The terrible story of Henry Albert Pierrepoint - the beginning of a dynasty.

 The terrible story of Henry Albert Pierrepoint - the beginning of a dynasty.

Henry Pierrepoint (usually known as “Harry”) was born in 1878 at Normanton on Soar in Nottinghamshire.  By 1891 the family was living at Clayton near Bradford in Yorkshire.

He was later apprenticed as a butcher and then became a cabinet maker.  In 1898 he married Mary Buxton and they had five children, one of whom was Albert.

He applied for a job as hangman on the 11th of February 1901 and was interviewed at Strangeways prison in Manchester by Mr. Cruickshank, the governor.  

Henry Pierrepoint's training started on Monday the 11th of March 1901. Having successfully completed the training he was added to the list of assistant executioners.  

At this time, the Prison Commission was short of applicants, to the point of actually sending out a circular to the prison governors, dated the 28th of November 1900, asking them whether they had received any applications.

During his period on Home Office List (1901-1910) Henry Pierrepoint assisted at 35 hangings and carried out 70 executions as principal, 63 in England and Wales, four in Ireland, two in Scotland and one on Jersey during his nine year term of office. He took great pride in his work and calculated the drops most carefully.  

He is said never to have had a single bungled hanging.  Each hanging was recorded in his diary in his very neat and legible hand writing.

Henry’s first commission was at Newgate assisting James Billington, at the execution of Marcel Fougeron on the 19th of November 1901.

  He also assisted at the first hangings in the newly created women’s’ prison at Holloway, that of the Finchley baby farmers, Amelia Sach and Annie Walters on the 3rd of February 1903.

Between January 1902 and March 1903 he assisted at a further 15 hangings.

 The first lead role was to be the hanging of Richard Wigley at Shrewsbury on Tuesday the 18th of March 1902. Wigley had murdered his girlfriend. Henry was judged a “success” at this execution.  

However it was not until August 1905 that Henry became the UK’s Number 1, after the death of John Billington. 

Henry, assisted by his brother Tom, hanged Rhoda Willis at Cardiff on the 14th of August 1907. 

She was executed on her 44th birthday for the murder of a day old baby whom she had agreed to look after for £6.00 paid to her by its unmarried mother. She was thus, in effect, another baby farmer. 

Her good looks and golden hair made a big impression on Henry.

Like James Billington, Henry Pierrepoint was the founder of a family dynasty, his older brother Tom and son Albert following in his footsteps.

Files recently released by the Public Record Office show that Henry was sacked because he arrived for the execution Frederick Foreman in Chelmsford on the 17th of July 1910 "considerably the worse for drink" and had got into a fight with John Ellis, his assistant, on the preceding afternoon.  

According to the chief warder, as his officers were handing over the prisoner's details Pierrepoint suddenly "opened a volley of abuse" at his assistant, John Ellis. Both executioners had arrived the afternoon before the hanging, as usual.  

Ellis later wrote: "He rushed at me and knocked me off the chair I was sat on. I got up but was again knocked off. 

He was going for me again when warder Nash, who had heard the noise, came in, and attempted to stop him, but failed, and the blow struck me behind the ear."

Ellis claimed that he had advised Pierrepoint to drink less as it "gave the public the impression he had to drink to do his work".

Though one witness said the execution the following day was "carried out with the most extraordinary dispatch", Henry Pierrepoint was nonetheless removed from the list of "approved executioners" in a letter circulated to High Sheriffs dated the 22nd of July 1910. 

The letter stated that "Pierrepoint should not be employed on any future occasion to act as executioner".

Henry Pierrepoint appealed directly to the Home Secretary, then Winston Churchill. He said Ellis had been trying to undermine him, because Ellis wanted to be chief executioner.

Henry died on the 14th of December 1922 at Bradford.