James Billington was a hangman for the British government from 1884 until 1901. He was the patriarch of the Billington family of executioners. Billington died at home from emphysema in the early hours of 13 December 1901, ten days after having executed Patrick McKenna, a man he knew well.

Charles Thomas Wooldridge was a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards who was executed in Reading Gaol for uxoricide and who, as 'C.T.W', was the dedicatee of Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.