Albert Pierrepoint

[mrs.chappie]

The last hangman.

Did you watch it on the tv last night?

Is there anyone on here who could do the job, if it still existed?

[mrs.chappie]

I thought it was interesting, Aprilis. The condemned were dispatched very quickly and it didn't appear to be at all messy - the neck broken quickly and death instantaneous.

I was expecting it to be gory - but it wasn't, not at all.

[bensmum]

I thought it was very good but then Timothy Spall is an excellent actor. I have read about Pierrepoint before but he did come across as a consummate professional who felt that the executions should be carried out as quickly as possible and that. once executed , the dead person had atoned for their crimes and should be treated with dignity. He was probably the perfect person for the job

[haysi06]

mrs.chappie, from what I saw, he looked like a very compassionate man. Regardless of what his job entailed he treated it as a 'job' and seemed to keep his emotions in check.

[bobtheturkey]

its a terrible way to die if you get the measurements even slightly wrong

[starmack]

Yeah, Id have no trouble putting the rope on Pierrepoint!

[mrs.chappie]

Yes haysi, I thought that too.

If the death penalty still existed in England, someone would have to do it - and I wonder if it would be a position difficult to fill?

Just a thought.

[Aprilis]

Many years ago I read a biography about Pierrepoint....but I can't remember much about it at all. I do seem to vaguely recall that, certainly during the latter years, he didn't like doing the job, had a massive conscience about it and was a suicidal character. Not at all the type of person that you would think according to the book.

[Aprilis]

I really wanted to see how he was portrayed in that film last night.

[bobtheturkey]

a way is to have 5 levers with 5 people at a lever they all pull their lever at same time but no one knows which one releases the trapdoor, same method with electric chair only with buttons

[bensmum]

He didn't let on to many people what he did but after the war he was sent to Germany to execute war criminals (like a production line!). That meant that he became well known in England and that was evidently when he started to question the job

[mrs.chappie]

Bob, I think they do a similar thing with a firing squad. Some of the guns fire blanks, so you would not know for sure, if you'd shot the person.

[Aprilis]

My conscience wouldn't allow me to do it even if there was several people involved and no-one would ever know who was ultimately responsible. I would still have participated in the taking of a life and would consider myself equally responsible.

[starmack]

Fairport Convention did a song cycle 35 years ago about John Babbacombe Lee in Torquay (???) who was reprieved when a hangman failed to kill him at the 3rd attempt. The trapdoor stuck etc.

[whiffy]

"...A few minutes before they entered the condemned cell, the execution party heard a ghastly moan come from Edith's cell. When John Ellis, the hangman, went in she was semi-conscious as he strapped her wrists. According to his biography, she looked dead already.
She was carried the short distance from the condemned cell to the gallows by two warders and the two assistants (Robert Baxter and Seth Mills) and held on the trap whilst Ellis completed the preparations.
Depending on whose version of events you read/believe, there was a considerable amount of blood dripping from her after the hanging"

from:

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/ed ith.html

I believe all the gallows scenes from the film were considerably drawn out - Pierrepoint was very very quick.

[-gem-]

I cried at the scarecrow.

[Octavius]

I thought the film was excellent, and am of course a Spall fan.

I think the executions were drawn out to show that Pierrepoint had some compassion towards the condemned, a sort of final judgement and acceptance of fate. The point really was for him....in the latter part at least... to look at them and determine whether they had atoned themselves.

He became disillusioned towards capital punishment when his anonymity was ruined by his stint in Germany and many people called him a murderer, and then when he had to hang his long time friend James Corbitt. He thought that England should have a crime passionnel law, since these were not premeditated acts of evil, although he thought Ruth Ellis deserved to be hung.

All in all, a good watch, slightly dark but never gory. Although there are certain people (criminals) I think do not deserve to live, I certainly wouldn't want CP to be reintroduced. And if I asked myself, then yes I suppose I 'could' do it, but I wouldn't.

[logic]

It's rumoured that pierpoint, who came from this area in Nottinghamshire, took a pub on retirement, and there was a sign at the end of the bar, wich read, no hanging arround the bar, i never saw it personally, although it was nearby.

[mrs.chappie]

Anyone know for sure what his pub was called?

I read somewhere, it was called "The Last Drop". I think I also read it was called something about helping a struggler (I read his biography a few years ago, and can't remember now) .