Rumours had been rife: ‘Calcraft was favoured. Having whetted the appetites of the readers the writer went on to give details of the man playing the supporting role of the show - the executioner. ![]() The report added, almost maliciously: ‘He could not eat his dinner’. Of Bradley, convicted of murdering a Miss Le Brun, of St Peter, it was said he had eaten his meals ‘in the same way as any man in perfect health and with a good appetite would have done but, before noon (on the day before the execution) he evinced signs which indicated that both confidence and appetite were leaving him’. The two column report of Bradley's hanging in the Jersey Times and British Press was written in such flowing prose and contained such intimate details that all modern day commentators seem mere apprentices in their trade. Jolin, who blamed his plight on bad company and drink, and the fact that he never paid his devotions to God, has his death recorded in detail by the Gazette de Jersey.īut the final public hanging was that of 20-year-old Francis Bradley, who was hanged on the prison wall in Newgate Street 37 years later. The last hanging on Gallows Hill - that of Philippe Jolin in 1829 - has mistakenly been called the Island's last public death. Invariably the clothes fetched a high price from the victim’s relations, who bought them back to prevent the body hanging naked. Hitherto the Maitre des Haute Oeuvres had lived in a special cottage (in what is now Waterworks Valley) and was paid 25 crowns a year.Īfter each execution he collected threepence from every stall holder in the market and kept the dead man's clothes. Hales was later granted a pardon by King George III and is said to have settled in England, married, had a large family and died at a ripe old age.Īfter this incident the office of executioner was abolished by an Order in Council. Hales' feet were firmly on the ground by this time and he freed himself.Īn order was made to collect another rope but officials, officers of the Regiment and the crowd shouted against it. The executioner, Jean Vasselin, then climbed on to the suspended man's shoulders to dispatch him. Instead of dislocating the man's neck, however, this action merely stretched the rope - so much so that the soldier's feet touched the ground, A large crowd gathered on Gallow's Hill on Saturday 25 April and gave its usual gasp of appreciation as the hooded body hurtled through the trap.Īfter a while the executioner noticed signs of life in the victim and, to complete his dreadful task, grabbed the dangling legs and pulled. ![]() Reference was made in the House of Commons in 1885 to a gruesome but unique episode which had taken place in Jersey 78 years earlier: an event which has since been described as ‘The man they could not hang’.Ī private in the 34th Regiment of Light Infantry, William Hales, was condemned for breaking into and robbing a watchmaker's shop in St Helier. Had the man who displaced him committed murder? Only the hangman was entitled to take a life. In 1640 the rites were interrupted by the condemned man climbing up a pillar of the gibbet and refusing to come down.Įventually he was prodded off and fell, with the noose around his neck, to his death. Occasionally the huge gatherings had more to please them than the final address by the convict and the 'beauty' of his dispatch. He had marched across the dunes from the prison in York Street - if an atrocious crime had been committed the convicted man was dragged up the steep hill on a hurdle to signify he was not fit to walk on the earth. It takes little imagination to hear the expectant hush that fell on the crowd as a prisoner, under a guard of halberdiers, neared the gibbet. It is on this site that hundreds of poor wretches drew their last strangled breath. Today it is called Westmount.Ī small summerhouse stands on the spot where, it is thought, four pillars - the King's Gallows - once stood. In French it was known as Le Mont es Pendus or Le Mont Patibulaire (the mount of hanging). There was a real festive spirit among the huge crowd that gathered on Jersey's Tyburn - Gallows Hill. Schools were closed - to enable the youngsters to witness the necessity of leading a good life - and announcements of the hanging were made in all churches on the previous Sunday. In the days when a man could be hanged for stealing anything worth more than a shilling, executions were the excuse for a public holiday and were held on market day. From an article in Jersey Topic Magazine in 1966]]
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