The Evolution of the Short Drop Method of Hanging

Historical Origins in Britain

The form of judicial execution by hanging with little or no drop was brought to England by the Saxons in the fifth century AD.

Table of Contents

This short drop method remained virtually universal in Britain until 1872, when Lincolnshire executioner William Marwood introduced the scientifically calculated “long drop” method designed to cause rapid death by cervical fracture.

In London, the long drop replaced the short drop in 1874, when John McDonald became the final prisoner to suffer the older method on the 10th of August of that year at the hands of William Calcraft. Marwood assumed control of executions at Newgate Prison thereafter.

Almost certainly the final short drop hanging in Great Britain was that of John Henry Johnson at Armley Prison in Leeds on the 3rd of April 1877, executed by Thomas Askern for the murder of Amos Waite.

During Johnson’s execution, the rope snapped upon suspension, forcing prison warders to recover him from the pit; he was hanged again ten minutes later, with the Yorkshire Post reporting that Johnson struggled on the rope for four minutes before expiring.

Historically, four distinct apparatuses and methods were utilized to carry out short drop hanging in Britain:

The Hanging Tree and Anglo-Saxon Gallows;
The Ladder Method;
Turning off from the Back of a Cart;
The Mechanical “New Drop” Gallows.

1. The Hanging Tree and Anglo-Saxon Gallows

A natural tree was the earliest recorded scaffold, with condemned prisoners either hoisted upward manually by the executioner or turned off from a primitive ladder or farm cart.

In Anglo-Saxon times, the offender was suspended from a tree branch or a basic wooden post-and-lintel gallows frame.

The condemned person was required to climb up one of the vertical timbers while the executioner climbed the other to secure the rope to the crossbeam.

Having tied the cord with minimal slack, the executioner kicked away the prisoner’s legs, leaving them suspended with little or no fall.

It was standard practice for the executed felon to be buried directly beneath or adjacent to the gibbet, and archaeological excavations have uncovered numerous burial mounds at the sites of medieval gallows across Britain dating from the 5th to the 15th centuries.

2. The Ladder Method

In the ladder method, the gallows consisted of a heavy horizontal crossbeam fixed between two upright posts or trees.

A prominent historical example was the execution of Mary Blandy at Oxford Castle on Monday, the 6th of April 1752, for the fatal arsenic poisoning of her father.

Her final request to the attending sheriff reflected the contemporary concern for female modesty:

“for the sake of decency, gentlemen, don’t hang me high.”

Blandy was concerned that spectators in the crowd below would peer up her skirts if she was suspended at an excessive height.

She ascended a wooden ladder draped in black cloth, while the executioner mounted a parallel ladder beside her.

Her hands were bound in front to allow her to hold a prayer book, and her face was covered with a large linen handkerchief, though her legs were left unbound.

When her devotions concluded, she dropped the prayer book as a prearranged signal to the executioner, who physically rotated the ladder, “turning her off” to suspend her.

Blandy passed into unconsciousness rapidly and died without a prolonged struggle, likely due to an immediate vagal or carotid reflex.

3. Turning Off from the Back of a Cart at Tyburn

London’s Tyburn gallows—famously known as the “Triple Tree”—stood as the most iconic short drop execution site in Great Britain, commemorated today by a stone roundel embedded in the roadway near the junction of Oxford Street and Edgware Road.

First erected in 1572, the triangular, three-legged timber structure remained in active use until 1759.

While the total historical death toll at Tyburn spans several centuries, official records confirm that between 1715 and December 1783 (when executions were transferred directly outside Newgate Prison), 2,168 individuals were put to death there.

Prior to 1759, prisoners were conveyed from Newgate across London in open horse-drawn carts, which were backed beneath the crossbeams.

The hangman uncoiled the free end of each prisoner’s halter and tossed it to assistants perched upon the beams above, who secured the cord with minimal slack.

The prison chaplain (the Ordinary of Newgate) led prayers, after which nightcaps were drawn over the prisoners’ faces. When conducting large batch executions, these preparations took considerable time.

Once the signal was given, the carters whipped the horses forward, pulling the floor from beneath the prisoners and leaving them suspended.

Because the fall was limited to a few inches, condemned felons frequently writhed in convulsions, their legs paddling in the air—a spectacle colloquially termed “dancing the Tyburn jig” by the gathered crowds.

Because the force was applied horizontally as the cart pulled away, the bodies were also subjected to a swinging pendulum motion rather than a clean, vertical suspension.

4. The Invention of the “New Drop” Gallows

The “New Drop” gallows was introduced at Tyburn on the 5th of May 1760 for the execution of Lawrence Shirley, the 4th Earl Ferrers, convicted of murdering his land steward.

The apparatus featured a raised wooden scaffold covered in black baize, accessed by a short flight of steps.

Beneath the overhead beam stood a small box-like platform roughly three feet square and eighteen inches high, designed to drop downward into the floorboards via a releasing lever to leave the prisoner suspended vertically.

Black cushions were provided for the Earl and chaplain to kneel upon during prayer.

Although the release mechanism jammed slightly—leaving Ferrers’ feet touching the fallen platform before he hung suspended—the New Drop design eliminated the horizontal pendulum swing caused by carts, offering a more vertical, dignified, and rapid death.

The New Drop pattern spread to county gaols across England.

During the early 19th century, the New Drop fall ranged from twelve to eighteen inches, producing unconsciousness faster than cart suspensions, although death still resulted from gradual asphyxiation and cerebral ischemia rather than cervical fracture.

Designs varied by county:

Some were portable scaffolds wheeled outside the prison gates on hanging mornings, as outside Newgate’s Debtor’s Door;
Others were permanent fixtures mounted on flat gatehouse roofs, as at Surrey’s Horsemonger Lane Gaol and Lincoln Castle’s Cobb Hall;
Scaffolds varied between low flights of steps and elevated stages.

A well-documented New Drop triple execution occurred outside Newgate on the 26th of July 1815, involving Eliza Fenning, William Oldfield, and Abraham Adams.

They were pinioned in the Press Room with cord around their chests and wrists to permit prayer, with the free end of the noose coiled around the waist.

After mounting the ten steps outside the Debtor’s Door, executioner John Langley threw the halter over the iron beam, tying the rope back onto itself to leave minimal slack.

Langley pulled the retaining pin at 8:40 a.m.

Witnesses noted that Eliza Fenning died with barely a tremor, Oldfield was heavily convulsed, and Adams became motionless almost instantly.

Between 1783 and 1874, 1,120 individuals were executed by the short drop outside and inside Newgate Prison.

The last woman in Great Britain executed by the short drop was Mary Anne Barry, hanged alongside Edwin Bailey and Edward Butt at Gloucester Gaol on the 12th of January 1874 by Robert Evans Anderson.

Barry, being of slight physical build, convulsed on the rope for up to three minutes, forcing the executioner to pull down on her shoulders to end her suffering.

What Does Short Drop Hanging Feel Like?

A primary account of surviving a short drop hanging was given by John Smith, who was hanged at Tyburn on Christmas Eve 1705.

After being turned off from the cart, Smith dangled for fifteen minutes until the assembled crowd shouted “Reprieve!”

He was cut down and revived at a nearby house, later describing the physical sensation:

“When I was turned off I was, for some time, sensible of very great pain occasioned by the weight of my body and felt my spirits in strange commotion, violently pressing upwards. Having forced their way to my head I saw a great blaze or glaring light that seemed to go out of my eyes in a flash and then I lost all sense of pain.

After I was cut down, I began to come to myself and the blood and spirits forcing themselves into their former channels put me by a prickling or shooting into such intolerable pain that I could have wished those hanged who had cut me down.”

In November 1885, the New York Times reprinted an account originally published in the British Pall Mall Gazette recounting the experience of an individual who survived an experimental hanging in a barn for a “suicide club.”

The subject placed a noose around his neck while standing on a chair, which was then pulled away. He described a “great jerk,” followed by a perception of:

“swimming in a sea of oil which was an exquisitely delicious feeling”, accompanied by visions of vivid colours and lights before losing consciousness.

When his companions cut him down, he felt neck soreness and weakness, yet maintained that the transition into unconsciousness had felt pleasurable, despite his friends witnessing severe physical convulsions.

In February 1996, a prisoner named Niazali survived a short-drop crane hanging in Iran when the victim’s family granted a last-minute pardon, telling the newspaper Kayhan:

“That first second lasted like a thousand years. I felt my arms and legs jerking out of control. Up on the gallows in the dark, I was trying to fill my lungs with air, but they were crumpled up like plastic bags.”

Modern Observations and the Physiology of Asphyxia

The short drop method remains in active use internationally.

Of 644 recorded judicial hangings carried out across ten retentionist nations in 2022, approximately 600 utilized the short drop or mechanical crane suspension, with Iran accounting for at least 596 executions.

Video recordings of suspension hangings in the Middle East and post-World War II executions of war criminals in Poland demonstrate that consciousness is typically lost within eight to eighteen seconds, although involuntary body convulsions can persist for up to three or four minutes.

The Working Group on Human Asphyxia conducted a systematic analysis of fourteen filmed suspension hanging events (primarily autoerotic accidents and suicides), outlining five progressive physiological phases:

Initial Consciousness (0–18 seconds): The individual feels constriction and acute neck pressure, experiencing hypoxia before losing consciousness.
Convulsive Phase (up to 3–4 minutes): Unconscious, violent muscular contractions, limb tremors, and the drawing up of the legs toward the abdomen. Agonal respiration, gagging, and gasping may occur.
Decerebrate Posturing: The limbs contort and extend rigidly, indicating profound brainstem and cerebral ischemia.
Decorticate Posturing: Spasmodic flexion of the upper limbs, demonstrating advanced central nervous system damage.
Flaccidity and Cardiac Arrest: The body goes entirely limp, although isolated minor muscle twitches can continue until total cardiac cessation occurs within ten to fifteen minutes.

Observers historically misinterpreted involuntary decerebrate posturing and convulsive spasms as conscious suffering.

Because the short drop produces far less kinetic energy than the long drop, it rarely tears neck muscles or fractures the spine, preserving the nervous system long enough for spinal reflexes to generate visible convulsions.

Physiological Causes of Death in Short Drop Hanging

Death in short drop hanging results from four physiological mechanisms acting in combination:

Vascular Occlusion: The pressure of the noose compresses the external jugular veins (requiring only 4.5 pounds per square inch of pressure) and the internal carotid arteries (requiring roughly 11 psi). This occludes cerebral blood flow, causing rapid cerebral ischemia and acute hypoxia.
Airway Obstruction: The body’s suspended weight forces the hyoid bone and the base of the tongue upward and backward against the soft palate and pharynx, blocking the respiratory airway.
Tracheal Constriction: Direct compression of the trachea (which requires approximately 33 psi of pressure) halts respiratory air exchange entirely.
Carotid Sinus / Vagal Reflex: Intense bilateral compression of the carotid bifurcations stimulates the vagus nerve and carotid sinus baroreceptors, triggering immediate neurogenic bradycardia or instantaneous cardiac arrest.

The deep vertebral arteries, protected within the transverse foramina of the cervical vertebrae, require between 40 and 50 psi to compress, but loop outward at the fourth cervical vertebra (C4), leaving them susceptible to ligature pressure.

If the jugular veins are occluded before the carotid arteries are closed, blood enters the cranium but cannot drain, producing facial engorgement, cyanosis, and petechiae (pinpoint hemorrhages) across the skin and conjunctiva.

Conversely, when carotid pressure produces instant cardiac arrest via vagal reflex, the face remains pale without petechial hemorrhaging.

In all short drop hangings, an inverted “V” ligature impression is visible high on the neck, rising toward the suspension knot.

The limitations and public revulsion associated with prolonged short drop strangulations led British authorities to support William Marwood’s development of the measured long drop in the 1870s, establishing the standardized cervical dislocation table that governed executions until total abolition.

Frequently Asked Questions

What was the short drop method of hanging?

The short drop was the traditional hanging technique used from Anglo-Saxon times until the 1870s, where the prisoner fell only a few inches to two feet (from a ladder, cart, or trapdoor). Death occurred through gradual strangulation, vascular compression, and asphyxiation rather than a broken neck.

What was the “Tyburn jig”?

“The Tyburn jig” was a grim 18th-century slang term describing the convulsive, involuntary paddling and twitching of the legs exhibited by prisoners slowly suffocating after being turned off from the back of an execution cart at London’s Tyburn Tree.

How did the “New Drop” differ from older hanging methods?

Introduced for Earl Ferrers in 1760, the New Drop used a trapdoor platform that fell away beneath the prisoner’s feet. This eliminated the swinging horizontal pendulum motion caused by horse-drawn carts and provided a cleaner vertical fall of 12 to 18 inches.

Who was the last person executed by the short drop in Great Britain?

The last woman executed by the short drop was Mary Anne Barry at Gloucester Gaol on 12 January 1874. The final recorded short drop execution in Britain was that of John Henry Johnson at Armley Gaol, Leeds, on 3 April 1877, conducted by hangman Thomas Askern.

Why did Britain abandon the short drop in favor of the long drop?

The short drop frequently resulted in agonizing strangulation lasting up to several minutes, occasionally requiring executioners like William Calcraft to pull on the prisoner’s legs. In 1872, William Marwood introduced the “long drop,” which calculated a fall based on the prisoner’s weight to break the cervical vertebrae instantly, causing immediate unconsciousness.

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