My Experiences as an Executioner

by James Berry

One of the most striking incidents that ever occurred to me was on the journey from Lincoln to Durham, after executing Mary Lefley, in 1884. At Doncaster we changed from the Great Eastern to the Great Northern Railway. I looked out for a carriage with a vacant corner seat, and got into one containing three rough-looking men. When the train had started they began to talk amongst themselves, and to look at me, and eventually began to chaff me. Of course I pretended not to understand their allusions to the execution that morning, and was indignant at their supposing me to be an executioner, but they were confident that they were right, and began offering to bet amongst themselves as to which of them I should get first. I was glad to get to York, where I parted from their company. Two years afterwards I met the same three men under very different circumstances. They were at Carlisle, condemned to be executed for the Netherby Hall burglary, and I carried out the sentence of the law. Their names were Rudge, Martin, and Baker.

I always try to remain unknown while travelling, but there is a certain class of people who will always crowd round as if an executioner were a peep-show. On the journey above mentioned, after changing at York, I got into a carriage with a benevolent-looking old gentleman. A little crowd collected round the door, and just as we were starting a porter stuck his head into the window, pointed to my fellow-passenger, and with a silly attempt at jocularity said:—“I hope you’ll give him the right tightener.” The old gentleman seemed much mystified, and of course I was quite unable to imagine what it meant. At Darlington there was another little crowd, which collected for a short time about our carriage. Fortunately none of the people knew me, so that when the old gentleman asked them what was the matter they could only tell him that Berry was travelling by that train and that they wanted to have a look at him. The old gentleman seemed anxious to see such an awful man as the executioner, and asked me if I should know him if I saw him. I pointed out a low-looking character as being possibly the man, and my fellow-traveller said, “Yes! very much like him.” I suppose he had seen a so-called portrait of me in one of the newspapers. We got quite friendly, and when we reached Durham, where I was getting out, he asked for my card. The reader can imagine his surprise when I handed it to him.

This little story has been much warped and magnified, and has even been made the subject of a leading article which takes me to task for “glorying in my gruesome calling,” and shocking respectable people by giving them my cards.

Another little anecdote which has been greatly distorted is what I call the toothache story. It happened in 1887, when crossing from Ireland, that there was one of the passengers who was terribly ill with mal de mer and toothache combined. He was rather a bother to several travellers who were not sick, and who wished to enjoy the voyage, and he must have given a lot of trouble to the stewards. I think that one of the latter must have told him that I could cure him, for he came and begged me to tell him what was the best thing for his complaint. I admitted that I was in the habit of giving drops that would instantaneously cure both the toothache and the sea-sickness, but assured him that he would not be willing to take my remedy. Still he persisted, so I handed him a card, and as he was a sensitive man it gave his nerves a shock that was quite sufficient to relieve him of the toothache, and me of his presence for the rest of the voyage. As the card which I then used has often been mentioned in the newspapers, I give a fac-simile of it. The wording was in black, with the fern in green, and the border in gold. I now use a perfectly plain card, as reproduced on [page 117].

A sad little incident in connection with the murder of Warder Webb by John Jackson will always remain in my memory. I had been to Strangeways Gaol once or twice before on duty, and Webb had always been my personal attendant during my residence, so that we were quite friendly. At the execution previous to Jackson’s—that of John Alfred Gell, in May, 1888—we had two or three long chats, and Webb was most anxious that I should go to Manchester to spend a half-day or a day with him in the city, when he could get leave of absence. He hoped it would be a long time before they should see me there again professionally, but said that they would always be glad to see me if I were in Manchester on other business, and could call. Then, turning to the subject of executions, he began wondering who would be the next that I should have to go there for, and who would be the victim, and shaking his head sadly, he said, “A body never knows who will be next.” The poor fellow little thought that he would be the next victim, and that the very next time I visited Strangeways would be no friendly call, but a visit to avenge his own death.

Of course, my duties take me about the country a great deal, and I have met a great many interesting people in the course of my travels. As a rule, I do not make myself known unless I have some good reason for doing so, because I have no fancy for making myself into a cheap show. On one occasion I travelled from Coventry to Warwick with the reporter of one of the Coventry papers. He knew nothing of my identity, and does not seem to have recognised me at the execution; but while writing out his report the connection between the gentleman in the train and the executioner in the gaol seems to have dawned upon him, and he wrote the following, which amused me greatly when it appeared in his paper:—

After writing this report and describing the hangman’s features and dress, it dawned upon the writer for the first time that the description was that of a gentleman with whom he had travelled from Coventry to Warwick on the previous afternoon. On reflecting upon all the circumstances of the journey, he felt quite certain of the fact; and although amused at the thought of having travelled and conversed with an executioner without knowing it, he was a little chagrined that he had not given the conversation a “professional” turn, which he would have done had he been aware who his fellow traveller was. The incident is sufficient to show that persons travelling by rail occasionally get into singular company without having the slightest knowledge of the fact.

In 1887 when I had to go to Dorchester, to hang Henry William Young for the Poole murder, I stayed at Bournemouth, and took a room in a Temperance Hotel. During the evening I got into conversation with the landlady, who was much interested in the subject of executions, and who appeared to like to discuss it. She was decidedly “down on” Berry, “the hangsman,” and expressed herself very freely as to his character and disposition; amongst other pleasant things, saying that he was a man without a soul, and not fit to have intercourse with respectable people. Of course, I smilingly agreed with everything that she had to say, and chuckled quietly to myself about a little surprise that I had in store for her. The surprise came off at bed-time, when she handed me my bedroom candle, and in return I handed her my card. The good lady nearly fainted.

It is not often that I feel frightened, for I am pretty well able to take care of myself, but I once had a little adventure in the train, coming from Galway to Dublin, that gave me one or two cold shivers. It was at a time when Ireland was much disturbed by agrarian outrages, and I knew that amongst some of the lower classes there was a feeling of hatred against myself on account of my occupation. Of this I had an example when going down to Galway, and as it led up to, and somewhat prepared me for the other incident, I may as well mention it. My journey to Galway was undertaken for the purpose of hanging four men who were condemned to death for moonlighting. It was an exciting journey altogether, for four men who were in the same compartment as myself from Dublin to Mullingar got into an excited discussion upon some political subject, and just as we left Killucan they began to fight most violently, using their sticks and fists to such an extent that all their faces were soon covered with blood. As the train drew into Mullingar the fury cooled as quickly as it had begun, they all began to apologise to each other and wipe the blood from one another’s faces. At Mullingar I got out for a drink, to steady my nerves, for the fight at such close quarters had somewhat upset me, although I took no part in it. On the platform two villainously rough-looking characters spoke a few words to the men who had got out of my compartment and then followed me into the refreshment room, where they seemed anxious to make my acquaintance, and so forcibly insisted that I should have a drink with them, that I had to consent for fear of causing a row. They asked me where I was going, said that they were going to Galway, and in what seemed to me a peculiarly significant tone, asked me if I knew whether Mr. Barry, the hangsman, was really in the train or not. They followed me on to the platform like two shadows, and got into the same compartment of the train. All this made me feel rather uncomfortable, for though I was well armed, there is nothing in life that I dread so much as the possibility of having to kill a man in self-defence and of being tried, and possibly convicted, for murder. I was, therefore, very pleased when two plain-clothes men whom I knew belonged to the Royal Irish Constabulary, got into the other half of the carriage, which was one of those in which there are two compartments divided by a low partition. I do not know whether my two rough companions even noticed that there was anyone in the other half of the carriage, to which their backs were turned. Their conduct, indeed, seemed to show that they thought we were alone, but I could see that the R. I. C. men were regarding them with interest and taking note of every word they said. All the way from Mullingar to Athenry the two fellows plied me with questions, and tried by all means in their power to draw me into discussion, and the expression of opinion. I answered them as briefly as I could without being uncivil, but took care that they should not gain much solid information from my answers. At Athenry they shuffled into the far corner of the compartment, and in stage whispers, which they evidently thought I could not hear, argued as to whether I was “Barry” or not. One of them got quite excited, pointed out that I was an Englishman, that I came from the North of England, that there was no one else in the train that looked like an executioner, that my tale about being a poultry-buyer was “all a loie,” and finally that I had a scar on my cheek which “proved it intoirely, begorra!” The other fellow said that “shure the gintleman in the corner was a gintleman, and not a murtherin, blood-thirsty, blagyard of a hangman,” which opinion at last seemed to be shared by both. As we steamed into Galway I used my handkerchief, and then rested my hand on the window-ledge with the handkerchief hanging out. This was the signal arranged with my police escort, who were on the platform, and who managed to be just opposite the door when the train stopped. As I marched off amongst those strapping fellows, I looked round to see my two travelling companions gesticulating wildly, and abusing each other for having been deceived, and for having treated “the very blagyard we went to meet.” I never knew whether they had intended me any harm, but the constabulary men told me that they were two of the roughest characters in Galway.