Harry Allen (executioner) - Career As An Executioner

Career As An Executioner

Allen applied for a job in the Prison Service in the 1930s but was turned down. He successfully applied to be put on the Home Office list of executioners and was often employed as an assistant executioner to Tom Pierrepoint, the uncle of Albert Pierrepoint. As a preliminary step, he witnessed his first execution at the age of 29 on 26 November 1940 at Bedford prison, describing it as a "very good, clean job, not as gruesome as I expected".

Allen became a publican in Farnworth, Lancashire in the 1940s, combining his role as executioner with running the pub, which he ran until the early 1950s when he took over another pub, the Junction Inn, on Higher Lane in Whitefield.

In 1945, five Nazi prisoners of war were hanged for murdering a fellow German soldier whom they suspected to have betrayed their escape plan. It seems to have been a crime and ultimate execution that made the deepest impression on Allen. He wrote, "It was a foul murder. They staged a mock trial, kicking the victim to death and dragging him by the neck to the toilet where they hung his lifeless body on a waste pipe. These five prisoners are the most callous men I have ever met so far but I blame the Nazi doctrine for that. It must be a terrible creed." A 21-year-old, Erich Koening, was the first of the soldiers to be hanged at Pentonville Prison, swearing allegiance at the last to Nazi Germany.

On 28 January 1953 Allen assisted at the controversial execution of Derek Bentley, who was hanged for a murder committed by a friend and accomplice during an attempted robbery, and for which Bentley received a posthumous pardon 45 years later. Contrary to some accounts Allen was not present at the execution of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, in 1955. The assistant to Albert Pierrepoint on that occasion was Royston Rickard.

Following the resignation of Albert Pierrepoint and the death of Stephen Wade in 1956, Allen and Robert Leslie Stewart jointly became Chief Executioners. However, the Homicide Act 1957 reduced the number of condemned criminals by 75%, from an average of fifteen a year in the early 1950s to about four a year in the late 1950s. As Chief Executioner, on 11 July 1958 he hanged United States-born Scottish serial killer, Peter Manuel at Barlinnie prison, Glasgow. On the same day, Allen's first wife Marjorie left him. He also hanged Guenther Podola on 5 November 1959, a German-born petty thief, and the last man to be hanged in the UK for killing a police officer.

His most controversial case was that of James Hanratty, hanged on 4 April 1962 at Bedford prison for the "A6 murder" case. Efforts to clear Hanratty's name continued until 2001, when DNA testing matched Hanratty to the crime scene.

Some newspapers claim that Allen's son Brian assisted his father at 5 hangings, a claim which is rejected by Allen's biographer Stewart McLaughlin. In Charles Duff's book "A Handbook on Hanging", an article in the Daily Sketch (26/5/1960) quotes Brian as saying that he had quit as assistant hangman because his fiance would not marry him "unless you stop helping to hang people". Brian Allen said "I'd been in two minds about quitting the job, but when Angela asked me to drop it, that decided me ... Of course, Dad and I don't talk about the hangman's job. I know it is supposed to run in families, but I've decided it is "out" for me - though someone has to do it". However, a report in The Spokesman Review (May 8, 1961) headlined "Hangman Quits To Save Lives" stated that he had quit because of a "conflict of loyalties" - he had recently qualified as a mental health nurse and had taken a vow to "do all in my power to save and preserve life".

Allen performed the last execution in Northern Ireland in December 1961, when he hanged Robert McGladdery at Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. He also performed the last hanging in Scotland, when Henry Burnett was hanged at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen, on 15 August 1963 for the murder of Thomas Guyan, and hanged Russell Pascoe – one of the third-last prisoners to be hanged in a British prison – at Bristol's Horfield Prison on 17 December in the same year. He also performed one of the two final executions in the UK, when at 8am on 13 August 1964 Gwynne Owen Evans was hanged at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West. This occurred simultaneously with the execution of Evans's accomplice Peter Anthony Allen, who was hanged at Walton Gaol in Liverpool by Robert Leslie Stewart.

Allen always wore a bow tie during executions as a sign of respect. Of his job, Allen said, "I never felt a moment's remorse and always slept peacefully on the nights before and after a hanging".