James Billington

Who was James Billington?

James Billington was a hangman for the British government from 1884 until 1901.

Billington was born in Preston, Lancashire, the son of James, a labourer from Preston, and Mary Haslam of Bolton. In 1859 he moved with his family to Farnworth, northwest of Manchester. After leaving school he worked in a cotton mill for a time, but by the early 1880s he had become a Sunday school teacher and was running a barbershop in Market Street, Farnworth. Billington had a "lifelong fascination" with hanging, and made replica gallows in his back yard on which he practised with weights and dummies and, it was rumoured locally, stray dogs and cats.

Following the death of William Marwood in 1883, a vacancy arose for the post of Executioner for the City of London and Middlesex. Of the more than 100 applicants, Billington was one of three short-listed to be interviewed, but the job was offered to Bartholomew Binns. Undaunted, Billington wrote to other English prison authorities offering his services as a hangman, an offer that was eventually taken up by the authorities in Yorkshire.