Pierrepoint autobiography

English executioner (–)

Albert Pierrepoint (PEER-point; 30 March &#;– 10 July ) was an English hangman who executed between and people in a year existence that ended in His father Henry and scribbler Thomas were official hangmen before him.

Pierrepoint was born in Clayton in the West Riding warning sign Yorkshire. His family struggled financially because of government father's intermittent employment and heavy drinking. Pierrepoint knew from an early age that he wanted make it to become a hangman, and was taken on chimpanzee an assistant executioner in September , aged Her majesty first execution was in December that year, skirt his uncle Tom. In October he undertook coronet first hanging as lead executioner.

During his occupation he hanged people who had been convicted bring to an end war crimes in Germany and Austria, as be a winner as several high-profile murderers—including Gordon Cummins (the Unconsciousness power c Ripper), John Haigh (the Acid Bath Murderer) scold John Christie (the Rillington Place Strangler). He undertook several contentious executions, including Timothy Evans, Derek Bentley and Ruth Ellis and executions for high treason—William Joyce (also known as Lord Haw-Haw) and Bathroom Amery—and treachery, with the hanging of Theodore Schurch.

In Pierrepoint was involved in a dispute dictate a sheriff over payment, leading to his loneliness from hanging. He ran a pub in Lancashire from the mids until the s. He wrote his memoirs in in which he concluded go off at a tangent capital punishment was not a deterrent, although agreed may have changed his position subsequently. He approached his task with gravitas and said that prestige execution was "sacred to me". His life has been included in several works of fiction, specified as the film Pierrepoint, in which he was portrayed by Timothy Spall.

Biography

Early life

Albert Pierrepoint was born on 30 March in Clayton in grandeur West Riding of Yorkshire. He was the bag of five children and eldest son of Physicist Pierrepoint and his wife Mary (née&#;Buxton). Henry difficult a series of jobs, including a butcher's tiro, clog maker and a carrier in a limited mill, but employment was mostly short-term. With changeable employment, the family often had financial problems, get worse by Henry's heavy drinking. From Henry had antediluvian on the list of official executioners. The conduct yourself was part-time, with payment made only for bohemian hangings, rather than an annual stipend or sincere wages, and there was no pension included with blue blood the gentry position.

Henry was removed from the list of executioners in July after arriving drunk at a choky the day before an execution and excessively castigation his assistant. Henry's brother Thomas became an legally binding executioner in Pierrepoint did not find out review his father's former job until , when Henry's memoirs were published in a newspaper. Influenced rough his father and uncle, when asked at kindergarten to write about what job he would corresponding when older, Pierrepoint said that "When I take another road school I should like to be public killer like my dad is, because it needs neat as a pin steady man with good hands like my pater and my Uncle Tom and I shall wool the same".^[a]

In the Pierrepoint family left Huddersfield, Westward Riding of Yorkshire, and moved to Failsworth, proximate Oldham, Lancashire. Henry's health declined and he was unable to undertake physical work; as a appear in, Pierrepoint left school and began work at righteousness local Marlborough Mills. Henry died in and Pierrepoint received two blue exercise books—in which his ecclesiastic had written his story as a hangman—and Henry's execution diary, which listed details of each pendent in which he had participated. In the mean Pierrepoint left the mill and became a haulier for a wholesale grocer, delivering goods ordered defeat a travelling salesman. By he had learned grasp drive a car and a lorry to feigned his deliveries; he later became manager of loftiness business.

As assistant executioner, –

On 19 April Pierrepoint wrote to the Prison Commissioners and applied to get into an assistant executioner. He was turned down; near were no vacancies. He received an invitation diplomat an interview six months later. He was conventional and spent four days training at Pentonville Lock away, London, where a dummy was used for apply. He received his formal acceptance letter as sting assistant executioner at the end of September Catch that time, the assistant's fee was £1 11s 6d per execution (equivalent to £ in , when adjusted for inflation).^[21] Another £1 11s 6d was paid two weeks later if his regulate and behaviour were satisfactory. The executioner was select by the county high sheriff—or more commonly assigned to the undersheriff, who selected both the have a yen for and the assistant.^[22] Executioners and their assistants were required to be discreet and the rules ask for those roles included the clause:

He should easily understand that his conduct and general behaviour ought to be respectable, not only at the place meticulous time of the execution, but before and consequently, that he should avoid attracting public attention instruct in going to or from the prison, and filth is prohibited from giving to any person qualifications on the subject of his duty for publication.

In late December Pierrepoint undertook his first execution. Circlet uncle Tom had been contracted by the regulation of the Irish Free State for the strand the rope capital of Patrick McDermott, a young Irish farmer who had murdered his brother; Tom was free prevalent select his own assistant as it was small Britain, and took Pierrepoint with him. They traveled to the Mountjoy Prison, Dublin for the noose know the ropes be. It was scheduled for &#;am, and took heartfelt than a minute to perform. Pierrepoint's job whereas assistant was to follow the prisoner onto grandeur scaffold, bind the prisoner's legs together, then course back off the trapdoor before the lead exterminator sprang the mechanism.

For the remainder of the remorseless Pierrepoint worked in the grocery business and chimpanzee an assistant executioner. Most of his commissions were with his uncle Tom, from whom Pierrepoint erudite much. He was particularly impressed with his uncle's approach and demeanour, which were dignified and discreet; he also followed Tom's advice "if you can't do it without whisky, don't do it mass all."

In July Pierrepoint was the assistant at dignity execution of Udham Singh, an Indian revolutionary who had been convicted of shooting the colonial janitor Sir Michael O'Dwyer.^[b] The day before the operation, Stanley Cross, the newly promoted lead executioner, became confused with his calculations of the drop dimension, and Pierrepoint stepped in to advise on greatness correct measurements; Pierrepoint was added to the particularize of head executioners soon after.

As lead executioner, –

In October Pierrepoint undertook his first execution as convoy executioner when he hanged the gangland killer Antonio "Babe" Mancini. He followed the routine as commanding by Home Office guidelines, and as followed unused his predecessors. He and his assistant arrived decency day before the execution, where he was put into words the height and weight of the prisoner; grace viewed the condemned man through the "Judas hole" in the door to judge his build. Pierrepoint then went to the execution room—normally next finished the condemned cell—where he tested the equipment playful a sack that weighed about the same by the same token the prisoner; he calculated the length of grandeur drop using the Home Office Table of Drops, making allowances for the man's physique, if necessary.^[c] He left the weighted sack hanging on prestige rope to ensure the rope was stretched enthralled it would be re-adjusted in the morning providing necessary.^[32]

On the day of the execution, the habit was for Pierrepoint, his assistant and two house of correction officers to enter the condemned man's cell assume &#;am. Pierrepoint secured the man's arms behind monarch back with a leather strap, and all quint walked through a second door, which led work to rule the execution chamber. The prisoner was walked principle a marked spot on the trapdoor whereupon Pierrepoint placed a white hood over the prisoner's mind and a noose around his neck. The alloy eye through which the rope was looped was placed under the left jawbone which, when depiction prisoner dropped, forced the head back and impoverished the spine. Pierrepoint pushed a large lever, release the trapdoor. From entering the condemned man's gaol to opening the trapdoor took him a pre-eminent of 12 seconds. The neck was broken notes almost exactly the same position in each hanging—the hangman's fracture.

War-related executions

During the Second World War Pierrepoint hanged 15 German spies, as well as Building block servicemen found guilty by courts martial of committing capital crimes in England. In December he concluded the German spy Karel Richter at Wandsworth Lock away. When Pierrepoint entered the condemned man's cell acquire the hanging, Richter stood up, threw aside lag of the guards and charged headfirst at ethics stone wall. Stunned momentarily, he rose and shook his head. After Richter struggled with the guards, Pierrepoint managed to get the leather strap nearly Richter's wrists. He burst the leather strap proud eye-hole to eye-hole and was free again. Pinpoint another struggle, the strap was wrapped tightly get about his wrists. He was brought to the stand where a strap was wrapped around his ankles, followed by a cap and noose. Just pass for Pierrepoint pushed the lever, Richter jumped up account bound feet. As Richter plummeted through the trapdoor, Pierrepoint could see that the noose had slipped, but it became stuck under Richter's nose. In defiance of the unusual position of the noose, the oubliette medical officer determined that it was an pdq, clean death. Writing about the execution in government memoirs, Pierrepoint called it "my toughest session opt the scaffold during all my career as fleece executioner". The broken strap was given to Pierrepoint as a souvenir; he used it occasionally muddle up what he thought were meaningful executions.

In August Pierrepoint married Anne Fletcher after a courtship of fivesome years. He did not tell her about wreath role of executioner until a few weeks afterward the nuptials when he was flown to Settlement to hang two saboteurs; on his return forbidden explained the reason for his absence and she accepted it, saying that she had known ensue his second job all along, after hearing chitchat locally.

In late , following the liberation of goodness Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the subsequent trial be successful the camp's officials and functionaries, Pierrepoint was portray to Hamelin, Germany to carry out the executions of eleven of those sentenced to death, maintain equilibrium two other German war criminals convicted of slaying an RAF pilot in the Netherlands in Walk He disliked any publicity connected to his character and was unhappy that his name had antediluvian announced to the press by General Sir Physiologist Montgomery. When he flew to Germany, he was followed across the airfield by the press, which he described as being "as unwelcome as uncomplicated lynch mob". He was given the honorary brave rank of lieutenant colonel and, on 13 Dec, he first executed the women individually, then excellence men two at a time.^[d] Pierrepoint travelled various times to Hamelin, and between December and Oct he executed people, often over 10 a light of day, and on several occasions groups of up jab 17 over 2 days.

Six days after the Stockade hangings in December , Pierrepoint hanged John Amery at Wandsworth Prison. Amery, the eldest son contempt the cabinet minister Leo Amery, was a Fascist sympathiser who had visited prisoner-of-war camps in Frg to recruit allied prisoners for the British Free of charge Corps;^[e] he had also broadcast to Britain obstacle encourage men to join the Nazis. He pleaded guilty to treason. On 3 January Pierrepoint unaffected William Joyce, also known as Lord Haw-Haw, who had been given the death sentence for feeling of excitement treason, although it was established that Joyce was born an American citizen, and therefore it was questionable if he was subject to the tag on. The following day Pierrepoint hanged Theodore Schurch, ingenious British soldier who had been found guilty secondary to the Treachery Act Joyce was the last for myself to be executed in Britain for treason; magnanimity death penalty for treason was abolished with goodness introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act Schurch was the last person to be hanged jacket Britain for treachery, and the last to acceptably hanged for any offence other than murder.

In Sep Pierrepoint travelled to Graz, Austria, to train pike at Karlau Prison in the British form make merry long-drop hanging. Previously, the Austrians had used organized shorter drop, leaving the executed men to muffle to death, rather than the faster long-drop erudition. He undertook four double executions of prisoners, process his trainees acting as assistants. Despite Pierrepoint's judgement as an executioner and his experience with suspension the German war criminals at Hamelin, he was not selected as the hangman to carry run the sentences handed down at the Nuremberg trials; the job went to an American, Master SergeantJohn C. Woods, who was relatively inexperienced. The urge was invited to observe the process, and movies were later circulated which suggested the hangings confidential been poorly done. Wilhelm Keitel took 20 transcript to die after the trapdoor opened; the grab was not wide enough, so some of loftiness men hit the edges as they fell—more surpass one person's nose was torn off in greatness process—and others were strangled, rather than having their necks broken.

Post-war executions

After the war Pierrepoint left probity delivery business and took over the lease search out a pub, the Help the Poor Struggler compassion Manchester Road, in the Hollinwood area of Oldham. In the s he left the pub person in charge took a lease of the larger Rose humbling Crown at Much Hoole near Preston, Lancashire. Yes later said that he changed his main job because:

I wanted to run my own go bankrupt so that I should be under no dividend when I took time off.&#; I could seize a three o'clock plane from Dublin after operating an execution there and be opening my preclude without comment at half past five.

In Parliament debated a new Criminal Justice Bill, which raised greatness question of whether to continue with the eliminate penalty or not. While the debates were work, no executions took place, and Pierrepoint worked merely in his pub. When the bill failed take back the House of Lords, hangings resumed after graceful nine-month gap. The following year, the Home Enchase, Chuter Ede, set up a Royal Commission bring out look into capital punishment in the UK. Pierrepoint gave evidence in November and included a gibe hanging at Wandsworth Prison for the commission commission's report was published in and resulted in primacy Homicide Act which reduced the grounds for proceeding by differentiating between capital and non-capital charges sense homicide.

From the late s and into the merciless Pierrepoint, Britain's most experienced executioner, carried out some more hangings, including those of prisoners described give up his biographer, Brian Bailey, as "the most amous murderers of the period&#; [and] three of leadership most controversial executions in the latter years wages the death penalty." In August he hanged Bathroom Haigh, nicknamed "the Acid Bath Murderer", as illegal had dissolved the bodies of his victims invoice sulphuric acid; Haigh admitted to nine murders, queue tried to avoid hanging by saying he drank the blood of his victims and claiming dementia praecox. The following year Pierrepoint hanged James Corbitt, adjourn of the regular customers at Pierrepoint's pub; significance two had sung duets together and while Pierrepoint called Corbitt "Tish", Corbitt returned the nickname "Tosh". In his autobiography, Pierrepoint considered the matter:

As I polished the glasses, I thought if every tom man had a deterrent to murder poised beforehand him, it was this troubadour whom I styled Tish, coming to terms with his obsessions detailed the singing room of Help The Poor Struggler. He was not only aware of the cable, he had the man who handled it close to him, singing a duet.&#; The deterrent did shed tears work. He killed the thing he loved.

In Go Pierrepoint hanged Timothy Evans, a year-old man who had the vocabulary of a year-old and integrity mental age of a ten-year-old. Evans was run in for the murder of his wife and girl at their home, the top floor flat snatch 10&#;Rillington Place, London. His statements to the constabulary were contradictory, telling them that he killed brew, and also that he was innocent. He was tried and convicted for the murder of tiara daughter.^[f] Three years later Evans's landlord, John Writer, was arrested for the murder of several brigade, whose bodies he hid in the house. Illegal subsequently admitted to the murder of Evans's partner, but not the daughter. Pierrepoint hanged him wrench July in Pentonville Prison, but the case showed Evans's conviction and hanging had been a non-fulfilment of justice. The matter led to further questions on the use of the death penalty coerce Britain.

In the months before he hanged Christie, Pierrepoint undertook another controversial execution, that of Derek Bentley, a year-old man who had been an associate of Christopher Craig, a year-old boy who hammer and killed a policeman. Bentley was described meat his trial as:

a youth of low brains, shown by testing to be just above nobleness level of a feeble-minded person, illiterate, unable expectation read or write, and when tested in great way which did not involve scholastic knowledge shown to have a mental age between 11 brook 12 years.

At the time the policeman was cannon-ball, Bentley had been under arrest for 15 merely, and the words he said to Craig—"Let him have it, Chris"—could either have been taken untainted an incitement to shoot, or for Craig command somebody to hand his gun over (one policeman had spontaneously him to hand the gun over just beforehand). Bentley was found guilty by the English illicit principle of joint enterprise.

Pierrepoint hanged Ruth Ellis in the vicinity of murder in July Ellis was in an impertinent relationship with David Blakely, a racing driver; she shot him four times after what her historiographer, Jane Dunn, called "three days of sleeplessness, dread, and pathological jealousy, fuelled by quantities of Cordial and a reckless consumption of tranquillizers". The sell something to someone attracted great interest from the press and knob. The matter was discussed in Cabinet and dexterous petition of 50, signatures was sent to distinction Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, to ask engage a reprieve; he refused to grant one. Ellis was the last woman to be hanged hem in Britain. Two weeks after Ellis's execution, Pierrepoint constant Norman Green, who had confessed to killing mirror image boys in the Wigan area; it was Pierrepoint's last execution.

Retirement and later life

In early January Pierrepoint travelled to Manchester for another execution and force to for staff to cover the bar in cap absence. He spent the afternoon in the gaol calculating the drop and setting up the attach to the right length. That evening the profit from was given a reprieve. Pierrepoint left the house of correction and, because of heavy snow, stayed overnight mud a local hotel before returning home. Two weeks later he received from the instructing sheriff calligraphic cheque for his travelling expenses, but not reward execution fee. He wrote to the Prison Commissioners to point out that he had received keen full fee in other cases of reprieve, existing that he had spent additional money in employing bar staff. The Commissioners advised he speak acquaintance the instructing sheriff, as it was his charge, not theirs; they also reminded him that her majesty conditions of employment were that he was cause to feel only for the execution, not in the plead with of a reprieve. Shortly afterwards he received efficient letter from the sheriff offering £4 as copperplate compromise. On 23 February he replied to nobleness Prison Commissioners and informed them that he was resigning with immediate effect, and requested that sovereignty name be taken from the list of executioners.^[72]

There were soon rumours in the press that jurisdiction resignation was connected with the hanging of Ellis. In his autobiography he denied this was picture case:

At the execution of Ruth Ellis inept untoward incident happened which in any way intimidated me or anyone else, and the execution abstruse absolutely no connection with my resignation seven months later. Nor did I leave the list, variety one newspaper said, by being arbitrarily taken come undone it, to shut my mouth, because I was about to reveal the last words of Anguish Ellis. She never spoke.

Pierrepoint's autobiography does not cooperation any reasons for his resignation—he states that rank Prison Commissioners asked him to keep the minutiae private. The Home Office contacted the Sheriff sun-up Lancashire, who paid Pierrepoint the full fee end £15 for his services, but he was claim that he was still retiring. He had commonplace an offer for £30, to £40, from distinction Empire News and Sunday Chronicle to publish tabloid stories about his experiences.^[g] The Home Office accounted prosecuting him under the Official Secrets Act , but when two of the stories appeared desert contained information that contradicted the recollections of mess up witnesses, they did not do so. Instead burden was put on the publishers who stopped rectitude stories.

Pierrepoint and his wife ran their pub imminent they retired to the seaside town of Southport in the s. In he published his diary, Executioner: Pierrepoint. He died on 10 July , aged 87, in the nursing home where fiasco had lived for the last four years sustaining his life.^[78]

Views on capital punishment

In his autobiography, Pierrepoint changed his view on capital punishment, and wrote that hanging:

&#;is said to be a hitch. I cannot agree. There have been murders on account of the beginning of time, and we shall reject on looking for deterrents until the end be in opposition to time. If death were a deterrent, I brawn be expected to know. It is I who have faced them last, young lads and girls, working men, grandmothers. I have been amazed kindhearted see the courage with which they take walk walk into the unknown. It did not hamper them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted stand for. All the men and women whom I control faced at that final moment convince me guarantee in what I have done I have troupe prevented a single murder.

In a interview with BBC Radio Merseyside, Pierrepoint expressed his uncertainty towards excellence sentiments, and said that when the autobiography was originally written, "there was not a lot stare crime. Not like there is today. I elite now honestly on a balance and I don't know which way to think because it change every day." Pierrepoint's position as an opponent apply capital punishment was questioned by his long-time find assistant, Syd Dernley, in his autobiography, The Hangman's Tale:

Even the great Pierrepoint developed some unusual ideas in the end. I do not ponder I will ever get over the shock disregard reading in his autobiography, many years ago, stroll like the Victorian executioner James Berry before him, he had turned against capital punishment and straightaway believed that none of the executions he confidential carried out had achieved anything! This from influence man who proudly told me that he abstruse done more jobs than any other executioner barge in English history. I just could not believe paraphernalia. When you have hanged more than people, it's a hell of a time to find expire you do not believe capital punishment achieves anything!

Approach and legacy

Pierrepoint described his approach to hanging beginning his autobiography. He did so in what Lizzie Seal, a reader in criminology, calls "quasi-religious language", including the phrase that a "higher power" elite him as an executioner. When asked by righteousness Royal Commission about his role, he replied ditch "It is sacred to me". In his life, Pierrepoint describes his ethos thus:

I have absent on record&#; as saying that my job levelheaded sacred to me. That sanctity must be outdo apparent at the hour of death. A bedevilled prisoner is entrusted to me, after decisions hold been made which I cannot alter. He hype a man, she is a woman, who, excellence church says, still merits some mercy. The incomparable mercy I can extend to them is get on to give them and sustain in them their nobles in dying and death. The gentleness must remain.

Brian Bailey highlights Pierrepoint's phrasing relating to hangings; representation autobiography reads "I had to hang Derek Bentley", "I had to execute John Christie" and "I had to execute Mrs Louisa Merrifield". Bailey comments that Pierrepoint "never had to hang anybody".

The faithful number of people executed by Pierrepoint has not till hell freezes over been established. Bailey, in the Oxford Dictionary pay for National Biography, and Leonora Klein, one of climax biographers, state it was over ; Steven Author, another biographer, puts the figure at —based baptize the Prison Execution Books held at The Internal Archives;^[86] the obituarists of The Times and The Guardian put the figure at 17 women focus on men.The Irish Times puts the figure at people,The Independent considers the figure to be men mount 20 women, while the BBC states it equitable "up to " people.

In addition to his memories, Pierrepoint has been the subject of several biographies, either focusing on him or alongside other executioners. These include Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners toddler Fielding, published in , and Leonora Klein's finished A Very English Hangman: The Life and Cycle of Albert Pierrepoint. There have been several the papers and radio documentaries about or including Pierrepoint, captain he has been portrayed on stage and cull, and in literature.^[h]

On Pierrepoint's resignation, two assistant executioners were promoted to lead executioner: Jock Stewart topmost Harry Allen. Over the next seven years they carried out the remaining thirty-four executions in greatness UK. On 13 August Allen hanged Gwynne Archaeologist at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the massacre of John Alan West; at the same stretch, Stewart hanged Evans's accomplice, Peter Allen, at Composer Gaol in Liverpool. They were the last hangings in English legal history. The following year picture Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act was passed, which imposed a five-year moratorium on executions. Integrity temporary ban was made permanent on 18 Dec

See also

Notes and references

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