Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day by Nigel Cawthorne

Westminster Hall and found guilty. He asked to be beheaded on Tower Hill, but their lordships decided that he should hang like a common criminal at Tyburn, after which his body would be given over to the anatomists for dissection. He asked to be hanged with a silken cord, instead of a hemp rope, as befitted his rank. This request, too, was denied. The only novel introduction at his hanging would be the use of a trapdoor. A platform had been raised about eighteen inches above the scaffold with a hatch that measured about three feet square. The earl was meant to stand on it as the noose was put around his neck. The hatch would then open, killing him. That was the theory of it at least.
    For his execution, Ferrers wore the same white suit with silver trimmings that he had worn at his wedding. He travelled from the Tower to Tyburn in his own carriage but the crowds were so thick that the journey took nearly three hours. 'They have never seen a lord hanged before,' he remarked to the sheriff.
    The procession comprised a detachment of grenadier guards, a company of life guards, lines of constables, numerous city officials, coaches full of friends and well-wishers, and a hearse. No one wanted to miss the spectacle. The earl, nonchalantly chewing on tobacco, waved to the crowds. When the horse of the cavalryman that was escorting him got its leg caught in the wheel of the coach and threw off its rider, Ferrers remarked, 'I hope there will be no death today but mine'.
    According to Horace Walpole, the funeral procession 'was stopped at the gallows by a vast crowd, but [he] got out of his coach as soon as he could, and was but seven minutes on the scaffold, which was hung with black...The mob was decent, admired him, and almost pitied him'. Whatever unpleasantness there was took place on the scaffold itself. After handing over his watch to the sheriff, along with five guineas to the chaplain, Ferrers mistakenly gave another five to the assistant hangman rather than to the headman, Thomas Turlis. The two men came to blows until the sheriff finally stepped in and gave Turlis his money.
    The earl did receive some privileges as befitted his social status. His hands were tied in front with a piece of black sash instead of behind him with ordinary cord. Turlis guided him onto the raised part of the scaffold which was covered with black baize. 'Am I right?' asked the earl. Turlis nodded and pulled down the white cap over his face. He operated the mechanism and Ferrers dropped down but there had been a grave miscalculation. 'As the machine was new, they were not ready at it,' commented Horace Walpole. 'His toes still touched the stage and he suffered a little, having had time by their bungling to raise his cap; but the executioner pulled it down again, and they pulled his legs so that he was soon out of pain, and quite dead in four minutes.'
    After an hour, the body was taken down. This resulted in another brawl between the hangmen. 'The executioners fought for the rope,' said Walpole, 'and the one who lost it, cried'. The rope was, of course, valuable booty. The body was laid out in a coffin lined with white satin and taken to the Surgeon's Hall, where it was cut open and put on display for the next three days before being handed back to the family for burial.
    Earl Ferrers hanged for the murder of his land agent, 5 May 1760. A very unusual execution: condemned aristocrats were usually beheaded on Tower Hill

Hangmen
    Turlis was also known to have squabbled with the condemned. On 27 March 1771, he was suddenly struck in the face and injured during an altercation as he was hanging five men at Tyburn. Five days later, he collapsed in the cart on his way back from a hanging at Kingston, Surrey, and died.
    Edward Dennis took over the job of hangman. However, when the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots – instigated by the fanatical Protestant Lord George Gordon – broke out, Dennis was seen smashing up a chandler's shop. He was arrested in the Blue