Pierrepoint (6 page)

Although there was some doubt as to the guilt of the two men, the jury took just ten minutes to decide that the evidence was strong enough to convict them; as sentence of death was passed, both Donovan and Wade loudly protested their innocence. A few days before they were to hang, workmen at the Stepney newsagents found the missing jewellery under the floorboards in one of the rooms, indicating the thieves had not escaped with as much as police had originally assumed. As the hangmen arrived in London, and with protestations going on outside the prison that a miscarriage of justice was about to take place, Conrad Donovan made a statement to the prison chaplain: ‘No murder was intended.’ Four words that confirmed the sentence was a just one.

As Christmas approached, Harry accepted an engagement closer to home when he assisted John Billington in the execution of Edmund Hall at Armley Gaol, Leeds. John Dalby, Hall’s father-in-law, lived alone at York. Hall had travelled over from Leeds to see him, and was seen being let into the house. Neighbours subsequently heard sounds of a struggle from next door and went to investigate. Dalby opened the door and collapsed. Hall appeared from inside the house, and – saying he would go for a doctor – leapt over the wall and vanished into the street. Dalby died in hospital later that same day, and Hall, who was known to one of the neighbours, was arrested at York station as he sat waiting for his train to pull out. He was sporting a gold watch and chain identified as one Dalby had been wearing earlier that day.

The year had almost come to a close without Harry carrying out a single job as chief hangman, or ‘number one’ as they were known. But then he travelled across to Ireland in what was to be one of the strangest experiences of his career.

John Flanagan had been missing from his home near
Clones, Monaghan, since April 1903, and despite numerous searches there was no sign of his whereabouts. He had travelled into Clones carrying a large sum of money, to purchase items at the market. While in town he met up with Joseph Fee, a local butcher, who owed Flanagan £2 from a previous loan. Witnesses overheard Fee promise to repay the debt if Flanagan called at his house later that afternoon. When Flanagan’s disappearance was reported to the police, Fee was questioned but gave them no cause for suspicion.

It was to be almost eight months later before the body of John Flanagan was discovered. Adjacent to Fee’s slaughterhouse was a large pile of manure, which police had decided was a public nuisance, and Fee was ordered to remove it. He instructed some colleagues to dispose of it but asked them to leave the last few barrow loads, as he wanted to use it on his garden. While they were removing the manure, the men noticed an old boot protruding from the pile and, digging further, unearthed the missing Flanagan. He had been battered to death with an axe.

Fee was arrested and although there was only what could be termed circumstantial evidence against him he was sent for trial at Monaghan Spring Assizes in March 1904. The jury failed to reach a verdict and Fee was sent for a retrial at the summer assizes. Again no verdict was reached, and in November he was tried at the winter assizes at Belfast. This time the jury believed the prosecution’s version of events – that Fee murdered Flanagan for money and after stealing the £80 he had on him had buried Flanagan beneath the manure pile. The judge was clearly upset by the harrowing story, and was in tears as the black cap was draped on his wig.

When asked why judgement of death should not be passed upon him, Fee said: ‘Well my Lord, the evidence is all lies.… I am not afraid to meet my death.… I am innocent.’ Fee was
to maintain his innocence throughout his time in the condemned cell.

Harry was engaged to carry out the execution and copies of the appropriate paperwork were dispatched to him. The identity of the executioner was usually kept secret in Ireland, as it was often a perilous position, with crowds often having little regard for Englishmen who crossed the water to hang one of their own.

Shortly after signing and sending the papers back to Armagh, Harry received a telegram on 14 December from the sheriff of Monaghan:

Harry replied immediately, assuring the sheriff all was in order when two days later, on the 16th, he received a letter dated the 13th.

Harry confirmed the details and was then surprised to receive another letter a day later endorsed with a capital ‘S’ in the top
left corner and marked ‘Strictly Private’. The letter warned the hangman that the authorities suspected something was afoot to delay or prevent him carrying out the execution and that he was to only respond to any correspondence on this affair from the under-sheriff himself and to stick rigidly to the agenda contained in the previous letter.

Having carried out the execution of Edmund Hall at Leeds on the Tuesday morning, Harry accompanied Billington back to Manchester and caught the boat train to Fleetwood, from where he was sailing later that evening. As Harry was crossing the Irish Sea, over in Armagh a man approached the gate at the prison and told the gatekeeper he had come over from England to carry out the execution. His plan was doomed to failure from the start. The name Pierrepoint had never appeared in the press over in Ireland at this point and the would-be impostor was soon rumbled and taken down to the cells until the execution was over.

The journey across the sea was accomplished without incident, but Harry had taken heed of advice given to him by William Billington and made his way to the prison in a discreet and unobtrusive way. Reaching the town he decided to ask at the local police station as to the location of the gaol and, after satisfying them with his credentials, he was escorted to the nearby building.

Unlike in England and Wales, for executions scheduled in Ireland and in Scotland – and a few years later in Jersey – an assistant was thought to be an expensive luxury and the authorities refused to sanction payment. For the first time, therefore, Harry was to carry out the execution alone.

Having made the usual arrangements and tested the apparatus, he was then given a chance to view the prisoner. Fee was housed in a cell reached by a flight of stone stairs from the prison yard. Spying him in the cell, Harry saw he
was a strapping, well-built fellow and with his details to hand decided on a drop of 6 feet. As he studied the man, Harry heard him repeat to the guards that he was innocent. A strange feeling ran through Harry as he studied the prisoner. Was he looking at an innocent man? But he reasoned that the decision to convict the man was not his and if he refused the task then someone else would do it and collect the fee.

At a few seconds to eight, Harry stood outside the cell to which Fee had been transferred earlier that morning and which stood a short walk from the scaffold. On the stroke of eight he entered and Fee, whose face had turned a ghastly white, submitted to the pinioning without a word. The procession began and moments later it reached the scaffold. Fee didn’t flinch as his ankles were strapped; he was then noosed and the white cap placed over his head.

Realising finally that there was not going to be any last-minute reprieve, Fee called out loudly: ‘Executioner! Guilty!’ Harry darted to the side and yanked the lever. News that Fee had confessed on the scaffold made headlines across the country and Harry felt a little safer as he prepared to travel home knowing he hadn’t been responsible for sending an innocent man to his doom.

The year 1904 ended as it had begun for Harry, with a trip to Leeds, this time to help John Billington hang 44-year-old Arthur Jeffries. Jeffries was part of a gang of poachers who operated in and around Rotherham. Another of the gang was Samuel Barker, a close friend of Jeffries. In October, a row had broken out when others in the gang had gone poaching without Jeffries. The latter was enraged and issued threats adding he would ‘do’ for one of them. On 12 November, four of the poachers were walking home when Jeffries passed them. As they reached the alleyway close to Jeffries’ home they found him standing with his wife. As they passed, Barker
said, ‘Good night, Arthur’, but instead of returning the greeting, his friend swore at him and then a fight broke out. They stumbled into the alley, where Barker fell to the ground, a stab wound in his side. He was carried to a friend’s house, but died within minutes.

Unfortunately for the accused, the trial judge was Mr Justice Grantham, a country squire with a hatred of poachers. His summing up sided heavily with the prosecution and the jury needed just a few minutes to find Jeffries guilty of murder. On the morning of his execution, he walked firmly to the gallows. His last words were, ‘Lord, receive my spirit.’

1905 to be a pivotal year for Harry Pierrepoint. On 28 February 1905, a week before the birth of his son Albert, he travelled down to Wandsworth to assist John Billington in the execution of Edward Harrison, a brutal bully who had slit the throat of his married daughter when she refused to reveal the whereabouts of his wife after she had left him. Hanged barely a month after committing the crime, Harrison’s last words on the drop were, ‘I did it!’

Two months later it was back to London again, this time to Pentonville, where again he assisted John Billington. John was now the only member of the Billington family officially on the list, with William having had to retire following personal problems and trouble with the courts. However, he did carry out one last job: he travelled to Cork to hang a former policeman for the murder of an American soldier. John Billington was offered the engagement but he had already accepted the Pentonville job, as had Harry Pierrepoint. The only other man on the list at the time was John Ellis and he had yet to carry out an execution as a number one. The authorities therefore decided to ask William
to come out of his retirement for one last execution and, accompanied by Ellis, he carried out the execution on the same morning that Harry and John Billington travelled down by train to Pentonville.

The man they were to execute in London was Alfred Bridgeman, a former soldier who had been convicted of the murder of his fiancée’s mother. Bridgeman and his fiancée had broken off their engagement at Christmas 1904, but they remained friends. He was not, however, on good terms with her mother and while very drunk he called at her house, battered her with a poker then cut her throat. Bridgeman was executed less than eight weeks after committing the crime he had been condemned to die for.

When Harry travelled again down to London in May, he was about to come face to face with a pair of criminals whose names would pass into infamy as the first men convicted on fingerprint evidence in an English court.

William Jones arrived for work at a Deptford hardware store one morning in March, and was surprised to find the door locked. Gaining entry through a window he discovered the battered bodies of the proprietors Thomas Farrow and his wife Ann. Thomas lay dead in the parlour of the shop, while his wife Ann lay upstairs in bed. She had also been badly beaten but was still alive at the time, though she was to die four days later. Both had been battered with a piece of rope with a lead ball attached to it.

A cash box had been forced open and its contents, over £10 in coins, had been taken. Importantly, a clear, bloody fingerprint was found on one side of the box. Although fingerprint technology was still in the early stages of development, police knew if they could match the print, they would find their killer. Witnesses came forward to say they had seen a pair of local thieves, the Stratton brothers, on the
morning of the murder; Alfred, the older of the brothers, had seemed to be hiding something under his coat. He was picked up in a public house on 3 April, and his younger brother Albert was arrested in Stepney on the following day. Both were taken to Tower Bridge police station and fingerprinted. The print on the cash box clearly matched that of the right thumb of Alfred Stratton and it was enough for both to be charged with murder.

Fingerprint evidence at the trial was to prove crucial. One member of the jury was even fingerprinted to demonstrate how effective the system was. The results were enough to satisfy the jury of the brothers’ guilt, although there was other evidence linking them to the murder scene.

Possibly as a result of gaining no engagements as chief executioner in the previous year, Harry wrote to both the Under-Sheriff of London and the Governor of Wandsworth offering his services for the position of executioner. He soon received word back from the sheriff’s office that John Billington had been appointed but that he would like Harry to act as assistant. This was contrary to the way things normally worked – it was usually the under-sheriff who engaged the hangman, whilst the governor of the prison was responsible for selecting the assistant.

Harry received a letter from the prison a day or so later stating that they had selected John Ellis as the assistant on this job. This left Harry in a tricky situation, so he wrote to the governor explaining that he had already been engaged by the under-sheriff to act as assistant. The governor replied that he would respect that decision but that he would still be employing Ellis as a second assistant.

Arriving at the gaol, the hangmen were furnished with the usual particulars of the two men and went to observe them in their cells. Albert, at 20, was three years younger than his
brother, and had obviously been led astray by his influence. There was a certain amount of sympathy for him but little in the way of effort to secure a reprieve. Albert occupied the large condemned cell in the centre of the prison. He had just finished writing a last letter to friends when the hangman spied on him and they were able to get a good view of him as he walked nervously backwards and forwards across the cell. There was no bravado about him, rather just a calm, sorrowful look on his face.