The diary of Britain\u2019s most prolific executioner is up for auction
An execution diary kept by Britain’s most famous hangman is up at auction for £25,00 ($31,600).
Albert Pierrepoint is responsible for the deaths of around 600 people during his 25-year career as an executioner in the mid-20th century.
The auction sale includes a number of Pierrepoint’s personal effects, including his diary, watch chain and his “death mask” — a plaster cast of his face and hands taken after he died.
Pierrepoint is best known for being involved in the execution of Nazi war criminals.
By the time his career ended in 1956, Pierrepoint had hanged around 200 people convicted of war crimes in Germany and Austria.
He’s also responsible for the hanging of high-profile murders, including Gordon “the Blackout Ripper” Cummins, John “the Acid Bath Murderer” Haigh and John “the Rillington Place Strangler” Christie.
Pierrepoint also executed the last woman to be hanged in the UK: Ruth Ellis.
His execution diary — which is part of the “remarkable” haul up for auction — lists a total of 434 executions.
The notes include personal details of the prisoners, including their name, age, height, weight and drop.
It also includes the site of execution and notes on the prisoner’s frame and neck.
Prisoners were described in terms like “very heavy body, ordinary neck, wirey, very thin neck, little flabby.”
The leather-bound tome is embossed with Pierrepoint’s name and also makes notes about high-profile prisoners.
Prisoners hanged included: “German, Dutch and Belgium spies, French Canadian, USA, IRA, British Soldier.”
The haul of items also includes an amber and ivory cigar holder and case, which belonged to Pierrepoint’s father, Henry, who was also an executioner.
A silver watch chain worn by Pierrepoint and his father (as well as uncle Tom, also a hangman) at hundreds of executions is also on sale.
There’s also a series of documents and photographs, revealing hangings in the Egyptian desert and a newspaper article about a pro-Nazi Brit hanged by Pierrepoint.
“This is the most fascinating set of items I have ever sold,” said Giles Hodges, director of Boldon Auction Galleries.
“It provides a remarkable insight into the role of the executioner and I suppose that someone had to do the job.”
Describing what job he would like to do while at school, Pierrepoint reportedly said: “When I leave school I should like to be 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.”
Pierrepoint assisted in his first execution alongside his uncle in Dublin in December 1932, to hang Patrick McDermott, a murderous farmer.
And Pierrepoint’s first job as a lead executioner was in October 1941, to hang gang member and killer Antonio “Babe” Mancini.
After World War II, Pierrepoint was appointed as an honorary lieutenant-colonel, killing 200 war criminals between 1945 and 1949.
He is believed to have executed as many as 10 people a day.
Prisoners included camp commandant Josef Kramer, dubbed “The Beast of Belsen,” Irma Grese, known as the “Hyena of Auschwitz” and Dr. Bruno Tesch, who helped invent the Zyklon B chemical used to murder millions of people in the Holocaust.
Pierrepoint died at a nursing home in 1992, aged 87.
