User:Hillbillyholiday/Articles/William Brunskill (executioner)

William Brunskill was official executioner for London, Middlesex and Surrey from 1786 to 1814. He dispatched the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Percival, carried out the last execution by burning in Britain, and during his long career Brunskill hanged more criminals than any of his predecessors.

Tyburn and Newgate.

Career


In his 30-year career as official executioner; William Brunskill hung/hanged 537 people outside Newgate. Before assuming the position, Brunskill had assisted his also prolific predecessor, Edward Dennis, in mass executions.

On the 9th of December 1783 he and William Brunskill hanged nine men and one woman side by side on the "New Drop" at the first execution outside Newgate prison. Upon Dennis' death on 21 November 1786, Brunskill assumed the position of official executioner. The very next day, Brunskill hanged seven men for housebreaking and highway robbery.


 * John Bellingham shot Spencer Percival, the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated so far.


 * p.141 Colonel Despard, who was hanged for high treason on 21st February, 1803, was another of Brunskill's celebrated victims.


 * p.142 ..he had been a brave soldier, but, being the ringleader in a plot to assassinate the King [George III], he had been condemned to death with six of his associates.


 * Martin Clench and James Mackley


 * 1807 accident at the execution of John Holloway and Owen Haggerty

Catherine or Christian Murphy, outside Newgate in 1789. ''Brunskill was also the hangman for Surrey and executed 68 at Horsemonger Lane Gaol between 1800, when it opened and 1814. The largest group were the seven Despard Conspirators, whom Brunskill put to death at Horsemonger Lane Gaol in Surrey on Monday, the 21st of February 1803. The seven men were Colonel Edward Despard, John Francis, John Wood, James Broughton, James Sedgewick, Arthur Wrutton and John McNamara all of whom had been convicted of High Treason. They were symbolically drawn around the prison yard before their execution and beheaded after death.''
 * Catherine Murphy (counterfeiter) the last woman to be officially sentenced and executed by the method of burning in England and Great Britain.

''Brunskill was also the hangman for men condemned by the High Court of Admiralty for crimes committed at sea. He hanged Capt. John Sutherland on the 29th of June 1809 at Execution Dock in Wapping, for the murder of his 13 year old cabin boy, Richard Wilson. On May 12th 1812 Brunskill executed John Bellingham at Newgate for the assassination of the Prime Minister, Spencer Percival. He was the only British prime minister to be assassinated.''

Brunskill, by now aged 69, suffered a stroke in 1814 and was granted a pension of 15 shillings (75p) a week after he retired.

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