John Babbacombe Lee

John Henry George Lee, better known as John "Babbacombe" Lee, (1864 – c. 1945) or "The Man They Couldn't Hang", was a British man famous for surviving three attempts at judicial execution.

Lee was born in Abbotskerswell, Devon, served in the Royal Navy and was a known thief. In 1885 he was convicted of the brutal murder of his employer Emma Keyse at her home at Babbacombe Bay near Torquay on 15 November 1884. The evidence was weak and circumstantial, amounting to little more than Lee having been the only male in the house at the time of the murder, his previous criminal record, and being found with an unexplained cut on his arm. Despite this and his constant claim of innocence he was sentenced to hang.

However, on February 23 at Exeter prison, three attempts were made to carry out his execution. All ended in failure as the trap door of the scaffold failed to open. This was despite the fact it had been carefully tested by James Berry, the executioner, beforehand. As a result, Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released from gaol in 1907. The only other known man in history to survive three hangings is Joseph Samuel.

Many theories have been advanced as to the cause of the failure, but Home Office papers show that the official report stated incorrect assembly of the gallows mechanism allowed the trapdoor hinges to rest upon an eighth of an inch of drawbar, preventing them from opening when the doors were weighted. This incident helped lead to a standard gallows design, to prevent a repeat occurrence.

After his release, Lee seems to have exploited his notoriety, supporting himself through lecturing on his life, even becoming the subject of a silent film. Accounts of his whereabouts after 1916 are somewhat confused, and one researcher even speculated that in later years there was more than one man claiming to be Lee. It was suspected that he died in the Tavistock workhouse [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southwest/series1/john-babbacombe-lee.shtml THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG] ] sometime during World War II. However, one recent piece of research concludes that he died in the US under the name of "James Lee" in 1945. [ [http://www.ianwaugh.com/murderresearch/where/ Where Is John Lee ?] ] According to the book titled "The Man They Could Not Hang" by Mike Holgate and Ian David Waugh, Lee's gravestone was found at Forest Home Cemetery, Milwaukee.

In the 1970s, Dave Swarbrick (the fiddle-player in the English folk-rock band Fairport Convention), found a series of old newspaper articles about Lee and composed a rock opera entitled "Babbacombe Lee" which was recorded and released by Fairport Convention as an LP.

Folk song collector Gwilym Davies was given a notebook in 1971 by Mrs Hunt, of Greywell, Hampshire, in which the words of a poem, 'The Death of John Lee' were written. [ [http://www.cmarge.demon.co.uk Gwilym Davies - Folk Singer, Folk Song Collector, Speaker ] ] The words, with a composed tune, were published in 1972 by Gwilym Davies in 'A Hampshire Garland'.

References

External links

* [http://www.ianwaugh.com/murderresearch/ Detailed history]

Persondata
NAME= Lee, John 'Babbacombe'
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=
DATE OF BIRTH=1864
PLACE OF BIRTH=Abbotskerswell, Devon
DATE OF DEATH=1941
PLACE OF DEATH=