Henry Albert Pierrepoint (30 November 1877 – 14 December 1922) was an English

executioner An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who effects a sentence of capital punishment on a condemned person. Scope and job The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorizing or ordering him to ...

from 1901 until 1910. He was the father of

Albert Pierrepoint Albert Pierrepoint ( ; 30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) was an English Executioner, hangman who executed between 435 and 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. His father Henry Pierrepoint, Henry and uncle Thomas Pierrepoint, Th ...

and brother of Thomas William Pierrepoint.A grisly family tradition
BBC Nottingham. Retrieved on 17 October 2009.

Early life

Pierrepoint was born in Normanton on Soar,1881

Census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

: Sutton Bonington; RG11; Piece 3149; Folio 26; Page 3.

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...

, the fourth child and second son of Thomas Pierrepoint, a railway

platelayer A platelayer (British English), fettler (British English – UK, Australia, NZ) or trackman (American English) is a railway employee who inspects and maintains the permanent way of a railway, usually under the charge of a foreman called (in U ...

, and Ann Pierrepoint, nee Marriott. By 1891, he and his family had moved to Clayton, near

Bradford Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the Local Government Act 1972, 1974 reform, the city status in the United Kingdo ...

, where he was employed in a worsted mill.1891

: Clayton; RG12; Piece 3646; Folio 38; Page 8. Henry was unhappy working there, and so in 1893 his father arranged an

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...

for him at a large

butcher A butcher is a person who may Animal slaughter, slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale ...

s in Bradford. Three years later he left the apprenticeship and moved to

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

where his sister Mary was one of the managers at a

cabinet making A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves or drawers for storing or displaying items. Some cabinets are stand alone while others are built in to a wall or are attached to it like a medicine cabinet. Cabinets are typically made of wood (solid ...

firm. Not long after this he met a local girl, Mary Buxton, and they were married at St Anne's Church in

Newton Heath Newton Heath is an area of Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and with a population of 9,883. Historically part of Lancashire, Newton was formerly a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial ...

on 26 December 1898.

Career as a hangman

In 1901, Henry was appointed to the list of executioners after repeatedly writing to the

Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...

to offer his services. He participated in his first hanging on 19 November, as an assistant to James Billington. Over the next few years, he worked primarily as an assistant to

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

and John Billington before becoming the principal executioner of Britain in 1905. In 1906, he carried out all eight hangings on the island. Pierrepoint later persuaded his elder brother

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...

to join the family business, and reputedly trained him in a stable with a rope and sacks of corn. Later, an interview he gave, published in a local newspaper, inspired his son Albert to do the same. In his nine-year term of office Henry carried out 105 executions. His career was finished when he arrived the day before an execution at Chelmsford Prison "considerably the worse for drink", and fought his assistant John Ellis. Ellis reported the incident to the Home Office which decided, after receiving confirmation by the warders' account of the matter, to strike Henry from the list of approved executioners. Henry was never officially "dismissed", but he was removed from the list of executioners and invitations to conduct executions ceased to arrive. Throughout his career as an executioner, Pierrepoint occupied various other jobs, such as a position in Huddersfield gasworks, to supplement the relatively low pay English hangmen received. Henry had been suffering from a terminal illness for several years and died at his home in

Failsworth Failsworth is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester and south-west of Oldham. The M60 motorway, M60 ring-road motorway skirts it to the east. The population at the United Kingdom C ...

on 14 December 1922, aged 45, although his age was incorrectly registered as 48.

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Pierrepoint, Henry English executioners People from Rushcliffe (district) 1877 births 1922 deaths Albert Pierrepoint People from the City of Bradford