Boldon Auction Galleries

The Pierrepoint Collection sold for £20,000 (5th June 2019)

Boldon Auction Galleries have been consigned for Auction a collection of items belonging to Albert Pierrepoint (30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) Britain’s most famous hangman who executed approximately 600 people in a 25-year career that ended in 1956.  The collection includes his notebook which lists the executions carried out with details to determine how to achieve the quickest death and his father Henry’s notebook, the plaster cast of Albert Pierrepoint’s face and hands, photographs and documents, watch chain and cigar holder.

• Henry Pierrepoint’s execution book (1 November 1901 – 14 July 1910), includes personal details of those hanged including the prisoner’s name, age, height, weight and drop, site of execution and remarks detailing the physical frame of the prisoners and calibre of their necks; “very heavy body, ordinary neck, wirey, very thin neck, little flabby”. 18cm x 11cm

• Albert Pierrepoint’s leather-bound execution ledger, embossed with his name “A. Pierrepoint”, (29 December 1932 – 27 July 1955) includes personal details of those hanged with additional notes such as “the German, Dutch and Belgium spies, French Canadian, USA, IRA, British Soldier” etc. 15cm x 24cm

• An amber and ivory cigar holder, with leather silver velvet lined case, 8cm long, belonged to Henry A. Pierrepoint. (Albert’s father and British hangman).

• A silver watch chain worn by Albert Pierrepoint, Henry Pierrepoint (his father) and Thomas Pierrepoint (his Uncle) at hundreds of executions between 1900 and 1956. 42cm long

• Documents and photographs including the “Memorandum of Conditions to which any person acting as Executioner is required to conform”, a letter of thanks from the War Office, written by Lieutenant-Colonel J.R.H. Robertson referring to the hanging of three men Hensmann, Smith and Golby in a secluded area of the Egyptian desert, photographs of the Pierrepoint men, Robert Fabian (Fabian of the Yard) and John Ellis (Hangman) and a Sunday Pictorial newspaper, May 13 1945 with an article about John Amery a pro-Nazi British fascist who Albert Pierrepoint went on to hang.