Hanging day

It was a day on which people sentenced to death were hanged (the usual method of execution).

Definition

A hanging day was a sad tradition of the English criminal courts and especially well known from London. Criminals sentenced to death were not executed immediately, but sent back to the "prison whence ye came", in the words of the death sentence read to them at the end of their trial.

A regular number of hanging days were set aside in the judicial calendar each year. There were eight such days a year in London. So by the time each came round a number of victims would have gathered in the cells.

For the main Middlesex and London Sessions, Newgate was the gaol, where those under sentence of death were detained.

On Hanging Day, each prisoner was taken out of gaol, and his or her chains were cut off and the victim was carried on a cart (for the poorer) or in a coach (for the richer) and conducted to Tyburn, London's main place of execution. The traditional route lay down the beginnings of Fleet Street, then Snow Hill, stopping at St. Sepulchre's (where it was traditional to give each victim a nosegay (believed to be a remedy forgaol fever) and, at a pub called the Bow, near St. Grace in the Fields each victim was given a pint of beer, their last mortal drink, and possibly the origin of the phrase "on the wagon" for someone who has given up alcohol; and then procession continued its way to Tyburn.

For the greater part of its history Tyburn had a eighteen foot structure of three wooden pillars with cross beams, from which 24 people could be hanged at any time, though only once it is said (in 1649) was it used to capacity. Before that it was a two tree structure, and before that hangings were conducted from the branches of trees along the Tyburn. After 1783, a portable structure was used, the Tyburn triple-tree having been condemned as a traffic hazard.

On this trip, the convicted were accompanied by "peace officers", the hangman, and a minister of the established church, there to offer religious solace - the comfort of religion - hear any confessions, and minister the last rites, as the burial service was read before the hanging was carried out.

The carts were placed under the cross-trees of the Tyburn structure, and everyone but the condemned and the hangman got out. A noose was placed round the neck of each victim, and after the hangman had dismounted, the horse was whipped away.

Each victim was left hanging by the neck at the end of a short rope - hence the short drop and slowly suffocated to death.

Relatives and friends of the condemned either held onto his or her legs, which ensured a speedier demise, or illegally supported the victim to prevent hanging.

As a popular spectacle

Hangings were mass public attractions, and business was often suspended for the day as workers preferred the public spectacle to the daily grind.

In the eighteenth century grandstands began to be built and seats were sold at high prices for the day. Landlords with rooms overlooking Tyburn would similarly rent out their facilities. This tradition continued even after the trip to Tyburn was abolished and the condemned were executed outside Newgate Prison.

In was the increasing disorder in the behaviour of the crowd that led the authorities initially to the retreat to Newgate, and then to performing executions in private.

Commercial aspects

The hangman was entitles to the deceased clothes, and sometime the notorious appeared in their best clothing, while others went to their deaths in rags. A certain number of bodies became available for dissection and agents for the surgeons would come to claim their share. The hangman operated a profitable trade in selling sections of the ropes used for hanging - sixpence an inch - being a typical price (say around £375/metre at today's prices).

Street hawkers made a profitable trade in the selling of descriptions and confessions, many of which were works more of fiction than of fact. Pickpockets and the like often had a profitable day.

References

* [www.speakerscorner.net/docs/origins.html/History of Tyburn]