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The Hangman’s Job

A ccording to the law, the federal government played no role in organ­izing executions in Canada. As the Montreal Gazette put it in 1936: “The sheriff of a judicial district is the man charged with the execution of the laws, civil or criminal, and consequently is engaged in either hanging people or seizing their furniture, or otherwise annoying them.”

The requirement to organize hangings made the local sheriffs feel really uncomfortable. It could even make them sick. Beneath the headline “Sheriff Cannot Find a Hangman,” The Globe reported in March 1912 that E. Martin, sheriff of Fraserville, Quebec, was “seriously ill from worry over his inability to hire a hangman. With an execution only eight days off, he cannot locate anyone willing and able to take the position, and may have to undertake the task himself.”

And sheriffs did not relish the idea of conducting hangings themselves, especially because the condemned person was very likely to be someone they knew. They were also not confident of their expertise to carry out the job without bungling it.

There were individuals prepared to step in, though. The Globe published a letter in July 1910 that read in part: “I wish to ask you if there is any possible chance for securing the position of assistant executioner.… I am willing to carry out anything that the law requires in connection with the position. I am an Englishman, 34 years old, strong and possessing all kinds of nerve, all of which are absolutely necessary for the position.”

So what would be the basic qualifications for anyone wanting to apply?

The Globe letter writer fulfilled the very first requirement, which was that you had to be a man. No hangwomen or hangpersons were allowed.

You would also have to be prepared to travel — a lot. Executions generally took place at a jail near where the crime had been committed and where the trial was held, and the hangman had to make his way there. So you could find yourself taking long, boring train journeys to dots on the map like Lytton, British Columbia, or L’Orignal, Ontario, or Battleford, Saskatchewan, or Dorchester, New Brunswick. And you might end up paying for your own rail tickets.

Carrying your own tools with you — a black hood and leather straps to bind the arms and legs of the prisoner, for example — was essential. You might even have to buy and prepare the rope used for the hanging. New rope is very elastic, and you would need to stretch it out by suspending a heavy weight from it for a few days before the hanging. If you were travelling to those dots on the map — like Lytton or L’Orignal or Battleford or Dorchester — you might have to rely on a hastily and perhaps shoddily built scaffold provided on site, or bring along your own. As noted by Ken Leyton-Brown, this was the preferred solution of one of Canada’s best-known and busiest hangmen, Arthur Ellis. His portable kit was painted an eye-popping shade of red.