Green’s Dictionary of Slang

one who gives out corporal punishment as authorized by the courts; often synon. with a beadle.

1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 173: Flogging Cove The whipper of Bridewell, or any other that whips people.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Flogging-cove, c. the Beadle or Whipper in Bridewell, or any such place.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) [as cit. c.1698].
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1741		Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 113: Beadle A floging Cull.
1754		Scoundrel’s Dict. 15: A Beadle – Flogging-Cove.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Flogging cove, the beadle, or whipper, in Bridewell.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.