In 1840 he became assistant to the executioner William Calcraft before being appointed as executioner for Staffordshire in his own right.
Calcraft carried out the last public execution in England on 26 May 1868, when he hanged the Fenian Michael Barrett in front of Newgate Prison for his part in the Clerkenwell Outrage.
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On 22 November 1867 he officiated at the public execution of William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, and Michael O'Brien, who became known as the Manchester Martyrs.
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