A laudable desire to invest executions with more and more solemnity and decorum gained ground as they became more rare. As more humane principles were introduced into prison management, greater attention was paid to the capital convicts, and the horrors of their situation while awaiting sentence were as far as possible mitigated and toned down. But there was little improvement in the ceremony itself. There were still untoward accidents occasionally at executions, and even the chief practitioner of recent times, Calcraft, was not always to be trusted to do his fell work efficiently. Having mentioned Calcraft's name, I may be permitted to digress for a moment to give a few particulars concerning the last officially appointed hangman of the city of London. After Calcraft's resignation no successor was really appointed. Marwood, whose name is so familiar with the present generation, had no official status, and was merely an operator selected by the Corporation, and who, on the strength of it, contracted with sheriffs and conveners to work by the job. But Calcraft regularly succeeded Foxen, who followed Botting, and Dennis, the actor in the 1780 riots. Calcraft was born at Baddow, in Essex, in 1800; he was a shoemaker by trade, and settled in London after his marriage in 1825. The story goes, that about 1828 his attention was drawn early one morning to a man who leant against a lamp-post in Finsbury Square, coughing violently. Calcraft, who, in spite of the dreadful calling he subsequently followed, was always reputed a kindly man, invited the man with the cough to enter a neighbouring house and try a little peppermint for it. The other accepted, and they got into conversation. He told Calcraft that he was Foxen the executioner, and that he was that moment on his way to Newgate to hang a man, but that his cough was getting so much the master of him that he feared he would not be able to carry on his duties much longer. "I have no idea who the sheriffs will get to do the work after me," said Foxen, adding that his assistant, Tom Cheshire, was given to drink, and not to be trusted. "I think I could do that sort of job," said Calcraft, on the spur of the moment. Foxen asked him his name and address, and went away. Calcraft thought no more of what had occurred till the next sessions at the Old Bailey, when the sheriffs sent for him, and offered him the post of executioner for the city of London and Middlesex. He accepted, having at first Tom Cheshire as his assistant, then for a time, when Cheshire was dismissed for drunkenness, a man named Osborne. After that he worked alone.