Interesting BAMFORD stories.
Below are stories of famous/infamous people with the Bamford surname.
If you have an interesting story of a Bamford (whether related or not), please send it to me and I will include it.
*** WARNING ***
The following entry is an obituary to William
BAMFORD, the public executioner and flagellator in Victoria, Australia in the mid 1800's,
but it should not be read by those that are easily offended, as he was a most despicable
person. If you would prefer not to read it 
Return to home page now.
(From the Argus newspaper, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. September 1873)
Death of an Executioner.
William Bamford, who died in the Melbourne Hospital on Tuesday, had been the hangman of Victoria since 1857, and had also until lately acted as flagellator. According to Bamford's own statement, he must have been 73 years of age and he alleged that he was born in England in 1800. He was brought up as a woolsorter but steady industry did not suit him and while a very young man he joined the 33rd Fusiliers, in which regiment he served for twenty years. He appears to have been a troublesome soldier, for on one occasion, while his regiment was at Gosport, he received 300 lashes, and eventually, for some serious military offence, was transported to Van Dieman's Land. He arrived in that colony by the 'Royal Sovereign' in 1841, and served his sentence with the ordinary ups and downs of convict life. Bamford came to Victoria in the early days of the diggings, and was unsettled until 1857. Soon after the execution of the murderers of Mr. Price, old "Jack Harris." the hangman of the period was lost night of, and his assistant "Walsh" went up country. This was Bamford's opportunity and on November 6, being then in gaol he undertook to hang one John Mason, an old man, aged 60, sentenced to death for murder. The execution took place in Melbourne. From that time, with one exception at Beechworth, where a substitute was found in the local gaol, Bamford has executed the whole of the criminals put to death in the colony. He used to keep count, and mutter after an execution the number he had put out of the world. The black ruffian who was hanged at Ballarat on the 11th of August made 71. Bamford was nearly worn out at the time he performed this last duty and the officer who had charge of him, reported that he had had no easy task to get him safely back to Melbourne. Before this the office of flogger was taken from him, as on the last occasion that he wielded the cat he was seized with an asthmatic fit, and was just able to complete his task. Strange to say, the man who has succeeded Bamford, though much younger, arrived in the same ship as he did. Bamford's appearance was rendered more repulsive than it would otherwise have been by the loss of an eye, which he got injured in some drunken row in Melbourne some fifteen or sixteen years ago. His habits were intemperate, and any money he obtained from the Government was soon squandered in the company of a degraded lot of both sexes, who used to look out for him when he was expected to leave the gaol with money in his pocket, and join him in his drunken orgies. He was accustomed to squat in some wretched place of shelter in the neighbourhood of the barracks, and here could generally be found when he was wanted by the authorities. To send notice to "Jack" that he was required to come into the gaol was sufficient. This would be given him two or three days beforehand, and then be would, at once, voluntarily imprison himself, sleep off his drunkenness, make himself clean, and be ready to hang or flog, as his "job" might be. His spells of liberty were, however, few and far between, for he was repeatedly convicted as a vagrant. Doubtless the frequent intervals of temperance thus forced upon him lengthened his days. The life he led outside the gaol without a change must have killed him years before. Bamford, as a rule, performed the terrible work allotted to him quietly and efficiently. He was faithful, too, after his kind, and could be depended upon. One sickening attempt to show good feelings to those he executed he never omitted. After he had pinioned his man, and so rendered him helpless, he used always to shake him by the hand, and murmer "God bless you" before he pulled the fatal bolt. Like the gravedigger in "Hamlet." "he had no feeling of his business". On one occasion, when the man executed had died instantaneously, he was observed to lean over the drop, and with an air of satisfaction, while looking at his work, remark "The best job in the country - that makes 47." Bamford was not married, and so far as is known, has left neither kith nor kin.
Last updated on 30 May 1999