THE new year in Worcester got off to a rather jolly start in 1863 when on January 2 they hanged a man on the drop gallows at the Castle Steet entrance to the County Jail. It was to be the last public execution in the city and thereafter the murderer’s comeuppance was delivered in a corner of the exercise yard away from prying eyes. Quite likely there was some opposition to this at the time because the gruesome spectacle provided free entertainment and large crowds would throng to the area outside the jail, many arriving early to get the best vantage points.
As it happened, the last person to swing was certainly no local celebrity. William Ockold, who was either 69 or 70 years of age, lived in Oldbury, then within Worcestershire, and was a decrepit old drunk who had beaten his wife to death with a mop stick in one of the brutal thrashings that had been a mainstay of their half-century of married life. Apparently, the couple were well known in their neighbourhood, the latter for certain peculiarities of conduct in working all night and playing all day.
They frequently went out together drinking and used to return home arm in arm, the worse for what they had taken. Ockold professed to remember little of the incident although he did admit to giving his wife “a punch or two”. But the bloodstained mop shaft did for him and although his counsel pleaded for clemency none was forthcoming.
The hangman was William Calcraft, one of England’s most prolific executioners who despatc.
