The ''Official Table of Drops'', formerly issued by the British Home Office, is a manual which is used to calculate the appropriate length of rope for long drop

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

s. Following a series of failed hangings, including those of

John Babbacombe Lee John "Babbacombe" Lee (15 August 1864 – 19 March 1945) was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder. Born in Abbotskerswell, Devon, Lee served in the Royal Navy, and was a known thief. In 1885, he was ...

, a committee chaired by

Henry Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare Henry Austin Bruce, 1st Baron Aberdare, (16 April 1815 – 25 February 1895), was a British Liberal Party politician, who served in government most notably as Home Secretary (1868–1873) and as Lord President of the Council. Background and ...

was formed in 1886 to discover and report on the most effective manner of hanging. The committee's report was printed in 1888 and recommended a drop energy of . In April 1892, the Home Office revised this based on an energy of . In practice, however, the hangmen ignored this table and awarded considerably longer drops, and a significantly revised edition of the Table of Drops was published in October 1913, allowing of drop energy – and then from 1939 executioners routinely added nine more inches () to the drop in the 1913 Table. The Table continued to be used in the United Kingdom until the country suspended capital punishment in 1965, and the UK abolished the death penalty altogether in 1998. The Table remains in use in former British colonies that have retained capital punishment by hanging, such as

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Other published drop tables

* 1947 US "Procedure for Military Executions" handbook.

References

External links

The Aberdare CommitteeReport of the Aberdare Committee
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom Execution equipment {{crime-stub