Pocket notebooks of hangman Albert Pierrepoint expected to fetch £8-12k at Newbury auction

The pocket notebooks belonging to Britain's most famous hangman Albert Pierrepoint, are going under the hammer at Special Auction Services in Newbury on Thursday, May 11 and are expected to fetch £8,000-12,000.

Pierrepoint's execution notebooks span his 25-year career from 1932 – 1956 during which he conducted executions across the UK, Europe and the Commonwealth. They list every execution that he conducted, including details such as neck-type (ordinary/strong/thin) age, height and weight of the individuals as well as his workings out to establish the correct drop to achieve the quickest death.

The notebooks also include information about the towns where the executions took place and who conducted them.

The Lead Executioner’s pocket books are being sold by a close family friend who knew Pierrepoint as ‘Uncle Albert’ and with whom they spent many Christmases and holidays together. The vendor remembers Uncle Albert as mildly spoken, kind, calm and lots of fun, always keen to play football in the garden.

Pierrepoint executed some of the most famous criminals of the Second World War and the 20th century including the infamous William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) for Treason in 1946; Nurse Dorothea Nancy Waddingham for poisoning patients in 1936; the wrongly accused Timothy John Evans in 1950; Derek Bentley (1953) for his part in the killing of a police officer; and Ruth Ellis - the last female to be executed in Britain in 1955

On selling the notebooks the vendor said: “They are far too precious and too unique to be left in a drawer. There is already a generation that think hanging in this country happened thousands of years ago, rather than relatively recently. After the Queen’s passing, I decided to sell them as I feel strongly that history could be lost if they are not preserved.”

Pierrepoint executed some of the most famous criminals of the Second World War and the 20th century, including Gordon Frederick Cummins the Blackout Killer/Wartime Ripper; the infamous William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) for Treason in 1946; Nurse Dorothea Nancy Waddingham for poisoning patients in 1936; the wrongly accused Timothy John Evans in 1950 (the crimes were later attributed to John Christie); Derek Bentley (1953) for his part in the killing of a police officer; and Ruth Ellis - the last female to be executed in Britain in 1955.

In addition, spies such as Oswald John Job (1944), Carl Meier and Jose Waldeburg (1940) and over 200 Germans convicted of various War Crimes all died under his watch.

Specialist Adam Inglut, from SAS off Hambridge Road, said: “ This is an exceptional piece of British history and a real insight into the career of one of Britain’s last executioners.

“The notebooks offer us a chance to read and understand the intricacies of this most unusual career. They would have been part of his daily routine and this makes them extremely rare and unique pieces from history which is very unusual to come across.”