Some of the terrifying implements used by Britain’s most well-known hangman are being auctioned off.
Around 600 individuals were put to death by Albert Pierrepoint, including Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hung in the UK, and prominent German Nazi war criminal Josef Kramer.
The Daily Star said that various gory equipment, including his fabric death hoods, were part of Pierrepoint’s execution kit that he utilized during his 25-year tenure.
The infamous executioner’s tools have in the past been sold at auction for thousands of pounds.
The third member of Pierrepoint’s family line to choose the dangerous profession was the top hangman in the nation.
The native of Yorkshire had aspirations to carry on the family business when she wrote: “When I finish school I shall want to be the Official Executioner.”
Hundreds of executions were carried out by him between 1932 and 1956 when he administered the death penalty.
After World War II, the hangman was called to Germany to execute Nazi war criminals.
More than 200 Nazi war criminals are said to have been killed by the former greengrocer, who was hailed as a hero once his name was made public.
He was an accountant and never mentioned his “other” employment, which required a fee for each execution of around £1,250 in today’s currency but did not pay a retainer.
A wholesale grocer who employed him full-time let him time off to do his tasks and made no inquiries.
Anne, his wife, did not either. He would only tell her, “I shan’t be seeing you for a few of days,” when summoned to carry out a hanging.
According to reports, the hangman thought a “higher force” had chosen him to do the “holy” task of hanging people.
Pierrepoint was known for his meticulous note-taking and would take great care while preparing for his execution. In his execution log, he would make a notation if a victim was “wiry” or “flabby.”
In order to correctly establish the length necessary for their neck to break, he would also measure their height.
Pierrepoint subsequently acknowledged that he did not support the death penalty despite a lengthy career in the execution business.
The death sentence was abolished in Britain in 1965, and Pierrepoint said in his memoirs published in 1974 that he did not believe it to be a deterrence.
It is said to act as a deterrent, he claimed. I can’t concur. Since the beginning of time, there have been murders, and we will continue to seek for preventative measures until the end of time.
“I may have been expected to know whether death were a deterrence. I am the one who has dealt with them most recently—young men and women, working guys, grandparents.
“I am in awe of the bravery with which they undertake that journey into the unknown.” When they committed the crimes for which they were found guilty, it did not discourage them then, and it had not deterred them now.
“All the men and women that I have confronted at that last instant persuade me that I have not stopped a single homicide in what I have done,” he said.
The most infamous victims of Albert Pierrepoint
There are a few noteworthy outliers among the 600 people who were hanged by the hangman.
More than 200 war criminals from Germany and Austria as well as other notorious killers were hung at Pierrepoint.
15 German spies were hung during World War II, along with US military members who had been found guilty of committing capital offenses in England.
Later, he was sent to execute 11 Bergen-Belsen concentration camp leaders at Hamelin, Germany.
He visited Hamelin often between 1948 and 1949, when he murdered 226 people, sometimes more than ten in a single day.
Theodore Schurch, the final person to be hung for treason after defecting to Italian and German intelligence during the war, was put to death by him back in the UK.
However, an amateur American Master Sergeant John C. Woods executed the defendants at the Nuremberg trials in his stead when he was passed up for the job.
Later, images spread that seemed to show he had performed poorly, as one victim died within 20 minutes.
He executed John Haigh, the so-called “Acid Bath Murderer,” in August 1949.
Haigh was found guilty of killing six individuals and disposing of their bodies in sulfuric acid.
After murdering four women during the Blackout of World War II and trying to kill two more, Gordon Cummins, often known as “The Blackout Ripper,” was hung at Pierrepoint.
Lord Haw-Haw, a Nazi propagandist in the UK who was found guilty of treason in 1945, was one of the more well-known fatalities.
In 1955, Ruth Ellis, a Welsh model who had a history of domestic violence, killed David Blakely, a racing driver.
The case attracted a lot of public interest, and the Home Secretary, Gwilym Lloyd George, received a petition with 50,000 signatures requesting a stay of execution.
Ellis was the last woman to be executed in the UK because he refused to give her a pardon.
»Albert Pierrepoint’s executioner’s gear may fetch thousands at auction«