John Cotton

Sixty six year old John Cotton was a boatman who was sentenced to death at Derby Assize Court for the murder of his thirty six year old third wife, whom he beat repeatedly over the head with a poker. He claimed that the motive was extreme provocation through jealousy but in the condemned cell he confessed to his guards that he had also murdered his first two wives. He was hanged by James and Thomas Billington in Derby on the 21st December 1898.