My Experiences as an Executioner

by James Berry

Of the three men I have instanced, Rudge was the only one who seemed to care to take any interest in life. He spent a good deal of his time in writing a statement of his views upon the present system of penal servitude, for the information of the Home Office. As he had undergone two long sentences he knew his subject thoroughly from the inside. With his attendants he talked freely, both about himself and about other matters of interest. He insisted that there was something wrong with his head, which had caused him trouble several times in his life. He did not ask for any reprieve on this account, but he begged the prison chaplain to examine his brain after death, and repeated the request almost the last thing before the time for the execution. Martin and Baker spent most of the three weeks in bed. They would neither talk nor do anything else. Rudge and Martin were baptised Roman Catholics, whilst Baker had received some Protestant education, but none of them seemed to care for the ministrations of the priest or the gaol chaplain. To them it seemed cowardly and unreasonable to ask God for mercy simply because they were condemned to death, when they knew very well that they would have been living in defiance of God and man if they had remained free. After some time they yielded to the counsel and entreaties of their spiritual advisers so far as to listen to all they had to say. Baker appeared to attend carefully to the chaplain’s ministration, and partook of Holy Communion an hour before the execution. Baker was troubled about the welfare of his sweetheart, Nellie, and spent part of the night before his execution in writing a long letter to her. In this letter he assured her of his love and constancy, and begged her to keep in the path of right.

All the three men walked firmly to the scaffold, where they shook hands all round, saying, “Good-bye, old pal, good-bye”—nothing more. The drop was already chalked with their names—Martin in the centre, with Rudge on the right and Baker on the left. The men stepped at once to their places and gave all the assistance they could in the final pinioning and in the adjustment of the nooses. Just before the drop fell Baker cried, “Keep straight, Nellie!” and then the three men died together, without a word of fear or even a quiver or a pallid cheek amongst them. The youth and manly bearing of Baker, and the strong affection of which he was capable, as shown by the way in which his Nellie was always uppermost in his thoughts, affected me very much. His execution was one of the saddest of my many experiences.

Mrs. Britland.

Mary Ann Britland.

I have said that the people who are most cruel and callous in their murderous deeds are often most cowardly after conviction. The class of cruel and callous murderers is quite distinct from that of the violent murderers, like Rudge, Martin and Baker. These men, fighting against the law, fight fairly according to their lights. They take risks and meet the consequences in a straightforward manner. But the cruel and callous class show a cowardice and selfishness of which Rudge, Martin, and Baker were incapable. An instance of this occurs to me in the case of Mary Ann Britland, whom I executed at Strangeways Gaol, Manchester. She was an example of the class of persons to whom the three weeks’ respite before death is the greatest possible cruelty. She was condemned for the murder of a woman who had befriended her, and in whose house she was living as a guest at the time of the murder. She was also proved to have murdered her own husband and daughter by the same means, namely, poison. It seems hard to conceive of any adequate motive for such a series of crimes, extending over a considerable time, but a theory was advanced, and supported by her confession, to the effect that she desired to marry the husband of her latest victim. To accomplish this object she first killed her daughter (for what exact reason is not clear, unless she feared that the girl had some suspicion of her design upon the others), then her husband, and finally her friend, who had pitied her lonely and widowed circumstances, and given her food and shelter. The husband of the third victim was tried, with a view to bringing him in as an accomplice, but the investigation showed that he had never shown any friendliness for Mrs. Britland, and that it was clearly impossible that he could have had any connection with the murders. At her trial she was completely unnerved, not by remorse, but by fear. When the verdict was announced, and she was asked if she had anything to say why sentence should not be passed, she burst into tears. During the passing of the sentence she incessantly interrupted the judge with cries for mercy, but finding such appeals of no avail, she screamed to Heaven in tones of the greatest agony. Even after she had been removed to the cells, her screams could be heard for a long time by people outside. During the time that elapsed before her execution she was partly buoyed up by the hope of a reprieve, and protested her innocence almost to the very last. In spite of her hope, she could not shut out the terrible fear that the reprieve might not come, and the dread of death was so heavy upon her as to reduce her in three weeks to a haggard wreck of her former self. She prayed long and apparently earnestly for God’s help, but did not acknowledge her guilt until almost the last moment, when she saw that there was no hope of reprieve. When the morning of the execution came, she was so weakened as to be utterly unable to support herself, and she had to be practically carried to the scaffold by two female warders. For an hour before the time of the execution she had been moaning and crying most dismally, and when I entered her cell she commenced to shriek and call aloud. All the way to the scaffold her cries were heart-rending, though her voice was weak through suffering, and as the white cap was placed over her head she uttered cries which one of the reporters described as “such as one might expect at the actual separation of body and spirit through mortal terror.” The female warders held her on the drop until the noose was fixed, then their places were taken by two male warders who stepped quickly back at a signal which I gave them, and before she had time to sway sideways or to collapse the drop fell and the wretched woman was dead.

James Murphy.

James Murphy.

Some condemned persons are unconsciously humorous, whilst others that I have met with have shown an unconcerned and designedly humorous disposition, which is surprising when one considers the grave nature of my business with them. James Murphy, whom I executed at York, in November of 1886, for the murder of police-constable Austwick, of Barnsley, seemed to look upon his sentence and death rather as a joke than otherwise, and perhaps partly as a matter of pride. He never seemed to think that it was a very serious matter, and the principal reference that he made to the subject was a frequent assurance to his attendants that he would die firmly and show no fear on the scaffold. I was introduced to him by the Governor of York Castle the day before the execution, while he was at dinner. He was told that “a gentleman from Bradford” had come to see him, but he feigned not to understand my identity, and muttered, “Bradford! Bradford!—I have no friends at Bradford.” Then it was explained that the gentleman in question was his executioner, and he smilingly replied, “Oh! of course!” but continued picking the mutton bone on which he had been engaged when we entered. In the last letter that he wrote, speaking of this incident, he said:—“I am in good spirits the Governor brought your letter to me at dinner time and the hangs man with him. I shaked hands with the hangs man and he ast me to forgive him and I did so. But I eat my dinner none the worse for that.” The same statement might also apply to his supper, and his breakfast next morning, for during the whole of his imprisonment his good humour and resolution never deserted him for a moment. He was perfectly contented with the arrangements made for him by the prison authorities; but the Roman Catholic priests in attendance could get no satisfaction out of him whatever. He parted from his brother, wife, and daughter without any sign of emotion, in the light-hearted manner of a working man who was starting for his day’s labour. He did justice to his last meal, and when it was finished asked for a “pipe of bacca,” the only request that he made with which the Governor was unable to comply. He seemed to take a great interest in the pinioning process, and helped me as well as he could. His request was that I would execute him quickly and painlessly, and this favour I was able to grant.