apologies for the bio - straight from the waverley library local figures of interest page, probably typed up from the 1971 booklet of same.

and maybe a good time to start.

My father told this tale of ‘Nosey Bob’, the hangman who lived at Bondi, apparently, the pub/publican would smash the glass he drank from, after he had finishing drinking for the night.

But I just googled him up, and he died in 1906, sixteen years before my father was born in Bondi, so possibly the story was passed locally.

Anyway, found a small bio on Nosey Bob, and he is buried across the road with his wife - I’ll have a look-see for his grave, and take a photo for my cemetery blog.

“For many years Robert Howard was a hardworking operator of a hansom cab. He had an extensive clientele in the Darling Point neighbourhood, as well as Government House, and was coachman to the Duke of Edinburgh during his Australian visit in the 1860s. In his young days, Howard was tall, lithe and good-looking, but disaster came upon him. He was viciously kicked in the face by one of his horses and his nose was destroyed. Thereafter, he was nicknamed “Nosey Bob” and shunned by the society trade.

Unemployed, Howard finally accepted the unwanted post of state hangman in 1876 and during his 29 year career he boasted that every one of his 66 executions was carried out with the utmost dispatch and decorum. Socially, Robert Howard was a very decent fellow and could be relied upon to assist any deserving case of a discharged prisoner or a prisoner’s family in distress, earning him yet another nickname, “the Gentleman Hangman”. He lived a lonely life in a cottage on Bondi Beach; died in 1906; and is buried with his wife, Jane, in Waverley Cemetery.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England

Link

EXECUTIONER: Are you Mary, Queen of Scots?
MARY: I am.

SFX: (endless violent scuffle, going on for the remaining twenty-two minutes)

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Tune in again next week for Part Ten of “The Death of Mary, Queen of Scots.” Here’s a preview…

EXECUTIONER: I think she’s dead.
MARY: No I’m not.

SFX: (resume endless scuffling)

That was from a Monty Python record, was it “Matching Tie and Handkerchief”? One of them, anyway…

“In 1541, it was the turn of the 71-year-old Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, whose offence was being the last surviving member of the Plantagenet dynasty, overthrown by the Tudors. The Countess refused to place her head on the block, and had to be chased around the green by the executioner, who hacked her to death.”
*note to self..stop looking up executions by axe instead of working”

I have an awful tale to tell, which casts at least some anecdotal light on the topic, but I’ll leave it until we’ve all had our lunch.

Such a transaction underlines the social value of capital punishment at that time.

Given this aspect of the profession of executioner, it would appear that they had a status somewhat above “pariah”. Having paid for an execution, it would behove the executioner to do an appropriately entertaining, and/or educational job-of-work.

His performance would inevitably be judged by the criteria of tension, drama, moral appropriateness, and how long the performance was sustained.

Good performances would attract celebrity status.

Laura and I are on the same page about the practicality of leather in a profession involving blood: wipes right off.

Fascinating about the German hangmen, Brutus. I wonder whether hangmen and headsmen executioners associated with each other or kept apart, and whether they dressed the same? As beheading tended to be reserved for treasonous nobles and gentlefolk, with hanging the commoner’s execution, perhaps there would have been some class stratification there.