the Bald Knobbers led to the formation of the Anti-Bald Knobbers, in effect a vigilante group formed to combat another vigilante group. In March 1887 Bald Knobbers in Christian County shot up the home of an opponent, killing him and another man. Three Bald Knobbers – Dave Walker, his son William and Deacon Matthews – were arrested, tried and sentenced to death.

Their hanging took place in Ozark, Missouri on May 10th 1889 but was appallingly handled:

“The trap was sprung at 9.53 this morning. Matthews went down while uttering a prayer. The stretch of the rope was so great as to let all the doomed men fall to the ground. The rope finally broke and William Walker fell loose and lay on the ground struggling and groaning. He was taken up by the sheriff and his deputies and again placed on the scaffold. Dave Walker was swung up and died in 15 minutes. John Matthews lived about 13 minutes and died with his feet on the ground. The scene was horrible in the extreme. William Walker was lifted almost insensible, helpless and groaning on the scaffold and the rope was again adjusted around his neck. The trap was again sprung and this time the poor wretch came to a sudden stop with his feet full 30 inches above the ground. He died without a struggle.”

A gunfight between Bald Knobbers, Anti-Bald Knobbers and lawmen in July 1889 ended most of the Knobber violence in Missouri. The Bald Knobbers later featured in the popular 1907 novel The Shepherd of the Hills and two film adaptations, including a 1941 release starring John Wayne.

Source: The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo (Missouri), May 14th 1889. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1662: A recipe for preserving severed heads

Thomas Ellwood (1639-1714) was an English Quaker, a friend of the poet John Milton and a significant author in his own right. Ellwood was born into a Puritan family but joined the Society of Friends in his late teens. He was twice arrested for writing inflammatory essays on religion and attempting to recruit others to Quakerism, and in late 1662 was thrown into Newgate prison for several weeks.

In his autobiography, published the year after his death, Ellwood recalled his experiences in Newgate, where he mingled with the scum of London: pickpockets, thugs and petty criminals. He remembered prostitutes being let into the prison on a regular basis:

“I have sometimes been in the hall in an evening and have seen the whores let in unto them… Nasty sluts indeed they were… And as I have passed them I heard the rogues and they [the women] making their bargains, which and which of them should company together that night.”

Ellwood also recalled his disgust at discovering the quartered bodies of three executed men stashed in a closet near his cell. He also witnessed their heads being treated by the executioner, so they could be put on display on a spike somewhere in London:

“I saw the heads when they were brought up to be boiled. The hangman fetched them in a dirty dust basket… he [and other prisoners] made sport with them. They took them by the hair, flouting, jeering and laughing at them, giving them some ill names [and] boxed them on the ears and the cheeks. When done, the hangman put them into his kettle and parboiled them with bay salt and cumin seed, [the first] to keep them from putrefaction, [the second] to keep the fowls from seizing on them.”

Source: The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood, by the Same, pub. 1715. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1916: Five-ton elephant lynched in Tennessee

In September 1916, Sparks World Famous Circus set up in Kingsport, north-east Tennessee. One of the circus’s most popular exhibits was Mary, a five-ton Asian elephant.

On September 12th,Mary was being watered at a local pond when she turned on a circus employee, Red Eldridge, throwing him to the ground and stomping on his head. As might be expected, he was killed instantly.

Eldridge’s death created a firestorm of public anger, worsened by irresponsible press reporting. Newspaper accounts said that “Murderous Mary” had gored the hapless victim to death when in fact, she had no tusks. It was also falsely claimed that “Mary had slain her eighth man”.

Facing a boycott, circus owners agreed to a public lynching in Erwin, the nearest town with a crane sufficient for the task. A Kentucky newspaper described the execution:

“The showmen chose to hang the beast. A derrick car of the Carolina Clinchefield & Ohio Railway was used. Heavy chains were looped about the elephant’s neck and the steam operated crane lifted the massive form into the air. The animal struggled for quite a while before death finally resulted from strangulation.”

In reality, the first attempt to string Mary up was thwarted by a broken chain. The elephant fell, fractured its pelvis and writhed on the ground in agony while those in charge arranged a second attempt. The sordid spectacle was watched by 3,000 people, including local children who were given time off school to attend.

A post-mortem on the elephant’s body revealed a painful jaw infection that probably triggered her attack on Eldridge.

Source: Hopkinsville Kentuckian, September 30th 1916. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1602: Severed head lives on for a quarter-hour

Franz Schmidt was the city executioner in Bamberg, northern Bavaria, during the late 16th and early 17th century. Like many other medieval and early modern executioners, Schmidt had taken over the role from his father, Heinrich.

During his 45 years of service, Schmidt the younger despatched 361 convicted criminals. He also dispensed various forms of torture and corporal punishment, including floggings, brandings and the removal of fingers, eyes and ears.

Schmidt kept a comprehensive diary that recorded each of his 361 executions, noting the victim’s crime, the method of execution used and other interesitng details. One of the more curious entries recalls the execution of George Praun, a cook from Mannsfeld. Praun was an inveterate thief beheaded by Schmidt, who recorded something peculiar about Praun’s severed head:

“When placed on the stone, his head turned several times, as if it wanted to look about it… [It] moved its tongue and opened its mouth, as if wanting to speak, for a good quarter of an hour. I have never seek the like of this before.”

Like other executioners of his age, Schmidt also had a profitable sideline in medical advice – and probably also in the sale of body parts and the belongings of his victims. He became quite wealthy and in retirement was a prominent member of Nuremberg’s affluent classes until his death in 1637.

Source: Diaries of Franz Schmidt, May 20th 1602 entry; pub. 1801. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1642: Mob plays football with Catholic priest’s head

Hugh Greene, also known as Ferdinand Brooks, was a victim of anti-Catholic persecution during the English Civil War. Greene was born in London to Anglican parents but converted to Catholicism after his graduation from Cambridge. After studying in France, Greene became a parish priest in Dorset.

In 1642, Charles I banished all Catholic priests from England. Greene complied with the king’s order but was held up and missed the deadline by several days, and was arrested trying to board a ship in Lyme Regis.

Greene was imprisoned for several months, committed to trial on charges of high treason and sent for execution. The sentence was carried out in Dorchester in August 1642. According to the written testimony of an eyewitness, Elizabeth Willoughby, Greene was hanged to the point of unconsciousness, then messily quartered:

“The man that was to quarter him was a timorous, unskilful man, by trade a barber, and his name was Barefoot… he was so long dismembering him that [Greene] came to his perfect senses and sat upright and took Barefoot by the hand… then did this butcher cut his belly on both sides… Whilst [Greene] was calling upon Jesus, the butcher did pull a piece of his liver out instead of his heart, tumbling his guts out every way to see if his heart were not amongst them…”

This barbarous ordeal went on for more than a half-hour, with Greene either praying devoutly or screaming in agony. According to Willoughby, Greene only expired after his throat was cut and his head was hacked off with a cleaver. His heart was eventually removed and thrown into a fire, before it was snatched up and stolen by a local woman.

As for the priest’s severed head:

“An ungodly multitude, from ten o’clock in the morning till four in the afternoon, stayed on the hill and sported themselves at football with his head [then] put sticks in his eyes, ears, nose and mouth and buried it near to the body.”

Source: Letter from Elizabeth Willoughby, Dorchester, June 20th 1643. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1735: Murderer pressed to death under 400 pounds

In 1735, John Weekes of Fittleworth, Sussex was arrested for highway robbery and murder. According to court records, Weekes had been caught red-handed with “several spots of blood and part of the [stolen] goods… found upon him.”

Weekes appeared at the county assizes in Lewes, where he attempted to avoid justice by feigning stupidity and an inability to speak. Unfortunately for Weekes, the Lewes court’s method for dealing with persons who refused to plead or testify was peine forte et dure (‘hard and coercive punishment’).

The judge ordered that Weekes:

“..be taken back to the prison whence you came… that you be laid upon your back on the bare floor with a cloth around your loins but elsewhere naked; that there be set upon your body a weight or iron as great as you can bear – even greater. That you have no sustenance save on the first day three morsels of the coarsest barley [bread]; on the second day three draughts of stagnant water; on the third day bread as before; next water as before – until you die.”

Most pressings were conducted in dungeons but Weekes was tortured and executed in public, in the marketplace in Horsham. According to contemporary reports he was laid on his back and stone weights were piled on top of him in 100-hundred point increments, one added every few minutes.

Within an hour, Weekes lay under 400 pounds of boulders:

“He was [almost] dead, having all the agonies of death upon him. Then the executioner, who weighs 16 or 17 stone, lay down upon the board which was over him, and adding to the weight, killed him in an instant.”

Other reports suggest that Weekes was finished off when several onlookers sat or stood on his weights. Whether they did this to despatch him out of sympathy, or simply for jest, is not recorded.

Sources: Various inc. London Magazine, August 1735. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1650: Anne Greene survives being hanged, pulled, stomped

Anne Greene was a young Oxfordshire woman employed in the service of Sir Thomas Read. In the spring of 1650, while in her early 20s, she was seduced and impregnated by Read’s 16-year-old grandson, Jeffrey.

Six months later she went into labour while stirring a vat of malt. Greene later miscarried while “in the house of office” [lavatory]. The terrified maidservant buried the stillborn boy near a cesspit but it was soon discovered and reported to her master.

In December 1650, Greene was put on trial in Oxford under a charge of infanticide. Despite a lack of evidence, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. Her execution took place on December 14th 1650.

Like many other hangings of the time, it did not proceed well:

“She was turned off the ladder, hanging by the neck for the space of almost half an hour… some of her friends in the mean time thumping her on the breast, others hanging with all their weight upon her legs, sometimes lifting her up and then pulling her down again with a sudden jerk, whereby the sooner to despatch her out of her pain… the under-sheriff, fearing they should break the rope, forbade them to do so any longer.”

Eventually, Greene appeared to expire and she was cut down. Her body was given to William Petty, a surgeon and anatomical researcher then based in Oxford.

“The coffin being opened she was observed to breathe… which being observed by a lusty fellow who stood by, he (thinking to do an act of charity in ridding her out of the small relics of a painful life) stomped several times on her breast and stomach with all the force he could.”

Dr Petty arrived shortly after and immediately began to revive Greene, dosing her with “hot and cold cordials”, tickling her throat with a feather and giving her a hot enema. Greene recovered and within days, she was well enough to eat a chicken.

Petty and others lobbied the Oxford court for a pardon. This was readily obtained, not least because her former employer and chief prosecutor, Sir Thomas Read, had died three days after Greene’s hanging.

Greene later married and had three more children. She is believed to have died in childbirth in 1665, aged about 37.

Source: Various inc. In the Revival of Anne Greene, Hanged at Oxford in 1650, Phoenix Britannicus, 1732. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1677: Woman hanged for bestiality thanks to tail-wagging dog

In 1677 a married woman, Mary Hickes, appeared at the Old Bailey charged with bestiality. According to the prosecutor, Mrs Hickes:

“…to the disgrace of all womankind did commit buggery with a mongrel dog, and wickedly, devilishly and against nature had venereal and carnal copulation with him.”

A significant witness for the prosecution was a female neighbour, who “happening to cast her eye” into Hickes’ house:

“…saw such actions with a dog as are not fit here to be recited.”

But the key witness was the dog in question, who was summoned to the courtroom and “set on the bar before the prisoner”. Hickes’ fate was apparently sealed by the dog:

“…wagging his tail and making motions, as it were, to kiss her.”

Both Hickes and the dog were later hanged at Tyburn.

Source: Old Bailey Proceedings, July 1677, 11-1. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.