THE EXECUTION OF THE EXECUTIONER ( THOMAS PIERREPOINT "THE HANGMAN").
Thomas William Pierrepoint was born in Sutton Bonnington, Nottinghamshire in 1870 and by 1891 the family was living at Clayton, near Bradford in Yorkshire where Thomas and his father were employed in a stone quarry.
Thomas worked as a hangman for 40 years before being removed from the official list in 1946 due to his age, as he was by then 76 years old.
He assisted at 35 executions and carried out 203 civilian hangings in England and Wales and five in Scotland during his period on Home Office List from 1906 to 1946.
His brother Henry persuaded him to become a hangman and trained him in the job. Thomas had no difficulty passing his official training at Pentonville and was added to the official list in 1906.
On the 4th of October 1906 he got his first appointment as an assistant to his brother for the execution of Harold Walters at Wakefield. Wakefield had just had the first purpose built execution chamber constructed within the prison at the end of C Wing, to replace the execution shed some way from the condemned cell.
Thomas’ first job as “No. 1” did not come until the 8th of September 1910, for the execution of John Roper Coulson at Armley prison in Leeds. This was after Henry had been removed from the list.
Some of Thomas’ more notable cases were :
Alfred Arthur Rouse, hanged on the 10th of March 1930 at Bedford prison for the murder of an unknown man. Rouse had killed the man and then put him in his (Rouse's) car and set it ablaze in an attempt to fake his own death for the insurance money.
Ethel Lillie Major hanged on the 19th of December 1934 at Hull Prison for the murder of her husband.
Nurse Dorothea Waddingham, who was hanged on the 16th of April 1936 at Winson Green prison in Birmingham for poisoning two vulnerable women patients in her nursing home.
In the same year Thomas also hanged Buck Ruxton at Strangeways on the 12th of May, who had murdered his wife and maid. He carried out the execution of Charlotte Bryant, who went to the gallows at Exeter on the 15th of July for the murder of her husband by arsenic poisoning.
Thomas’ last execution in England was at Lincoln Prison on the 28th of May 1946 for the hanging of Leonard Holmes. He was assisted by Steve Wade in this.
It seems that his behaviour was being called into question and there was doubt about his eyesight by this time. He was thus removed from the Home Office list several months later. His last hanging was that of John Caldwell at Barlinnie three months later on the 10th of August 1946.
Thomas was the official executioner for the Irish Republic after it gained independence from England in 1923 and carried out 28 executions at Dublin’s Mountjoy prison between 1921 and 1944, plus a further four in Belfast. It was here that his nephew, Albert, entered the family “trade”, assisting his uncle in the hanging of Patrick McDermott on the 29th of December 1932.
Thomas was appointed as executioner for the US Military in Europe, being responsible for the hangings of 16 US servicemen at Shepton Mallet prison during World War II between March 1943 and August 1945, and one in Canisy in France on the 12th of August 1944, that of Private Clarence Whitfield for rape. In six of the hangings at Shepton Mallet, Thomas was assisted by his nephew, Albert.
Tom Pierrepoint died on the 11th of February 1954 at his daughter’s house in Bradford at the age of 83.
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