Era / Region: Elizabethan Era, England
Lifespan: fl. 1596 – c. 1610
Primary Role(s): Sailor; executioner
Alternate Names / Titles: —
The Life
Thomas Derrick first appears in the historical record in the 1590s. He served as a sailor in the Royal Navy during the Anglo-Spanish War and was part of the English fleet under the command of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. In 1596, Derrick took part in the capture of Cádiz during the English assault on the Spanish port.
After the sack of the city, Derrick was among twenty-four sailors accused of raping local women. The men were tried and sentenced to death by hanging. When no soldier or officer was willing to carry out the executions, the Earl of Essex offered Derrick a pardon on the condition that he execute the other condemned sailors. Derrick accepted and carried out the hangings aboard one of the fleet’s ships, using blocks and rigging to suspend the men from the spar.
Following the fleet’s return to England, Derrick became an official executioner. He was assigned to Tyburn, the principal site of public executions in London. Over the course of his career, he carried out more than 3,000 executions, a role that placed him outside ordinary social life due to the stigma and danger associated with the profession.
In 1601, Derrick executed his former commander and pardoner, the Earl of Essex, after Essex was convicted of treason. As a nobleman, Essex was permitted to choose beheading rather than hanging. Derrick, accustomed to the noose rather than the axe, required three strokes to sever Essex’s head.
During his years as an executioner, Derrick introduced mechanical innovations to the gallows. He replaced the traditional rope-over-beam method with a system using a beam, topping lift, and pulleys. Around 1610, he constructed a gallows capable of hanging more than a dozen people at the same time.
Derrick’s name became associated with the structure from which hangmen suspended their nooses. From this usage, the word “derrick” entered the English language as a term for lifting frames and, later, cranes. He was also the first executioner known to have been the subject of a ballad in the English-speaking world.