Accidental Decapitation/Marwood's Legacy
The long drop was perfected by William Marwood, who acted as England’s public executioner from December 1875 to September 1883. Dismayed by William Calcraft’s ineptitude on the scaffold over the last half-century or so, Marwood wrote letters to public officials condemning the short drop, which strangled a man to death, and argued that he should be given a chance to demonstrate a faster and more humane method of execution based on scientific principles. (Eighty-six years ago, Joseph Ignace Guillotin made the same argument in France, but the guillotine’s reputation was so tarnished by the atrocities of the French Revolution that the English would have none of it on their soil.)
Reverend Samuel Haughton, a Victorian who never acted as a hangman, created a mathematical table for hanging drops in his paper On Hanging in 1866, and his description is useful: In a short drop, “death is preceded by convulsions, lasting from five to forty-five minutes, which are causes by the cessation of the supply of arterial blood to the muscles.” By contast, in the long drop, according to Dr. Harold Hillman and quoted in Execution, “The weight of the prisoner’s body below the neck causes traction and tearing of the cervical muscles, skin and blood vessels. The upper cervical vertebrae are dislocated, and the spinal column is separated from the brain; this is the lesion which causes death.” Breathing stops in seconds, but the heart may continue to beat for some time; it’s thought that the fracture-dislocation causes instantaneous loss of sensation.
Marwood was invited to Newgate to demonstrate his long drop, and he did so to the authorities’ satisfaction. He became the new executioner and introduced a number of innovations to the ancient craft: he improved the pinions, began using a pliable, thinner five-ply Italian silk hemp rope instead of Calcraft’s stiff and thicker rope, invented a brass eye for his noose, and finally developed a table of weights and drops from which any executioner could calculate the correct long drop for a party, based on the individual’s height and weight. He served as hangman for nine years, showing concern for and good manners toward his victims at all times, and never losing his, or anybody else’s, head.
The next English hangman wasn’t so lucky. James Berry, who became an executioner of the law in March 1884, had a problem with Robert Goodale, whose poorly developed neck muscles caused the hangman some worries. Berry reduced the drop from a calculated 7′6″ to 5′9″, but it still wasn’t enough; Goodale’s head was torn off. Berry was absolved in the investigation — his calculations had been correct and he’d clearly tried to adjust for the individual’s build — but he went on to modify Marwood’s table as a result of the mishap. Under his new calculations, Goodale should have had a drop of 2′1″. Nevertheless, his second mishap occurred in 1891, when a prison doctor insisted the executioner make the drop longer than Berry thought it should be; Berry was right, and the prisoner was all but decapitated.
As far as I know, the last English hangmen, John Ellis and the familial group of Henry, Tom, and Albert Pierrepoint, never tore off a man’s head.
drupagliassotti @ January 15, 2007