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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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hangmen
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The names of three hangmen have lodged in the public mind. The first two can better be described as executioners, since the most prominent part of their duty was beheading aristocratic offenders. Richard Brandon, the executioner of Charles I, died in 1649 – the same year as his famous victim. John Ketch (d. 1686) had such a vile reputation that 'Jack Ketch' was for the next two centuries a common term for any hangman; however, his notoriety seems to have been caused not so much by any unusual barbarity as by his becoming a character in the *Punch and Judy shows, new in England at the time.
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Finally Albert Pierrepoint is remembered, partly because he was hangman for a quarter of a century (1931–56) within living memory but also because he later became an opponent of *capital punishment. In his autobiography (1974) he argued that the deterrent effect of the gallows was disproved by the courage of the condemned: 'All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder.'
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