And say, “forgive me, e’er it is too late.”
E. B. C.
The soft-heartedness of Mr. Berry’s nature would quite unfit him for his post if it were not that he possesses a strong resolution, and can control his feelings when he finds duty warring against inclination.
In personal appearance he is a kindly-looking man, thickset and muscular, with a florid complexion and sandy hair. He stands 5ft. 8½in. high, weighs 13 stones, and does not look the sort of man to willingly injure anyone. The appearance of his right cheek is somewhat marred by a long, deep scar, extending downwards from the corner of the eye, which has given rise to one or two sensational stories from the pens of imaginative newspaper men. The scar was caused by the kick of a horse which he attempted to ride when he was a boy about ten years old. The horse was young, unbroken and vicious, and its kick narrowly missed being fatal. Across his forehead is another great scar, the result of a terrible blow received when arresting a desperate character in a Bradford public-house. The man was one of a gang of six, and his comrades helped him to violently resist arrest, but Berry stuck to his captive until he was safely locked in the Bradford Town Hall, and the six men all had to “do time” for the assault.
Mr. Berry was born on February 8th, 1852, at Heckmondwike, in Yorkshire. His father was a wool-stapler, holding a good position in the district. Young Berry’s education was obtained at the Wrea Green School, near Lytham, where he gained several prizes for his writing and drawing. His writing ability was useful to him later in life, when he was employed by a lithographer, to write “copper-plate” transfers. In 1874 he was married, and has had six children. Of these, two boys and a girl died while young, and two boys and a girl are living.
The “executioner’s office,” as Mr. Berry likes to call it on his official communications, is a house just off City Road, Bradford. It is one of six owned by Mr. Berry. When he first took the position of executioner some of his neighbours were so prejudiced against the work, that they refused to live “next door to a hangman,” and as landlords naturally object to losing two or three tenants for the sake of keeping one, Mr. Berry was obliged to move once or twice, and came to the conclusion that he had better be his own landlord. The prejudice which then existed has been lived down, and there is now no difficulty in letting neighbouring houses to respectable tenants.
The house in Bilton Place is furnished just the same as hundred of other houses in the district that are occupied by better-class artisans, and there is nothing at all gloomy or gruesome about the place. In fact, there is no indication of the business of the occupant. There are, in the front room, two frames of small photographs, which are really portraits of some of the murderers who have been executed by Mr. Berry, but the frames bear no inscription. In a glass-fronted sideboard, too, there are a few handsome electro goblets, cruet stands and similar articles that have been given to Mr. Berry by some of his admirers, but no one would connect them with his business. In drawers and cupboards about the place there are (or were, for they have now gone to Madame Tussaud’s) a large number of relics and mementos of executions and other incidents. Amongst them is the great knife, once used by the executioner of Canton for the beheading of nine pirates. This was obtained in exchange for a rope with which several persons had been hanged. These relics were all stowed well away, and were not by any means “on show,” though the executioner did not object to producing them if a personal friend wished to see them.
In conversation Mr. Berry is fluent, apt in anecdote and illustration, and full of a subtle Yorkshire humour which he cannot entirely shake off even when talking on serious subjects. He has a very good memory for facts, and is very observant, so that he is always ready with a personal experience or observation on almost any topic. His tastes are simple. His favourite occupations are fishing and otter hunting, of both of which sports he is passionately fond. Frequently when going to an execution in a country town he takes his rod and basket, and gets a half-day’s fishing before or after the execution. He seems to like the sport on account of its quiet and contemplative nature, and says that he enjoys the fishing even if he never gets a nibble.
At home Mr. Berry devotes himself largely to mechanical pursuits. At the present time he is working a patent which he bought recently, and has the topmost room of his house fitted as a mechanic’s workshop, with lathe, bench, etc. In spare time he devotes a good deal of attention to his pigeons and rabbits, for he is an ardent fancier, and keeps a large number of live pets.