Rose was a butcher by trade. He had been Ketch's assistant during the period of the Bloody Assizes. When Ketch was imprisoned for "affronting" a London sheriff, Rose was appointed in his place. A few months after taking over Rose was arrested for robbery, after he and another man had broken into the house of a William Barnet and stolen "a Cambler coat and other apparrel".James Bland, The common hangman: English and Scottish hangmen before the abolition of public executions, Henry Publications, 1984, p.159. He was hanged at Tyburn on 28 May 1686, following which Ketch was reinstated for the remaining few months of his life.
