Crumlin Road (HM Prison) - Executions

Executions

When originally designed by Lanyon, the prison did not contain a gallows and the executions were carried out in public view until 1901, when an execution chamber was constructed at the end of C-wing and used until the last of the hangings in 1961. Seventeen prisoners were executed in the prison, the last being Robert McGladdery who was hanged in 1961 for the murder of Pearl Gamble. The condemned would live in a large cell (large enough for two guards to live in as well), unknowingly living next to the gallows, which were concealed by a moveable bookcase. The bodies of the executed were buried inside the prison in unconsecrated ground and the graves were marked only with their initials and year of execution on the prison wall. The execution of Tom Williams, a member of the IRA, took place on 2 September 1942. Williams, nineteen years old, was hanged for the murder of an RUC officer. The hangman in charge was Thomas Pierrepoint, the gaol's most regular hangman, who carried out six executions in the gaol between 1928 and 1942. Williams was one of the two prisoners of the seventeen executed whose remains were reinterred and buried elsewhere.