Henry Pierrepoint
Henry Albert Pierrepoint (* 1874 ; † December 14, 1922 ) was, after he had applied for the first time to the Prison Commission in 1898 , from 1901 as an executioner on the list of persons authorized to carry out executions ("the list" for short) . He received his education in Newgate Prison in London. His application was not free from teething problems: When he showed up for the mandatory recruitment interview in prison, he was mistaken for an applicant for a supervisory position. After the medical examination, he was told that he was too small and too light for the "job" (a supervisor) and therefore could not be accepted. It was only a few days later that the exact British bureaucracy discovered the mistake and Henry was invited again.
In his nine-year tenure, he carried out a proven 107 gallows executions. He was promoted to "Chief Executioner" because of his way of working, making him the "No. 1 ”on the“ List ”. But the activity took its toll: Henry Pierrepoint apparently tended to abuse alcohol. It was also the whiskey that finally cost Henry his position: after assaulting his assistant John Ellis - whom, following the memoirs of his son Albert, he could not stand - while preparing for an execution in Chelmsford (July 14, 1910, Frederick Foreman) he was removed from the list. Ellis, known as a meticulous and meticulous executioner, had criticized Henry Pierrepoint when he noticed his intoxicated state, which Henry responded with physical violence. Henry Pierrepoint even turned to Home Secretary Winston Churchill with a letter of justification - after no invitations to executions were forthcoming from now on - but the instruction that he should “never be employed again” remained. Henry spent the rest of his life working in a gas works, writing his memoirs.
Albert Pierrepoint, his son and successor, affirmed in his own memoirs (see sources, p. 59f.) That his father resigned voluntarily and that the resignation was not related to a “professional error”; However, he admits: "There is a secret surrounding his resignation that I was unable to solve."
In 2006, the Public Records Office released internal papers from which it emerged that the incident mentioned actually triggered the "resignation". Steve Fielding (see sources) cites the letter from John Ellis to the Home Office reporting the incident and an internal memorandum from the Home Office instructing the Prison Commission to remove Henry Pierrepoint from the “list” .
Henry Pierrepoint was the brother of Thomas Pierrepoint and the father of Albert Pierrepoint .
swell
- Albert Pierrepoint : Executioner Pierrepoint. An autobiography . Harrap, London 1974, ISBN 0-245-52070-8 , (English).
- Steve Fielding: Pierrepoint. A Family of Executioners . John Blake Publishing, London, 2006, ISBN 1-84454-192-4 , (A book on the three Pierrepoints).
Web links
- BBC: Hangman dropped for drinking (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pierrepoint, Henry |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pierrepoint, Henry Albert (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British executioner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1874 |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 14, 1922 |