My Experiences as an Executioner

James Berry

• Publisher: Read & Co. History
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781528792066
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Biografías de ciencias sociales

"My Experiences as an Executioner" is a 1892 memoir by English executioner James Berry (1852–1913). Berry was most notable for his contribution to the science of hanging, refining the long drop method developed by William Marwood so as to reduce the mental and physical suffering of those hanged. In this volume, Berry offers insights into the various methods he employed as an executioner and what it was like witnessing people's final moments. Contents include: "The Executioner at Home by H. Snowden Ward", "How I Became an Executioner", "My First Execution", "My Method of Execution", "Other Methods of Execution", "Two Terrible Experiences", "How Murderers Die", "From the Murderer's Point of View", "On Capital Punishment", etc. Read & Co. History is proudly republishing this classic memoir now in a brand new edition complete with the introductory essay "On Anne Green, Her Execution" by John Mainard.

MY EXPERIENCES
AS AN EXECUTIONER

CHAPTER I

THE EXECUTIONER AT HOME
BY H. SNOWDEN WARD

JAMES Berry, though regarded by some people as a monster, and by others as a curiosity, is very much like any other working-man when one comes to know him. He is neither a paragon of perfection, nor an embodiment of all vice—though different classes of people have at times placed him under both these descriptions. His character is a curious study—a mixture of very strong and very weak traits, such as is seldom found in one person. And although one of his weak points is his Yorkshire open-hearted frankness, which he tries to control as much as possible, the man who has only been with him a few days has not by any means got to the depths of his character. His wife has said to me more than once:—“I have lived with him for nineteen years, but I don’t thoroughly know him yet,” and one can quite understand it, as his character is so many-sided and in some respects contradictory. This partly accounts for the varying and contradictory views of his personality which have been published in different papers.

His strongest point is his tender-heartedness. Perhaps this may be doubted, but I state the fact from ample knowledge. Mr. Berry’s occupation was not by any means taken up from a love of the ghastly, or any pleasure in the work. Even in his business as executioner his soft-heartedness has shown itself, for though it has never caused him to flinch on the scaffold, it has led him to study most carefully the science of his subject, and to take great pains to make death painless.

Of this trait I have had many proofs. For instance, I know that on some occasions when he has been due to start for a place of execution, his repugnance to the task has been so great that his wife and her mother have been obliged to use the greatest possible force of persuasion to prevent him shirking his duty. Another instance of this characteristic appeared when I was overhauling his manuscript and cuttings for the purpose of this book. I came across a copy of a poem “For one under Sentence of Death,” and made some enquiry about it. I found that the lines were some which Mr. Berry had copied from a Dorchester newspaper, and that for a long time it had been his habit to make a copy of them, to send to the chaplain in every case where a prisoner was sentenced to death, with a request that they should be read to the prisoner. This was continued until the governor of one of the gaols resented the sending of such a poem to the chaplain, and intimated that in all cases the chaplain was best able to judge of what was necessary for the condemned man, and did not need any outside interference. After this Mr. Berry sent no more poems, but he kept one or two copies by him, and I think that it may interest the reader.

LINES FOR ONE
UNDER SENTENCE OF DEATH

My brother,—Sit and think,

While yet some hours on earth are left to thee;

Kneel to thy God, who does not from thee shrink,

And lay thy sins on Christ, who died for thee.

He rests His wounded hand

With loving kindness, on thy sin-stained brow,

And says—“Here at thy side I ready stand,

To make thy scarlet sins as white as snow.

“I did not shed My blood

For sinless angels, good and pure and true;

For hopeless sinners flowed that crimson flood,

My heart’s blood ran for you, my son, for you.

“Though thou hast grieved me sore,

My arms of mercy still are open wide,

I still hold open Heaven’s shining door,

Come then—take refuge in My wounded side.

“Men shun thee—but not I,

Come close to me—I love my erring sheep.

My blood can cleanse thy sins of blackest dye,

I understand, if thou canst only weep.”

Words fail thee—never mind,

Thy Saviour can read e’en a sigh, or tear;

I came, sin-stricken heart, to heal and bind,

And died to save thee—to My heart thou’rt dear.

Come now—the time is short,

Longing to pardon and to bless, I wait;

Look up to Me, My sheep so dearly bought,

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...