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 executes a sentence of capital punishment on a legally condemned person. Scope and job The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorising or order ...

from 1901 until 1910. He was the father of

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

and brother of

Thomas William Pierrepoint Thomas William Pierrepoint (6 October 1870 – 11 February 1954) was an English executioner from 1906 until 1946. He was the brother of Henry Pierrepoint and uncle of Albert Pierrepoint. Personal life Pierrepoint was born in Sutton Bonington, ...

.A grisly family tradition
BBC Nottingham. Retrieved on 17 October 2009.

Early life

Pierrepoint was born in Normanton on Soar,1881

Census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

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

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

, the fourth child and second son of Thomas Pierrepoint, a plate layer on the railway, and Ann Pierrepoint, nee Marriott. By 1891, he and his family had moved to Clayton, near

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

, 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 new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...

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 wholesal ...

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

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

where his sister Mary was one of the managers at a

cabinet making A cabinet is a case or cupboard with shelves and/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 (s ...

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 Re ...

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 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 male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

John Billington John Billington (also spelled as Billinton) (c. 1580September 30, 1630) was an Englishman who travelled to the New World on the ''Mayflower'' and was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact. In England Nothing is known about John Billingt ...

before becoming the principal executioner of Britain in 1905. In 1906, he carried out all eight hangings in the country. 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 Ap ...

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 Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Alber ...

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 HM Prison Chelmsford is a Category B men's prison and Young Offenders Institution, located in Chelmsford, Essex, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. History Chelmsford Prison began as a county jail in 1825 before tr ...

"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 in Greater Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and south-west of Oldham. The orbital M60 motorway skirts it to the east. The population at the 2011 census was 2 ...

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