Albert Pierrepoint

As one of the best known hangmen in English history, Albert Pierrepoint is credited with executing between 400 and 600 people over a 25 year career. It was somewhat of a family business, with both his father and uncle also holding the official hangman post.

During his career, he hanged 200 people convicted of war crimes in Germany and Austria, as well as the executions of well known murderers. He was the hangman for John Christie, also known as the Rillington Place Strangler and Ruth Ellis, the last woman ever to be hanged in Britain. As is to be expected, his career also saw him undertake several contentious executions, including Timothy Evans, who took the fall for John Christie and Derek Bentley.

Early life

Albert Pierrepoint was born in Clayton, Yorkshire on 30^th March 1905. He was the third of five children and the eldest son of Henry and Mary Pierrepoint. At this time, the family struggled financially and Henry took on several short term jobs. From around 1901, he was on the list of official executioners, but only on a part time basis, with payment made only for individual hangings. He remained on the list until 1910, when he was removed for turning up at a prison under the influence. Henry’s brother, Thomas became an official executioner in 1906.

Albert found out about his father and uncle’s professions when he was around 11 years old when his father published his memoirs. It is said that when he found out, he said: “When I leave school, I should like to be a public executioner like my dad is, because it needs a steady man with good hands like my dad and my uncle Tom and I shall be the same.”

In 1917, the family moved to Lancashire. After this, Henry’s health began to decline and he was unable to work, as a result, Albert left school and joined the workplace, starting out in a mill. Henry died in 1922, leaving his son two exercise books in which he had written about his experiences as a hangman and an execution diary, featuring all the hangings he had participated in.

Becoming a hangman

Albert wrote to the Prison Commissioners and applied to be an assistant executioner for the first time in 1931. He was initially turned down but was invited to interview six months later and went to Pentonville Prison in London where he received four days of training with a dummy before being formally accepted as assistant executioner in 1932.

In 1932, the assistance fee was £1 11s 6d per execution, with a further sum paid two weeks later if his behaviour was found to be satisfactory. At this time, executioners and their assistants were chosen for jobs by the county high sheriff.

In December 1932, Albert undertook his first execution. His uncle Thomas had been contracted by the government of the Irish Free State for the hanging of Patrick McDermott, an Irish farmer who had been convicted of murdering his brother. As the execution was taking place outside Britain, Thomas was able to choose his own assistant and took Albert with him. Albert was required to follow the prisoner to the scaffold, bind their legs and then step back, while the executioner opened the trap door. The whole thing took less than a minute.

For the rest of the 1930s, Albert mostly worked as a grocer and as an assistant executioner part time. Most of his commissions were alongside his uncle. In 1940, he assisted Stanley Cross, the newly promoted lead executioner in the execution of Udham Singh. Cross allegedly became confused when calculating the drop length and Albert had to step in to help. After this, he was added to the list of lead executioners.

As lead executioner

In October 1941, Albert undertook his first execution as lead executioner. He and his assistant arrived at the prison the day before, as was custom, and viewed the prisoner in order to calculate his weight and height. He then tested the equipment using sacks and then on the day of the execution, he was escorted into the cell to bind the prisoners’ hands and lead them to the execution chamber, placing a white hood over his head and noose over his neck. Albert then walked into the adjoining room where he released the trap door. From entering the cell to opening the trapdoor took a total of 12 seconds.

While acting as lead executioner, Albert took part in several war time executions, including 15 German spies and US servicemen found guilty by court martial. In December of 1941, he executed the German spy Karel Richter at Wandsworth Prison. Richter attempted several escapes and just as Albert released the trapdoor, he jumped, causing the noose to slip. The medical examiner said it was still an instantaneous death, but Albert referred to it as “my toughest session on the scaffold during all my career as an executioner.”

Albert made a point of disliking publicity connected to his role, he didn’t even tell his wife of his job until weeks after they married, despite them being together for five years.  In 1945, he was announced as the executioner for German servicemen convicted of war crimes and was flown to Europe. He was followed across the airfield by the press. At this time, with the end of the war, Albert was given the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel, between December 1945 and October 1949, he executed 226 people, often over 10 a day.

He also oversaw the executions of John Amery, the son of cabinet minister Leo Amery who had been found guilty of treason and Lord Haw Haw, also known as William Joyce, the last person to be hanged for treason.

Despite his work with German criminals of war, he was not selected as the hangman to carry out the executions following the Nuremberg Trials.

As lead executioner, Albert was also employed in Europe training others how to use the British form of the long drop hanging, which was deemed more humane as it took less time.

Post WWII

After WWII, Albert left the grocery business and took over the lease of a pub in Oldham. He remained a publican until his retirement in the 1960s.

In 1948, parliament began to debate the death penalty. Albert gave evidence as part of the commission. As a result, a bill was passed reducing the grounds for execution to homicide. Into the 1950s, Albert became Britain’s most experienced executioner, often finding himself overseeing the deaths of high profile murderers. In 1949, he hanged John Haigh, the Acid Bath Murderer, and James Corbitt, who had been a regular in his pubs, something that he talked about in his biography.

In March 1950, Albert hanged Timothy Evans, who had been arrested for the murder of his wife and daughter at their home in the first floor flat of 10 Rillington Place, London. Evans was known to have learning difficulties and made several contradictory statements. Three years later however, Evans’ landlord, John Christie was arrested for the murder of several women that had been hidden at Rillington Place and confessed to the murder of Evans’  wife, but not the child. Albert also oversaw Christie’s execution and his name became associated with this miscarriage of justice and the debate over the use of the death penalty.

Not long before hanging Christie, he undertook the controversial hanging of Derek Bentley, another man with learning difficulties, who was an accomplice to a crime.

Albert hanged Ruth Ellis for murder in 1955, another controversial execution. Ellis was the last woman to be executed in Britain and had been convicted of shooting her lover dead outside a pub in London. The crime was said to have been premeditated and she shot at him six times, hitting him four. The case gained great public interest and was discussed in parliament, however, the execution went ahead as planned. Two weeks later, Albert oversaw his last execution.

Final execution

In January 1956, Albert travelled to Manchester for what would be his final execution. While calculating the drop, the prisoner was given a reprieve, however, he had already paid staff to cover at the pub and due to heavy snow, had to spend the night in a hotel. Two weeks later, he received payment for his travelling expenses, but not the executioner’s fee.

Albert complained to the Prison Commission, citing other instances of a reprieve where he had still been paid, however, the Commission advised that this was at the discretion of the local sheriff and reminded him that the conditions of employment state that you are only paid for the execution. Albert was later paid a small sum as a compromise but tendered his resignation not long afterwards.

There is some debate over whether this or the execution of Ruth Ellis lead to Albert’s retirement, but he never revealed the true reason why he chose to leave the profession. He and his wife continued to run their pub until they retired in the 1960s. He died in 1992, aged 87.

An executioner’s view on capital punishment

In his autobiography, published in 1974, Albert appeared to have changed his view on capital punishment, writing:

“… is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree. There have been murders since the beginning of time, and we shall go on looking for deterrents until the end of time. If death were a deterrent, I might be expected to know. […] It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. […] I have not prevented a single murder.”

Later he claimed that he did not know which way to think as it changed every day. His former assistant also published a memoir about his experiences and wrote about his disbelief that you could work in this field and be anti capital punishment.

The exact number of executions Albert Pierrepoint took part in is unclear. Many believe it to be over 400, while the BBC at one time stated it was up to 600 people. The final executions in British legal history took place in 1964, with the Murder Act, which abolished the death penalty passing in 1965.  

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