Jack Ketch

• Born: Unknown
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: November 1, 1686
• Place of death: London, England

British public executioner

Cause of notoriety: Ketch was a hangman infamous for his incompetence and brutality.

Active: c. 1663–86

Locale: London

Early Life

Little is known about the early life of England’s most notorious executioner. Although a real person, Jack Ketch survives mainly through his infamy. The earliest records of Ketch concern his being a hangman. By some accounts, he received that appointment around 1663; he was known to be a hangman at some point by the time of or shortly after the Great Fire of London (1666).

Executioner Career

Perhaps the most infamous beheading enacted by Ketch was of a French Catholic, Robert Hubert, who was essentially a Catholic scapegoat during a period of oppressive Protestant rule in England. His execution indicates a pattern typical of such proceedings. Ketch led the prisoner to Tyburn following an effigy of the pope containing live cats which, as a prelude to the public ritual, was set on fire, to the delight of the spectators. As usual, the execution took place on a Monday afternoon. Typically, after the requisite hour of dangling from the rope, the victim would be lowered and his or her clothes removed. On this day, a mob rushed forward and tore the corpse apart to express both antipapal sentiments and the desire for war against France.

Most executions were more orderly and followed strict protocol. Chapbooks and broadsides regularly were published with accounts of the victim’s composure and last words. Such sources made Ketch become a celebrated personality. The execution of Hubert foreshadowed a trend of executing suspected Catholic sympathizers, especially in the wake of the Popish Plot of 1678, which was a failed attempt to assassinate the king, Charles II, and crown his brother, James Stuart. In this climate, Ketch became the focus of many satirical tracts, notably The Plotters Ballad, Being Jack Ketch’s Incomparable Receipt for the Cure of Traytorous Recusants: Or, Wholesome Physick for a Popish Contagion (1678) and The Romanists Best Doctor (1680). Later, he became a target of derision, largely because of the botched beheadings of his two most eminent victims, William, Lord Russell, a Whig instigator, and James Scott, duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II, whom he had sought to succeed.

In Ketch’s defense, hangings and public punishments were his usual charges; beheadings were reserved for persons of quality. The duke of Monmouth’s beheading required five chops, with Ketch nearly abandoning his task midway. He finally had to use a knife to sever Monmouth’s head completely.

Impact

Whether owing to incompetence or simply as a function of the brutal task of discharging the wishes of the crown, Jack Ketch’s reputation long outlived him. His name became eponymous for a rough hangman upholding the rule of law. Forty years after Ketch’s death, William Hazlitt’s “On the Spirit of Obligations” mentioned in passing, “A Jack-Ketch may be known to tie the fatal noose with trembling fingers.” In the nineteenth century, English writer Charles Whitehead published a fictional account of Ketch's life titled The Autobiography of Jack Ketch (1835). The figure of the hangman in the trio of figures outwitted and killed by Punch of puppet-show fame (the others being his wife, Judy, and the Devil) became known as Jack Ketch. The slang phrase “to dance with Jack Ketch,” once popular in pirate ballads, still means to hang. His notoriety remained, even in countries outside of England, into the twenty-first century, with a Canadian restaurant that opened in 2017 ironically being named after him as a play on the execution of cuisine.

Bibliography

An Account of What Passed at the Execution of the Late Duke of Monmouth. London, 1685. Records the duke’s giving six guineas to Ketch and promising that his servant would give six more if he did better by him than he had by Lord Russell.

Gatrell, V. A. C. The Hanging Tree. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Tracks the survival of Ketch as a byword among the English, emphasizing that their experience with the law was never benign.

Ketch, Jack? The Apologie of John Ketch. London. 1683. Purportedly by Ketch, this tract seeks to vindicate him for the treatment of Lord Russell, denying that he was drunk at the time of the execution and blaming the victim for flinching when the blow approached.

Stephenson, Neal. The Baroque Cycle. 3 vols. New York: HarperCollins, 2003–2005. Although a work of historical fiction, this story richly portrays the likely public responses to executions, recounting the way victims of means would wear expensive clothes as an incentive to Ketch to do his job well, since he would reap the valuable clothing as part of his compensation if his job were done correctly. Poor criminals would arrange for boys to grab their legs to hasten death.

Wales, Tim. “John Ketch.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Compiles extant records concerning Ketch’s role in the restored Stuart monarchy’s efforts to institute conformity to the state’s religion and later to Tory policies. Also documents the durability of Ketch’s name in puppet shows.