Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814) was a French physician and politician born at Saintes. His 1788 petition on the composition of the Estates-General brought him public support, and as a Paris deputy in 1789 he helped the locked-out National Assembly find the tennis court where members swore the Tennis Court Oath.

On 10 October 1789 he proposed that executions be carried out by a simple beheading machine, hoping a swifter, painless death would be a step toward abolishing capital punishment.

He neither designed nor built the device, but a mocking song attached his name to it. He died in Paris in 1814.