Thomas Derrick

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For the Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, see Thomas Currie Derrick.

Thomas Derrick was a notable English executioner from the Elizabethan era.

In English history, 'executioner' was not a commonly chosen career path because of the risk of friends and families of the deceased knowing who you were and where to find you. Executioners were sometimes coerced into the role. Derrick in particular had been convicted of rape but was pardoned by the Earl of Essex (clearing him of the death penalty) on the understanding that he became an executioner at Tyburn.

Derrick executed more than 3,000 people in his career including, ironically, his pardoner, the Earl of Essex, in 1601. Derrick devised a beam with a topping lift and pulleys for his hangings, instead of the old-fashioned rope over the beam method.^[1] Duly, the word 'Derrick' came to be used for the frame from which the hangman's noose was supported and through that usage to modern day cranes.^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ Tolani Maritime Institute glossary of words
2. ^ Readers Digest article, "People Who Become Words"