My Experiences as an Executioner

Besides the two classes of penitents, there only remains the class who are not penitent at all. They are mostly men who have been long acquainted with crime, who have made it the business of their lives. They look upon the law and its officers much as a business man looks upon a clever and unscrupulous competitor; and upon a sentence of death as one of the business risks. Life ends for them, not at the scaffold, but in the dock, when sentence is pronounced. From that time they sink into a state of sullen indifference, or take up any occupation that may offer, merely to kill time. In some cases they take to Bible reading and prayers, because they think “it can’t do any harm, and may do a bit of good,” and because they have nothing else to do. No one can say that such men are penitent, since on release they would return to their vicious ways. They would not be likely to reach any better state if they were allowed to live three months instead of three weeks, for the only regret that they can be brought to feel is personal and purely selfish. It is founded on fear of hell, and is not a contrition for having committed the crime, but a regret that the crime carries with it a punishment in the next world. Convicts of this class, when they have no hope of reprieve, do not thank us for the three weeks of “life” that are given to them. If they could have their own choice, they would prefer to walk straight from the dock to the scaffold, and to “get it over” at once.

In every case if the matter is thoroughly inquired into, on lines of common sense instead of mere sentiment, I think the conclusion will be that the three weeks allowed are no advantage whatever to the convicts. In most cases their position would be decidedly improved by reducing the time.

There are other distinct advantages to be gained by reducing the interval. In the first place it would greatly improve the moral effect of the death sentence. Retribution following directly after conviction is a distinct object lesson, and the shorter the time between, the more obvious is the connection between the crime and the punishment. When even three weeks elapse the connection is often lost.

In the second place, the alteration I advocate would greatly prevent the stirring up of false sentiment in favour of convicts who happen to have an interesting personality. It would put a stop to the petition signing which is often indulged in by people who know nothing of the case, but who are worked upon to express sympathy with the convict, and want of faith in the justice of our system of trial. If only a week elapsed between sentence and execution, the facts of the trial and details of the evidence would remain fresher in the public mind, and people would be less liable to be led to mistrust the justice of the sentence.

To all the people who have charge of the convicts before execution, a shortening of the time would be a great blessing, for such a charge is often a soul-harrowing experience. The chaplains especially, whose experiences are often most unpleasant; and whose earnest efforts meet with such disappointing return, would, I think, welcome the change.

CHAPTER XI

Hanging: From a Business Point of View

I have stated in Chapter II (#pgepubid00019). the reasons which led me to take the office of executioner. The reader will remember that I then claimed no higher motive than a desire to obtain a living for my family, by an honest trade. I am not ashamed of my calling, because I consider that if it is right for men to be executed (which I believe it is, in murder cases) it is right that the office of executioner should be held respectable. Therefore, I look at hanging from a business point of view.

When I first took up the work I was in the habit of applying to the Sheriff of the County whenever a murderer was condemned to death. I no longer consider it necessary to apply for work in England, because I am now well known, but I still send a simple address card, as above, when an execution in Ireland is announced.

In the earlier days I made application on a regular printed form, which gave the terms and left no opening for mistake or misunderstanding. Of this form I give a reduced reproduction on opposite page. I still use this circular when a sheriff from whom I have had no previous commission writes for terms. The travelling expenses are understood to include second-class railway fare from Bradford to the place of execution and back, and cab fare from railway station to gaol. If I am not lodged in the gaol, hotel expenses are also allowed. As a rule the expenses are not closely reckoned, but the sheriffs vote a lump sum which they think will cover it; and if the execution has been satisfactory the sum granted is generally more than enough to cover what I have spent.

There are, on an average, some twenty executions annually, so that the reader can calculate pretty nearly what is my remuneration for a work which carries with it a great deal of popular odium, which is in many ways disagreeable, and which may be accompanied, as it has been in my own experience, by serious danger, resulting in permanent bodily injury. It will be seen that the net commission is not by any means an exorbitant annual sum, considering all the circumstances of the office; and that it does not approach the amount which some people have stated that I was able to earn.

Of course, my earnings are entirely uncertain, since they wholly depend upon the number of executions, and this arrangement, by which my livelihood depends upon the number of poor fellows condemned to die, is, to me, the most repugnant feature of my work. It seems a horrible thing that I should have to peruse newspaper reports in the hope that a fellow-creature may be condemned to death, whenever I wish to feel sure that “business is not falling off;” and that I should have to regard as evil days and hard times those periods when there seem to be lulls in the annals of crime, and when one might reasonably hope that a better state of things was dawning in the land.

These considerations, and the more selfish but still perfectly natural wish to be certain of my income and of my ability to give my children a fair start in life,[Pg 119][Pg 120] have led me to strongly approve of the suggestion that the executioner’s office should be a Government appointment, with a fixed salary instead of an uncertain commission. When the Lords’ Committee on Capital Punishment was sitting, early in 1887, I expressed my views on this matter in a letter addressed to the President of the Committee, Lord Aberdare. I am not without hope that a change in the arrangements for regulating the office of executioner will ere long be made, and the lines on which I think that it might be most reasonably and satisfactorily done, are set forth in the letter to Lord Aberdare, which I append.

    1, Bilton Place,

    City Road, Bradford.
    February, 1887.

My Lord,

I have been for some time past in correspondence with Mr. Howard Vincent, M.P. for Sheffield, with reference to alteration in the mode of remunerating my services, in carrying into effect the Sentence of the Law upon Criminals convicted of Capital Crimes. Mr. Howard Vincent has suggested that I should address myself to the Honourable Committee on Capital Punishment, through your Lordship as their President.

I would therefore respectfully point out to your Lordship and your Honourable Committee that the present mode of payment for my services is unsatisfactory and undesirable, and that a change is needed.

As your Lordship is doubtless aware, under the existing arrangements I am paid the sum of £10 together with travelling and other incidental expenses for each Execution conducted by me. There are, on an average, roughly speaking, 25 Executions yearly. What I would respectfully suggest is, that, instead of this payment by Commission, I should receive a fixed salary from the Government of £350 per annum. I may say that since accepting the Appointment I have never received less than £270 in any one year. I am informed that in determining a fixed Salary, or Compensation in lieu of a payment by Commission, the average annual amount received is made the basis for the calculation.

It will be apparent to your Lordship that an offer of a less sum than the former average would not be sufficiently advantageous to induce me to exchange the old system for the new. I may further, with your Lordship’s permission, draw attention to the peculiar Social position in which I am placed by reason of holding the office before referred to. I am to a great extent alone in the world, as a certain social ostracism is attendant upon such office, and extends, not to myself alone, but also includes the members of my family. It therefore becomes extremely desirable that my children should, for their own sakes, be sent to a school away from this town. To do this of course would entail serious expenditure, only to be incurred in the event of my being able to rely on a fixed source of income, less liable to variation than the present remuneration by Commission alone. I am also unable for obvious reasons to obtain any other employment. My situation as boot salesman held by me previous to my acceptance of the Office of Executioner, had to be given up on that account alone, my employer having no fault to find with me, but giving that as the sole reason for dispensing with my services.

My late Employer will give me a good reference as to General character, and the Governors of Gaols in which I have conducted Executions will be ready to speak as to my steadiness and also my ability and skill on performing the duties devolving upon me.

In conclusion I should be ready to give and call Evidence on the points hereinbefore referred to (if it should seem fit to your Lordship and your Honourable Committee), on receiving a notification to that effect.

Under these circumstances I trust that your Lordship will be able to see the way clear to embody in your Honourable Committee’s report a recommendation to the effect that a fixed annual sum of £350 should be paid me for my services rendered in the Office of Executioner.

I have the honour to be

Your Lordship’s Obedient humble servant,

    James Berry.

    To the Right Honourable Lord Aberdare.
    President,

    Capital Punishment Committee,
    Whitehall, London, S.W.

P.S. If your Honourable Committee has an alternative to the foregoing proposal I would respectfully suggest that I am permanently retained by the Home Office at a nominal sum of £100 a year, exclusive of fees at present paid to me by Sheriffs of different Counties and the usual Expenses.

In connection with this subject I should like to point out that in asking for the office of executioner to be made a recognised and permanent appointment, I am not suggesting any new thing, but merely a return to the conditions in force not much more than fifteen years ago. Up to 1874 the executioner was a permanently established and recognised official. Mr. Calcraft, the last who occupied this position, was retained by the Sheriffs of the City of London, with a fee of £1 1s. 0d. per week, and also had a retainer from Horsemonger Lane Gaol. In addition to his fees he had various perquisites, which made these two appointments alone sufficient for his decent maintenance, and he also undertook executions all over the country, for which he was paid at about the same rate as I am at present, but with perquisites in all cases. In 1874 he retired, and the City of London allowed him a pension of twenty-five shillings a week for life.

Mr. Calcraft’s successor was Mr. Wm. Marwood, who had no official status. He had a retaining fee of £20 a year from the Sheriffs of the City of London, but beyond that he had to depend upon the fees for individual executions and reprieves. In his time, also, there were considerable perquisites, for instance, the clothing and personal property possessed by the criminal at the time of his execution became the property of the executioner. These relics were often sold for really fancy prices and formed no mean item in the annual takings. But the sale and exhibition of such curiosities were only pandering to a morbid taste on the part of some sections of the public, and it was ordered by the Government – very rightly, from a public point of view, but very unfortunately for the executioner – that personal property left by the criminals should be burned.

In many other countries the post of executioner is permanent. In some cases it is hereditary, as in France, where it has remained in the Deibler family, passing from sire to son, for a great length of time.

Even in British territory at the present time a permanent official hangsman is not entirely unknown, for in Malta the post is a definite appointment, to which a salary of £30 is attached.

In England the Sheriff is the officer appointed to carry out the executions, and though he is allowed to employ a substitute if he can find one, it would fall to him to personally conduct the execution if no substitute could be obtained. In certain cases, in days gone by, there has been very great difficulty in securing anyone who would undertake the unpleasant duty, though I do not remember any recorded instance of the Sheriff being absolutely unable to engage an executioner.

CHAPTER XII

The Press and the Public

I might almost head this chapter, “My Critics,” for both press and public are constantly criticising my doings. The criticism is generally friendly, though often based on incomplete knowledge of the facts. Of the press-men I must say that they usually seem most kindly disposed, and certainly many of them go to great trouble to extract from me a few statements which they can spin out into an “interview.” As a rule I dislike these interviews, for I know that my employers very strongly object to any more sensationalism than is absolutely necessary being imported into the accounts of executions. Unfortunately, with many of the papers, sensationalism is the one thing needful, and when I meet with a really energetic reporter attached to such a paper my position is a very difficult one. If I say little or nothing in answer to his questions, he may spin a fearful and wonderful yarn out of his own head, and out of the gossip and rumours which seem to be constantly afloat, started, I imagine, by needy penny-a-liners. On the other hand, if I submit to the interview as the best way of keeping it within bounds, the “touches of colour” which the interviewer generally thinks it necessary to add, are pretty sure to land me in bother and misunderstanding.

In several instances statements which were calculated to seriously injure me professionally have been published; and though I believe they were inserted with no evil intent, I have been obliged to employ my solicitors to secure their contradiction.

The instance which annoyed me, perhaps, more than any other was the reporting of a supposed interview in the Essex County Chronicle. It was said to be from “an occasional contributor.” The interviewer in question tackled me in the hotel where the Sheriff pays the execution fee; entering the room immediately after I had been paid, and just as the Sheriff was driving off. He asked me two or three questions about private matters, which I answered truthfully and straightforwardly, though I was somewhat annoyed by the man and his manner. The “interview” which appeared quite shocked me. Several of the statements were utterly wrong, but what troubled me most was the following paragraph, which was quite at variance with the actual facts, and with the statements which I had made: —

“And what do your friends think of the profession you have taken up?” I asked.

“It killed my mother and brother,” he mournfully replied. “When Marwood died I was appointed in his place, and directly my mother knew of it she was taken ill. My father’s solicitor then wrote to the Home Office, informing the authorities of this. The result was that I gave up the position, and Binns got the appointment. My mother died soon afterwards, though, and then, when I saw the way in which Binns was going on, I came to the conclusion that he would not hold the place long, and I again wrote to the Home Office stating that my mother was dead and that there was nothing now to prevent my accommodating them if my assistance should be required. Soon after that I was engaged to hang two men at Edinburgh, and I have carried out nearly all the executions since then. My brother had married a girl with plenty of money, and his pride received a blow on my appointment. That was the cause of his death. He was a Liberal and in favour of abolishing capital punishment, but I am a Conservative through and through. Altogether I have buried my mother, two brothers, and two aunts within the last three years.”

This was a false and cruel paragraph, the actual facts with regard to the deaths of my relatives being as follows: – 1. My aunts died before I took the office, or thought of doing so. 2. My mother died from cancer on the liver, from which she had been suffering for a long time before I applied for the post; and she died between the time of my first application and the time of second application, when I was appointed for the double execution at Edinburgh. 3. My brother died of low fever, after I had held the office of executioner for about four years.

I do not wish to deny that my choice of the calling of executioner was a disappointment and annoyance to my family; but to say that it caused, or hastened the death of any one of them is to say that which is not true. If I thought that it had really had any such disastrous effect, I hope I am not such a callous and hardened wretch as to make the matter the subject of discussion with a stranger.

One would almost have thought that such statements as the one extracted above would bear their refutation on their face, and that there would be no need to contradict them; but the matter was seriously taken up by the Daily News, which made it the subject of a leader, and other papers all over the country extracted from, or commented upon the matter in the Daily News.

Of course, I put the matter into the hands of my solicitors, who took steps to stop the original libel, but they were naturally unable to stop its circulation through the country.

Another affair which caused me much annoyance at the time arose in Hereford, from the greed for interesting and sensational “copy” shown by a member of the staff of the Hereford Times. He got up some sensational matter to the effect that after the execution of Hill and Williams I retired to a neighbouring hotel where a smoking concert was in progress, and there held a ghastly levee. The worst of this report was that it was based on some foundation of fact, and that a mere colouration of the report made a reasonable and perfectly innocent entertainment appear as if it was something shameful.

The actual facts were that after the execution I was in company with Alderman Barnet, Mayor of Worcester, and a detective sergeant, both of whom were personal friends of mine. With Alderman Barnet I was invited to a social evening held by some of his friends. It was a perfectly private party, and was decorously conducted in every way. When the Times representative appeared, as he was known to the gentlemen present, he was invited to join us, simply as a friend. The report of the party was much talked about at the time, and Sir Edwin Lechmere, M.P. for Hereford, made it the subject of a question in the House of Commons.

From time to time a very great number of incorrect and exaggerated statements have been made in the press with regard to almost every detail of my work, and I suppose that so long as the public have a love for the marvellous, and so long as press-men have treacherous memories or vivid imaginations, it will continue to be so. My enormous income is one of the subjects on which the papers most frequently get astray, and it has often been asserted that my earnings amounted to a thousand a year. I only wish that it might be so, if I could make it from an increase of fee rather than an increase in the number of executions, but the reader has in other places correct statements of what my income really amounts to. I never bear malice against my friends of the press for these little distortions of fact, for I know that they mean no harm, and on the whole they have always used me very well.

With regard to the public, their curiosity to see me is much greater than my desire to satisfy it. I have no wish to be followed about and stared at by a crowd, as if I were a monstrosity, and in many cases I have had to go to some trouble to baulk them. This I can do to a certain extent by travelling by other trains than the one I am expected by. In some cases where there are two or three railways into a town, one of which is the direct line from Bradford, I take the direct line to some local station, and there change into a train of another line or into some train running on some local branch line, and so arrive unobserved. At Newcastle, after the execution of Judge, there was a big and enthusiastic crowd waiting to see me and my assistant depart. There were one or two men in the crowd who knew me by sight, and they knew the train by which we were to travel, so they made a raid on the station, and in spite of the efforts of the railway officials and police to keep the place clear they burst through the barriers with a howl of exultation and filled the platform. The plan by which we evaded them was very simple. We walked over the river to Gateshead, and booked from there to Newcastle. Arriving by train in the midst of the people who were looking for us, we attracted no attention whatever, because the folks who knew me were near the entrance gates, expecting us to come into the station in the ordinary way. As we had our tickets for Bradford with us, we simply crossed the platform to our own train, and in due time steamed southward, leaving the disappointed crowd under the firm impression that we had not entered the station.