Jack Ketch

Jack Ketch
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth's execution, on Tower Hill, by Jack Ketch, on 15 July 1685, in a popular print
Born	John Ketch
Died	November 1686
Nationality	English
Other names	Jack Ketch
Occupation	executioner
Years active	c.1663 - 1686
Known for	Being an infamous English executioner employed by King Charles II of England.

John Ketch (died November 1686), generally known as Jack Ketch, was an infamous English executioner employed by King Charles II. He became famous through the way he performed his duties during the tumults of the 1680s, when he was often mentioned in broadsheet accounts that circulated throughout the Kingdom of England. He is thought to have been appointed in 1663. He executed the death sentences against William Russell, Lord Russell, in Lincoln's Inn Fields on 21 July 1683, and James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, on 15 July 1685, after the Monmouth Rebellion. Ketch's notoriety stems from "his barbarity at the execution of Lord Russell, the Duke of Monmouth, and other political offenders."

Because of his botched executions, the name "Jack Ketch" is used as a proverbial name for death, Satan, and executioner.

Ketch is thought to have taken office in 1663. He is first mentioned in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey for 14 January 1676, although no printed notice of the new hangman occurred until 2 December 1678, when a broadside appeared called The Plotters Ballad, being Jack Ketch's incomparable Receipt for the Cure of Traytorous Recusants and Wholesome Physick for a Popish Contagion. In 1679, there appears from another pamphlet purporting to be written by Ketch himself, and entitled The Man of Destiny's Hard Fortune, that the hangman was confined for a time in the Marshalsea prison, "whereby his hopeful harvest was like to have been blasted." A short entry in the autobiography of Anthony à Wood for 31 August 1681 describes how Stephen College was hanged in the Castle Yard, Oxford, "and when he had hanged about half an hour, was cut down by Catch or Ketch, and quartered under the gallows, his entrails were burnt in a fire made by the gallows".