October 12, 1783 - James Botting
Botting worked as the state's instrument of death at a time when public execution was both legal spectacle and social ritual, officiating at Newgate during a period when capital punishment extended to crimes far beyond violence. His tenure included the beheading that followed the Cato Street hangings — the last legal public decapitation in England — marking him as a figure present at a grim threshold in penal history. The report that he died alone in the street, with no passerby willing to help, suggests the depth of personal revulsion his role inspired, distinct from any abstract objection to the institution itself.
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Jemmy Botting (baptised 12 October 1783 – 1 October 1837) was an English executioner who was the hangman at Newgate Prison in London from 1817 to 1819, during which tenure he claimed to have hanged a total of 175 persons. He was succeeded by John Foxton, who was his assistant from 1818.
Born in Brighton, he died in Hove on 1 October 1837 after falling out of his wheelchair in the street. He was so hated that no-one came to his assistance.
His notable executions included the fraudster Henry Fauntleroy in 1824 and the five leaders of the Cato Street conspiracy in 1820. The latter execution was followed by the last legal public decapitation.
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