News
The Death Mask and Executioners Diary
of Albert Pierrepoint
of Albert Pierrepoint
'When I grow up...I should like to be the official executioner...'
This is the man and these are the hands
that hanged over 400 people.
Albert Pierrepoint, 1905-1992, Official Executioner
His diary - containing the practical details of all his executions up to July 1955, his death mask, the cast
of his hands, together with additional Pierrepoint items, are being sold on commission by Jarndyce Anti-
quarian Booksellers. Proceeds are to go to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
This is the man and these are the hands
that hanged over 400 people.
Albert Pierrepoint, 1905-1992, Official Executioner
His diary - containing the practical details of all his executions up to July 1955, his death mask, the cast
of his hands, together with additional Pierrepoint items, are being sold on commission by Jarndyce Anti-
quarian Booksellers. Proceeds are to go to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
PIERREPOINT, Albert. The Execution Diary and Death Mask of Albert Pierrepoint, the most famous member of a family of hangmen. With an archive of family photographs and other ephemera including the execution diary of Albert's father, Henry Albert Pierrepoint.
1901-1955 Guide Price: £15,000 - 25,000
1901-1955 Guide Price: £15,000 - 25,000
Albert Pierrepoint, 1905-1992, was the third and most famous member of the Pierrepoint family who served as the UK's official hangmen between 1901 and 1956. He was preceded by his father Henry who served between 1901 and 1910 overseeing 105 executions before he was removed from his post after attacking his assistant John Ellis and arriving drunk to work. Persuaded into
the 'family business' by his brother Henry, Thomas Pierrepoint was an official executioner for 37 years between 1909 and 1946 overseeing 294 hangings.
Albert was heavily influenced by the extra curricular occupation of his father and uncle. At school he wrote, aged 11, 'When I grow up...I should like to be the official executioner...' Upon his retirement in 1956 after a protracted disagreement over pay, Albert Pierrepoint had, according to his own diary, 'engaged in approximately 606 executions' with 'approximately 173 reprieved'. He was responsible for the hanging of 11 concentration camp staff after the Belsen Trial in 1945 and a further 200 war criminals over the following 4 years; these included the notorious traitors John Amery and 'Lord Haw-Haw'. Domestically, Pierrepoint executed Derek Bentley and Timothy John Evans, both posthumously pardoned. In what must have been an emotional challenge, Pierrepoint also hanged the actual murderer of Evans' alleged victim. In April 1954, Pierrepoint conducted the last execution in the Republic of Ireland, and on July 13, 1955, he hanged Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain; according to his diary, Ellis was 28
years of age, 5'2', 103lbs, with a hanging drop of 8.4 metres. She was hanged at Holloway prison.
As his last diary entry notes, Albert Pierrepoint was not Britain's last hangman. The final executions carried out in the UK were of Peter Anthony Allen, hanged by Leslie Stewart at Walton Prison, Liverpool; and Gwynne Owen Evans, hanged by Harry Allen at Strangeways, Manchester. Both were carried out on August 13, 1964.
.jpg)
Albert Pierrepoint’s Hangman’s diary, recording on this page, the executions of the
traitors John Amery and William Joyce, otherwise know as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’.
traitors John Amery and William Joyce, otherwise know as ‘Lord Haw-Haw’.
46, Great Russell Street - (opp. British Museum) - Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3PA