William Marwood, the most humane hangman in history.

Prior to William Marwood’s tenure as a hangman for the British government, most criminals who were hung would be strung up by the neck and have the stool or chair they were standing on kicked away. This meant that the victim was left to dangle slowly asphyxiating. It was pretty miserable and drawn out process. However Marwood was keen to be more humane in…executing people. At the age of 54 he persuaded the governor of Lincoln Castle Gaol to allow him to conduct an execution. The efficient way in which he conducted the hanging without a hitch on 1 April 1872 assisted him in being appointed hangman by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex in 1879, at a retainer of £20 a year plus £10 per execution. This wasn’t a huge sum even in those days so it was by no means a full time job. 

Marwood then had the time and the inclination to develop what he called the "long drop" technique of hanging, which ensured that the prisoners' neck was broken instantly at the end of the drop, resulting in the prisoner dying of asphyxia while unconscious. This was considered somewhat more kind than the slow death by strangulation caused by the "short drop" method, which was particularly distressing to prison governors and staff who were required to witness executions at close quarters – saying that the man being hanged didn’t enjoy it either. 

This system of having a condemned person standing over a trap door then originates with Marwood and comes from the 1880s (therefore making hangings from things like the US Civil War showing the same system as historically inaccurate). Capital punishment was a grim business, but at least he tried to make it quick.

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