Respectable Men Seeking Odious Work in the Late Nineteenth Century

Using the nearly 1000 unsolicited letters of application for the job of common hangman in 1883, this article examines how these mostly skilled or semi-skilled workmen presented their abilities and credentials for the job. Combining a statistical analysis of the applicant pool with qualitative analysis of the letters and testimonials provided by them, the authors seek to advance the debate about nineteenth-century working-class respectability and its connection to occupational status. They address the paucity of scholarship on how working men in the later nineteenth century presented their credentials and experience for new occupations, and how the hangman letters offer a unique source for understanding how some men did so. The authors conclude that the expected dictates of respectable status were invoked, instrumentally, by the applicants despite the social perception of the hangman role as one of extreme odium, using the kinds of information requested by other ‘adjacent’ occupations – like the military, police and railways – and found in newspaper advertisements.