Executioner Pierrepoint
I've just interviewed Nicola Rossi, who grew up knowing Britain's most famous executioner as 'Uncle Albert'. Albert Pierrepoint wasn't her real uncle; Nicola's parents were regulars at the Manchester pub run by Albert and his wife Anne. The pub's name, Help the Poor Struggler, has a gothic quality given that its landlord was the Home Office's 'Number One Official Executioner'.
We'll be talking a lot about Albert Pierrepoint this week, with the launch of the new about his life. There's a fascinating online exhibition looking at three generations of executioners from this same family, .
In the end, Albert Pierrepoint came to believe that capital punishment is morally unjustified. That was after having executed 433 men and 17 women during his tenure at the Home Office (1932 - 1956), including some 200 Nazi war criminals, and Ruth Ellis, the last woman hanged in Britain. He clearly took enormous pride in the almost scientific precision with which he carried out his task as an executioner -- sizing up a prisoner's height and build, then calculating the exact length of rope necessary to do the job as speedily and as humanely as possible.
I talked to Nicola about how albert might have felt, looking back on all those executions later in life and believing that they were morally unjustifed. That's quite a burden to carry. She says Albert believed his actions were morally comparable to a soldier obeying orders in a war. I'm not so sure. After all, Albert applied to the Home Office for the job to make some money on the side, and he only retired from the post in 1956 over an argument about how much he should have been paid. His job as executioner was kept a secret from all but his wife Anne: this was a parallel life. It may have eased his conscience later in life to believe that the Home Office's command structure gave some moral justification to those 'judicial killings'.
Comments
I agree - I've never understood Pierrepoint's ability to re-write his role in such a way as to leave all the blame for those executions with the government of the day. If those execitions are unjustifiable, he is as culpable as those who ordered them.
I disagree! To criticise Pierrepoint at this distance in time is unfair.
The state required this activity to take place and someone had to carry it out. Better a skilled craftsman with a professional distance than an amateur with a grudge.
I read the book years ago, and was always struck by the man's compassion in a horrible task that had to be done.
I understand that his main reason for quitting was that he was treated very badly regarding payment (as were his Father and Uncle). Even by the standards of the day, the way in which the Home Office handled the arrangements struck me as high handed and miserly. As the facts were not public, it would appear that the mandarins acted to suit themselves... so no change there then. I think Pierrepoint was justified in his actions.
If you have a criticism of capital punishment, then I suggest you direct it at the state and not at its instrument!
Starnge that we should think of capital punishemnet's justification only in terms of detterrrance! Kant got it right! Rest in peace, Albert - you did well and merisfully, too!
I wonder what Albert would have thought of the inappropriate loutish behaviour of the paramilitary hoods who were responsible for the execution of Saddam Hussein.
I agree Billy. Pierrepoint would have regarded this as a disgraceful spectacle. A lynching dressed up as justice. It confirms my views on capital punishment. This is what it does to people: it turns the "just" into a baying crowd, it reduces our humanity.