THE EXECUTIONER'S BIBLE The Story of Every British Hangman of the Twentieth Century

Hardback. It is a little over 40yrs. since the gallows was last used in Great Britain, and the secrets behind the men who pulled the lever and dropped the condemned to their deaths are to this day shrouded in mystery. The author tells the story of the working-class men who carried out this macabre profession until its abolition in the late 1960s. The art of dispensing instant death at the end of a hangman's rope was an exact science, and the men who undertook these duties received special instruction at an executioner's training school. In their day and age many of these characters assumed the profile of infamous celebrities in their own right, their reputations often rivalling the notorious criminals they were charged with despatching. Despite often being unassuming and professionally quiet, men like Albert Pierrepoint, William Billington and many other Chief and Assistant Executioners made a name for themselves in a world hungry for salacious and gruesome news. This is the story of these men - the truth about how Britain hired and fired its hangmen - and their stock in trade: the hanging of convicted criminals. Beginning at the turn of the last century with the infamous Billington family, whose dynasty ended in tragedy in the execution chamber; through to the bungling hangmen sacked for incompetence; drunken executioners dismissed for brawling; one hangman driven to suicide and another who 'got out just in time', to the last men to pull the lever at the height of the swinging sixties - the secrets of over six controversial decades of capital punishment are finally revealed. They were the last of their kind: the hangmen of the 20th-century. And this is their fascinating sometimes repugnant, always enthralling story. Illus. + Appendix. 291pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. As New in dw. A fairly heavy book which will require additional postage if shipped overseas.