Cuore Stampe: Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman

Albert Pierrepoint, Britain’s most famous and prolific executioner who carried out 608 executions between 1932 and 1956. About half of them were Nazi war criminals, including William Joyce (one of the men dubbed "Lord Haw-Haw"), an Irish-American fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during the Second World War and John Amery, a British fascist whom he considered the bravest man he had ever hanged who proposed to the Wehrmacht the formation of a British volunteer force (that subsequently became the British Free Corps) and made recruitment efforts and propaganda broadcasts for Nazi Germany.

Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman, a 2005 British film directed by Adrian Shergold explored the life and career of Albert Pierrepoint, from the time he is first trained for the job and accepted onto the list of the country's official hangmen in 1932 until his resignation in 1956.

JOHN AMERY
(14 Mar 1912 – 19 Dec 1945)

WILLIAM JOYCE
(24 Apr 1906 - 3 Jan 1946)

Albert (Timothy Spall) born in Clayton, Bradford was the middle child and eldest son of Henry and Mary Pierrepoint (Maggie Ollerenshaw). He was influenced by the side-occupation of his father and uncle Thomas William (Bernard Kay) who both are an official executioners. In 1920s, after his father death, he works as a drayman for a wholesale grocer to deliver goods ordered through a travelling salesman. In 1930 he learns to drive a car and a lorry to make his deliveries. On 19 April 1931, Albert writes to the Prison Commissioners offering his services as an Assistant Executioner to his uncle should he or any other executioner retire. Few months later, Albert receives an official envelope inviting him to an interview at Manchester's Strangeways Prison but his mother Mary, having seen many such envelopes in Henry's time as an executioner is not happy at her son's career choice. After a week's training course at London's Pentonville Prison, Albert's name is added to the List of Assistant Executioners on 26 September 1932.

Albert views his job with seriousness and dedication, applying science and logic to each hanging. He can swiftly determine the proper length for the gallows rope, depending on the height, weight and physical condition of the condemned. While not a cruel or cold-hearted man by any means, Albert simply views execution as any other job and is not as visibly emotionally affected by it as some of his co-workers. On 29 August 1943, Albert married Annie Fletcher who had run a sweet shop and tobacconist two doors from the grocery where he worked.

Following the Second World War, the British occupation authorities conducted a series of trials of Nazi concentration camp staff and Albert is sent to Germany to hang forty-seven Nazi war criminals after the Belsen trials in November 1945. While he is staggered by the number of deaths he must conduct, he carries out his duties. Albert's inner values begin to emerge in his work when one of the bodies is left without a coffin, he angrily demands the coffin, saying that the man had paid the ultimate price and should now be treated with dignity. Over the next four years, he travelled to Germany and Austria twenty-five times to execute 200 war criminals. The press discovered his identity and he became a celebrity, hailed as a sort of war hero, meting out justice to the Nazis. The boost in income provided by the German executions allowed Albert to leave the grocery business and took over a pub on Manchester Road, Hollinwood named Help the Poor Struggler.

One morning, Albert receives a shock when he must execute a friend of his, James Henry Corbitt (Eddie Marsan) who Albert knows him as 'Tish'. James is a meek-looking man but had murdered his ex-lover in a jealous rage. Though Albert knows he must perform his job, he breaks his usual stoic demeanor and speaks kindly and calmly to James, who meets his fate in an almost content state. His last words are 'Thank you, Albert." and he smiles as the hood is put over his head.

RUTH ELLIS
(9 Oct 1926 – 13 Jul 1955)

Albert goes to his pub that night and expresses his anguish to his wife. Annie is uncomfortable hearing Albert's inner turmoil, as their rule regarding his occupation had always been "never talk about it." Albert breaks down and confessed the guilt and misery he felt as he watched his friend hang by his own hand. He considers resigning from his profession altogether. Later he executes Ruth Ellis, a young, pretty and the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom after being convicted of killing her lover. Angry mobs outside the prison protest the execution and Albert's car is spat on and shaken as he drives home. After conducting over 600 executions and setting the fastest ever hanging record (7.5 seconds), Albert Pierrepoint officially resigns in 1956.

This is an excellent film based on true story of a family of executioners which detailed a psychological journey of a gruesome occupation told from the perspective of Albert Pierrepoint.

Albert and Annie Pierrepoint retired to the seaside town of Southport in the North West of England, South of Blackpool, where he died at the age of eighty-seven, on 10 July 1992 in a nursing home where he had lived for the last four years of his life.