Jack Ketch n.
1. (orig. UK Und.) the hangman.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Pleasant Notes I vi 36: The library ladder was mounted, like the execution stairs; and the barber, like Jack Ketch, fell to work. | |
| A Warning for House-Keepers 6: When that we come to Tyburn / For going upon the Budge / There stands Jack Catch that son of a w---- / that owes us all a grudge. | |
| Match in Newgate V iv: I had ’em and the two pieces for Jack Catch too in my Pocket. | |
| ‘The Whigs Laid Open’ in Roxburghe Ballads (1885) V:1 168: But I hope they will have their desert, and the Gallows will have its due, / And Jack Ketch will be more expert, and in time be as rich as a Jew. | |
 | King Williams Blessed Deliverance 1: And Jack Kesh [sic], Monsieur’s last Physitian! | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Jack Kitch, c. the hangman of that Name, but now all his Successors. | |
| Priest-Craft II (1716) 109: A Priest-ridden Magistrate to be the Jack-Ketch, and do the Priests drudgery. | |
| Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 207: Jack Ketch, the hangman of that name, and now given to all his successors. | |
| Democritus III 22: To support Vanity and Luxury, all Tradesmen will cheat in spite of Jack Catch and Old Nick. | |
| Hist. of the remarkable Life of John Sheppard 35: There was publish’d a whimsical letter, as from Sheppard, to Jack Ketch, which afforded Diversion to the Town, and Bread to the Author. | |
| Harlot’s Progress 30: [She] took James Dalton to her Arms, / Till Ketch depriv’d her of his Charms. | |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c 314: He moreover contracted a Familiarity with Du Vall [...] which Friendship continu’d till Death parted them by his Deputy Jack Ketch. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Caledonian Mercury 20 Sept. 3/2: Yesterday [...] six Malefactors were executed at Kennington [...] Joanna Sambo was so hardened, that when Mr Ketch was preparing her for the Cart [...] she impudently damn’d him for a Son of a Bitch. | |
| Life of Jonathan Wild (1784) II 175: The court condemned him, and Mr. Ketch executed him. | |
| Scoundrel’s Dict. | |
| Sir Launcelot Greaves I 106: I’ve had an ugly dream. I thought, for all the world, they were carrying me to Newgate; and that there was Jack Ketch coom to vetch me. | |
| Proceedings Old Bailey 19 May 308/1: He then gave me another, and said D – n them, I believe they are all bad – if my father was a coiner, I could turn Jack Ketch for him and hang him. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 19-26 May n.p.: Were the greater Part of them to have their due, Jack Ketch’s Favors would be [...] bestowed upon them [ibid.] n.p.: A truly worthless Being [...] that would be much more suitably emplyed as Jack Catch, Hangman. | |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Jack Ketch, a general name for the finishers of the law, or hangmen, ever since the year 1682, when the office was filled by a famous practitioner of that name, of whom his wife said, that any bungler might put a man to death, but only her husband knew how to make a gentleman die sweetly. |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘Larry’s Stiff’ Luke Caffrey’s Gost 6: As soon as poor Larry was stretche’d, / De boys de soon cut him down proper: / In hopes to cheat Jack the breth-stopper / But all we cud do it was fudge, / For Jacky is seldom mistaken; / He fits de noose up to de lug / And den lets you hang like bacon. | |
| Honest Fellow 170: Jack Catch will soon prove him an ass. | |
| Chester Chron. 15 Apr. 4/1: Rural Jack Ketch. The following is a genuine copy of a man who acts as Jack Ketch for Oxfordshire. | |
| Sporting Mag. Aug. XII 280/2: I only vait, said he, before I coes, / On Mister Ketch, to puy the ted Man’s clothes. | |
| Sporting Mag. May XVIII 105/2: The Norfolk Jack Ketch is condemned to six months imprisonment for obtaining money [...] under false pretences. | |
| Jack the Giant Queller 15: Or if I must be hung, oh, let me be, / Exalted by Jack Ketch upon a tree. | |
| Life in London (1869) 96: His most intimate acquaintance was the then ‘Jack Ketch’. | |
| Eng. Spy II 75: Punch, of course, seizes the perilous moment – runs him up to the top of the fatal beam – Mr. John Ketch hangs suspended in the air. | |
| Satirist (London) 14 Aug. 151/3: The following are the names of a few of the company [...] Artichokes...Mr John Ketch. | |
| Complete Jest Book 253: He waited to see if he could bargain with Maister Ketsch for the two gentlemens’ clothes. | |
| ‘Life In London’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 10: The grave-diggers have shut up shop, / And Jack Ketch is going to ruin. | |
| Punch I 17 July iv: John Ketch, Esq., who, from the mildness of the law, and the congenial character of modern literature with his early associations, has been induced to undertake its execution. | |
| Handley Cross (1854) 290: Billy may now sport his own joke to Jack Ketch, of ‘Live and let live, as the criminal said to the hangman’. | |
| Cork Examiner 6 Feb. 4/3: Mrs Manning [...] screeched when Jack Ketch pulled the bolt away’. | |
| Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 336: Skulker, Flunky, Horse-face, Stuffgut, / Heaven make me thy Jack Ketch! | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 3 July 3/3: If he was John Ketch, he hoped he would have the pleasure of [...] giving him the opportunity of dancing upon nothing. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 23 June 3/2: We suppose there can have been no execution lately in Melbourne, and consequently no ‘hangings,’ as the Jack Ketch has lately figured in the Police Court for stealing a pair of boots. | |
| It Is Never Too Late to Mend III 188: He will come back without fear, and we will nail him with the fifty pound note upon him; and then Jack Ketch. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Letters by an Odd Boy 14: Mr Ketch, of the Old Bailey, is leisurely smoking his pipe at Tyburn. | |
| Sportsman 2 Oct. 2/1: Notes on News [...] The flogger was Mr William Calcraft, the popular Jack Ketch. | |
| Chicago Times 10 Sept. [headlines] shut off his wind A Satisfactory Job for Jack Ketch at Last. | |
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Mar. 2/1: Jack Ketch [...] has plenty of work on hand, no less than half a dozen ‘necktie parties’ being down on his list. | |
| Chronicles of Newgate 223: John Price, who filled the office [of hangman] in 1718, and who rejoiced in the usual official soubriquet of ‘Jack Ketch’. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 18/4: One worthy agitator for the wiping out of Mr. Ketch’s office signs himself ‘Philanthropist,’ and takes exception to Mr. Watson’s hurried ‘send off’ on the grounds that the evidence was not conclusive enough, and that the sentence is against the teachings of the Bible. | |
| Colonial Reformer III 205: Jack Ketch was a new hand, and nervous. | |
| ‘An Inside Con to Refined Guys’ in Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum n.p.: The French Villon, Before Jack Hangman yanked him high, Quilled slangy guff and Frenchy stuff. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 11 Nov. 1s/3: Prison Super [...] the man who cares for Ketch’s clients. | |
| Bushman All 56: Some day you’ll dance off a plank and on to nothing. Jack Ketch’ll teach you a new step. | |
| City Of The World 276: Their fathers was in it, and their grand-dads [...] that as like as not pratted up the dancers of a gallows to be introduced to Death by Mr. Ketch. | |
| Life and Death at the Old Bailey 86: He was in Newgate again on August 30, 1724, and Jack Ketch had orders for his execution next day. | |
| Western Dly Press 28 Dec. 2/2: A correspondent has often heard elderly people refer to the public executioner as Jack Ketch. | |
| ‘Livings’ in High Windows 15: Why is Judas like Jack Ketch? |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| Tales of the Old Regime 211: Oh, my Jack Ketch beauties, ye’re going to be turned off are ye. |
3. ext. to anyone chosen to carry out a death sentence.
| Tales of the Early Days 95: ‘Is it — doom, Peake?’ he asked. Peake nodded. ‘Who,’ stammeringly questioned Osborne, ‘who is the Ketch?’. |
4. a jail sentence [stretch n. (2b)].
| Fresh Rabbit. |
In compounds
a judicial flogging; it is ‘given under his hand’.
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 23: Certificate, Jack Ketch’s; ‘given under his own hand’ ? a sound flogging. |
the gallows.
| Sixteen-String Jack 62: All you want to complete your picture in full, is Jack Ketch’s frame — Tyburn Tree. |
that room in Newgate prison where the hangman boiled the quarters of those dismembered for high treason.
| Hell Upon Earth 7: Up one pair of Stairs over them, is Jack Catch his Kitching, where, in Pitch, Tar and Oyl, he boils the Quarters of thos Traytors that deservedly suffer. | |
| Memoirs (1714) 17: Up one Pair of Stairs over them is Jack Ketch his kitchen, where, in Pitch, Tar and Oil, he boils the Quarters of those Traitors, who deservedly suffer the for the several Sorts of High-Treason. | |
| Portsmouth Eve. News 12 Apr. 3/3: Jack ketch’s Kitchen at Newgate. in its two large cauldrons the hangman boiled, in a compound of tar, pitch and oil, the limbs of those who were executed and quartered for treason, before fixing them on the spikes at London Bridge and the City gates. | |
| Chronicles of Newgate 94: A number of independent rooms, such as the Bilbows, Press-room, Condemned holds, and Jack Ketch’s kitchen. |
the hangman’s noose .
| Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 334: The first thing I lookd out for was the yard-rope – Jack Ketch’s necklace I mean. |
a candidate for the gallows .
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
the slum area in and around Turnmill Street, Clerkenwell.
| SMH 28 Aug. 3/3: [from London Rev. 2 June] Two of our evening contemporaries added to their sensational attractions by employing what it is the vogue to call ‘Special Commissioners’ to explore the inmost depths of [...] Jack Ketch's Warren, and, to shame society and the so-styled ‘guardians’ of the poor, by their startling revelations. | |
| islington Gaz. 3 Sept. 3/3: The hideous stew, embracing Bit-alley, Frying-pan-alley, Rose-alley, Broad-yard and known collectively as ‘Jack Ketch’s Warren’. | |
| Wilds of London (1881) 64: Now we’ll pay a visit to Jack Ketch’s Warren [...] it’s been known as such these fifty years. |