Harry Allen (executioner) - Personal Life and Diaries

Personal Life and Diaries

Allen's first wife was Marjorie Clayton whom he married in 1933. She left him in 1958 and he later married Doris Dyke in 1963. In September 2008 a new book, Harry Allen: Britain's Last Hangman, about the man and his executions was published. In October 2008 it was revealed that Allen had kept a diary which included a precise log of the prisoners and how they died. He recorded each prisoner's age, weight, height and calculations for the length of rope needed to hang them. The diary and other belongings were sold at auction in Knutsford, Cheshire on behalf of his widow in November 2008 for £17,200.

Allen always publicly maintained that hanging was a "swift and humane business". In his diaries he revealed that the execution of one prisoner, Peter Griffiths, who was convicted at Lancaster assizes of murdering a three year old child, June Anne Devaney, in the grounds of Queens Park Hospital in Blackburn on 15 May 1948, took 30 seconds, which would have been the time from Allen's entering the condemned cell to the moment of the drop. Many other executions were faster than this, but death itself was always practically instantaneous. Griffiths was 22 years old, 5 feet 10" tall, weighed 148 lbs, and was given a drop of 7 feet 6 inches on 15 November 1948 at Walton gaol. Of another hanging he noted, "Very good job, but should have had another two or three inches – very strong."

His granddaughter, Fiona Allen, is a comedienne and actress, who rose to fame on the comedy sketch show Smack the Pony. She said of him, "It’s as if I had two grandfathers. One was the sweet, lovely man who took me for walks on the beach, bought me sweets and toys and always had me laughing and giggling. The other one was the man employed to take lives for the Government. When I was a kid, everyone in the area knew what he did. I remember going round to my first boyfriend’s house for the first time and I tried to impress his dad by telling him I wanted to go on the stage. He looked up from his paper and said, 'Going on the stage are you, lass? Well keep away from the trapdoor!'".