Britain's last hangman kept 'diaries of death'

The fascinating diaries of death written by Britain's last hangman have been disclosed.

Harry Allen was assistant executioner to Albert Pierrepoint, who was recently the subject of a film starring Timothy Spall (left). Credit: Photo: ITV

Harry Allen, who oversaw dozens of executions between 1941 and 1964, kept a precise log of prisoners and how they died.

His matter-of-fact journal recorded details of each prisoner's age, weight, height and his calculations of how long the rope needed to be to generate the speed required to ensure a swift death.

Referring to one hanging, Allen suggested that, with hindsight, the rope had been too short.

He noted: "Very good job but should have had another two or three inches - very strong."

Allen was the chief executioner at 29 hangings and assisted at 53 others in London, Manchester and Leeds.

He always wore a black bow tie during executions as a sign of respect and for 15 years served as an assistant executioner, mostly to Albert Pierrepoint, who was recently the subject of a film starring Timothy Spall.

Allen's most controversial execution was that of James Hanratty, hanged on 4 April 1962 at Bedford Prison, for the A6 murder case despite efforts to clear his name.

Allen also assisted in the wrongful execution in 1953 of Derek Bentley, who was convicted of murdering a policeman after witnesses said he told the killer: "Let him have it Chris."

He performed one of the two final executions in Britain, when at 8am on August 13, 1964 Gwynne Owen Evans was hanged at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West.

Evans' accomplice Peter Anthony Allen was hanged simultaneously at Walton Prison in Liverpool by Robert Leslie Stewart.

In his diary Allen noted that he was 29 when he witnessed his first execution on November 26, 1940 at Bedford prison.

William Cooper, 24, had been convicted at Cambridge of murdering an elderly farmer called John Harrison.

Allen described it as a "very good, clean job" despite Cooper's "loss of courage" at the last.

The hangman wrote in his diary: "The culprit had to be carried to the scaffold owning to his faintness."

Others though, met their maker with a smile.

Clifford Holmes seemed "very cheerful" moments before he was hanged at Strangeways in 1941. The 24-year-old soldier had murdered his wife, Irene, for having an affair while he was away in the army.

For some death came quickly but others suffered in their final moments.

Allen noted that murderer Walter Cross, 21, died very quickly - within six seconds.

But Peter Griffiths, 22, who had raped and murdered a three-year-old girl in Blackburn, was still alive 30 seconds after the trap door opened.

The execution that seems to have made the deepest impression on Allen happened in 1945 when five Nazi prisoners of war were hanged for murdering a fellow German soldier who had betrayed their escape plan.



Erich Koening, 21, was the first of the soldiers to go to the gallows at Pentonville Prison and swore allegiance at the last to Nazi Germany.

Allen wrote: "His last words were spoken in German. Long Live the Fatherland. This man was in my opinion the leader of this gang of prisoners and a definite Nazi."

Allen died in 1992, at the age of 81. His granddaughter is the comedienne and actress Fiona Allen who starred in the television show Smack the Pony.

His diary and tools of the trade, including two black bow ties and his tape measure, will be auctioned by Marshall's in Knutsford, Cheshire, on November 11. They are expected to fetch around £5,000.