Britain's Most Notorious Hangmen by Stephen Wade

Author:Stephen Wade [Wade, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime/ Murder
ISBN: 9781844688401
Publisher: Wharncliffe
Published: 2009-07-15T23:00:00+00:00

Margaret Higgins. Andy Tennick

But the downward spiral in his career, when it came, was speedy. First London removed him from the scene: an announcement in March 1884 stated that ‘Alderman Sir Andrew Lusk MP called the attention of the court to the subject of the appointment of Bartholomew Binns to the office of hangman, and in view of what had recently taken place with reference to him, moved that the 20 guineas honorarium paid to him annually should be withdrawn.’ It was with­drawn; what had happened just before that sacking was that, after another bungled hanging in Liverpool (of McLean) he was relieved of duties in the north. He had arrived at Walton drunk and had had to be helped by a man called Samuel Heath, to complete the job.

The petty troubles and squabbles that filled Binns’ life continued to the end; he had a nasty side to him, as he not only took his mother-in-law to court over alleged theft, but also, so the story went at the time, he tended to hang cats and dogs for some kind of horrible pleasure. Apparently his mother-in-law reported him for that. His final years were pathetically miserable and he even tried to earn a few pounds at fairs and feasts, explaining execution methods. In fact, in 1889, he was in court again, this time at Sheffield County Court, claiming arrears of wages from the showman, Thomas Whitely, totalling £9.2s. Binns was described dismissively in the press as a man who had ‘occasion­ally acted as hangman’. One report said that he had been travelling around with Whitely, ‘exhibiting himself as public executioner’ showing the public how hangings were done. He failed to get the money but was allowed to sue again. Binns did so, as that was his nature.

The media were not finished with him, though. The Pall Mall Gazette, which had taken against him from the start, noted that matters of hanging in Austria were done with more dash and colour: ‘In the first place, the hangman should be invested with some of the majesty of the law; and just as a judge of the assize has his ermine and his trumpeters, so the minister of the law’s last decree should be attired in a showy uniform, with a cocked hat and jack boots. Mr Bartholomew Binns would, we do not doubt, have no objection to this part of the Austrian system . . .’

It has to be asserted that the Gazette was probably right; for all their tormenting and teasing him in their columns, they had realised early on that Binns loved the rather suspect popularity of his office and they did not want to let him forget how morally questionable that stance was.

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