Pierrepoint (5 Stars)

True Stories #3

Name: Albert Pierrepoint

Lived: 30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992

Film dates: 1932 to 1955

Film made in 2005

Albert Pierrepoint wasn't Britain's last hangman, as is sometimes claimed, but he was Britain's most famous and most prolific hangman.

Hanging was the form of execution used in British prisons in the 20th Century. It was a secret job. There was a small list of licensed hangmen which was never released to the public. When a criminal had to be executed, the Home Office contacted two of the men on the list to carry out the execution. One man was the chief executioner, the other was his assistant.

Albert Pierrepoint was following in a family tradition. His father and his uncle had both been hangmen when he applied to be put on the list in 1932. His first execution was in 1933, where he served as the assistant executioner. For the rest of the 1930's he continued as an assistant executioner.

The film skips to 1941, when Albert is already married and living in Lancashire. He works as a grocery delivery man, and his wife knows nothing about his secondary job. All that she knows is that he goes away on special business at irregular intervals. This wasn't so unusual in the war years, so she accepted his absence. It wasn't until the end of the war that she discovered his notebook in which he kept a list of everyone he had hanged.

Albert Pierrepoint hanged at least 435 people in his career. The exact number is unclear, because of the secrecy involved. It's estimated that it was closer to 600 people. How could a man kill so many people and remain sane? He says that he did it by separating his personal self from his job. Outside the prison cell he was Albert Pierrepoint, but as soon as he walked through the door to collect the prisoner he became the Executioner. He never troubled himself with questions about whether a person might be innocent. The courts had decided a person was guilty, and it was the Executioner's job to do what the court wanted.

Albert managed to keep his identity secret until 1945. This changed when he was sent to Germany to execute Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. On his return the press hounded him. His neighbours and friends treated him as a hero, but the praise wasn't welcome. He would rather have remained anonymous. In later years he became a target for those protesting against capital punishment.

Eventually Albert resigned from the list. It wasn't because of doubts about the correctness of his job, as many of his opponents claimed. It was a matter of money. He received payment in cash after every execution. If there was a last minute reprieve, he received nothing, not even reimbursement of his travel expenses. He protested against this, and when nothing was changed he resigned.

The film shows about a dozen executions, half of them at the Nuremberg Trials. Out of curiosity, I looked up the names of the people mentioned, and they're all famous criminals, even if they aren't described in the film itself. For instance, Ruth Ellis, shown in the first photo in this post, was the last woman to be hanged in Britain. (The last man hanged in Britain was Peter Allen in 1964, nine years after Pierrepoint's retirement).

There are some historical inaccuracies that have been introduced for the sake of dramatization. The biggest change is the Nuremberg Trials. The film gives the impression that Pierrepoint was the only executioner. He actually had to share the task with an American executioner.

This is a deeply moving film with excellent acting by Timothy Spall.