Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners
The Story of Britain's Infamous Hangmen
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Narrated by:
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Norman Gilligan
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By:
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Steve Fielding
About this listen
Between them, the three men in the fearsome Pierrepoint dynasty executed over 800 people during a career spanning more than half a century. Henry, his brother Thomas, and his son Albert, dispatched some of the most infamous criminals of the 20th century, and in the process earned a public notoriety that followed them throughout their eventful lives.For years, the three men were faced with the task - prestigious to some, horrific to many others - of being the last point of contact for the guilty and condemned. The Pierrepoints executed criminals the nation over before travelling to many countries including Egypt and postwar Germany, where they hanged Nazi war criminals, and gained a reputation as the world's most deadly practitioners of the art of hanging."Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners" recounts the intriguing stories of the three men and the effect that their macabre occupation had on their personal lives. This definitive guide is filled with shocking inside tales from the official records and diaries kept by the Pierrepoint family. With revealing insights into the intense rivalry between fellow executioners, new light is shed on the menacing world of years gone by.
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Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.
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Excellent, awesome and educational!
- By Janalyn on 03-14-20
By: Judith Flanders
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The Wicked Boy
- The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Early in the morning of Monday, July 8, 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his 12-year-old brother, Nattie, set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbors, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next 10 days, Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate.
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Amazing True Story
- By Lisa Belle on 01-08-17
By: Kate Summerscale
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The Assassin's Accomplice
- Mary Surratt and the Plot to Kill Abraham Lincoln
- By: Kate Clifford Larson
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 8 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Assassin’s Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known conspirator in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators met to plan Lincoln’s assassination. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin’s Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant, offering a fresh perspective on America’s most famous murder.
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Did She or Didn't She
- By c a cornelius on 06-04-21
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The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
- The Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective
- By: Kate Summerscale
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 9 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection. At the time, the detective was a relatively new invention; there were only eight detectives in all of England and rarely were they called out of London, but this crime was so shocking that Scotland Yard sent its best man to investigate, Inspector Jonathan Whicher.
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Tragic Murder at dawn of detective bureau
- By Kindle Customer on 08-20-14
By: Kate Summerscale
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Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Emma Grant Williams
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
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very interesting and enlightening
- By Barbara J Allison on 08-29-19
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Killing Jesus
- A History
- By: Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard
- Narrated by: Bill O'Reilly
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of people have thrilled to best-selling authors Bill O'Reilly and historian Martin Dugard's Killing Kennedy and Killing Lincoln, works of nonfiction that have changed the way we view history. Now the anchor of The O'Reilly Factor details the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history: Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly 2,000 years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe he is God.
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The Jesus story in context
- By Kimberly on 10-01-13
By: Bill O'Reilly, and others
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Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Edward Steers Jr.
- Narrated by: William Coon
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The assassination of Abraham Lincoln is usually told as a tale of a lone deranged actor who struck from a twisted lust for revenge. This is not only too simple an explanation; Blood on the Moon reveals that it is completely wrong. John Wilkes Booth was neither mad nor alone in his act of murder. He received the help of many, not the least of whom was Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd, the Charles County physician who has been portrayed as the innocent victim of a vengeful government.
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Thrilling and informative
- By Sean on 06-21-12
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Hanns and Rudolf
- The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
- By: Thomas Harding
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 8 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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May 1945: In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen. One of the lead investigators is Lieutenant Hanns Alexander, a German Jew who is now serving in the British Army. Rudolf Höss is his most elusive target. Hanns and Rudolf reveals for the very first time the full, exhilarating account of Höss' capture, an encounter with repercussions that echo to this day.
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I Read This Marvelous Book...
- By Douglas on 01-04-14
By: Thomas Harding
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American Brutus
- John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies
- By: Michael Kauffman
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 21 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.
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informative
- By Sue Ogle on 11-27-20
By: Michael Kauffman
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Last Woman Hanged
- The Terrible True Story of Louisa Collins
- By: Caroline Overington
- Narrated by: Jennifer Vuletic
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of 10 children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordinary four times in order to get a conviction, to the horror of many in the legal community. Louisa protested her innocence until the end.
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Enlightening, entertaining and exceptionally done
- By Karol Heim on 02-09-24
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Manhunters
- Criminal Profilers and Their Search for the World’s Most Wanted Serial Killers
- By: Colin Wilson
- Narrated by: Brandon Massey
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fascinating, in-depth account of the hunt for serial killers, Colin Wilson, one of the world's leading authorities on the subject, examines the ways they can be tracked down and caught, from the tried-and-true methods of the early 20th century to the high-tech processes in use today. Wilson examines such areas as psychological profiling, genetic fingerprinting, and the launch of the Behavioral Science Unit. He delves into the importance of fantasy to serial killers, the urge to keep on killing, the desire to become notorious, and murder as an addictive drug.
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Reprinted Material, Questionable Commentary
- By B on 10-18-15
By: Colin Wilson
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Undisclosed Files of the Police
- Cases from the Archives of the NYPD from 1831 to the Present
- By: Bernard Whalen, Philip Messing, Robert Mladinich
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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More than 175 years of true crimes culled from the city's police blotter, told through an insightful text by two NYPD officers and a NYC crime reporter. From atrocities that occurred before the establishment of New York's police force in 1845 through the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 to the present day, this audio is an insider's look at more than 80 real-life crimes that shocked the nation, from arson to gangland murders, robberies, serial killers, bombings, and kidnappings.
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Good History of Crime in NYC
- By Bob Shinders on 03-10-17
By: Bernard Whalen, and others
What listeners say about Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Julia
- 09-19-15
A Superb & Accurate Study of a Macabre Subject
The Pierrepoint Family were an interesting bunch as they were known for 'telling a few tales'!
I was brought up in post WWII Great Britain. We still had rationing. Women still cried into their aprons at the mention of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be 'dispatched' courtesy of the Crown on that horrible wet and foggy July morning in 1955.
The Pierrepoint men, two brother and one son were three of the Queen's executioners. I think that many people would think that it would be some kind of macabre 'calling'. Perhaps it was, in a way but this volume which is so well and accurately written makes it quite plain that not only were the Pierrepoint 'boys' financially motivated but also were all of the other Executioners on 'The List' of available trained and approved executioners.
I have listened to this book a couple of times as I enjoyed the content but I really could not figure out whether I enjoyed the Narrator's style. Initially I could not figure out whether he was reading a book about this serious yet alarming subject or reading a book of nursery rhymes! All of a sudden I had my "AHA!" Moment! The narrator was reading the facts, just the facts. We have to remember that we are listening to 12 hours of very disturbing facts and not some cheap cheesy 50 cent novel.
This book is a journey and an interesting one at that. Especially if you are like me and you follow it up with a little extra reading. Albert Pierrepoint, after spending many years of dispatching criminals to the abyss changed his mind regarding the Death Penalty. Albert eventually became an ardent abolitionist.
I highly recommend this book.
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- Grannie Annie
- 08-19-19
Pierreloing. A Family of Executioners
Disappointing. Just a summary of the three executioners. Thought it would tell more of executions. A little insight into the crimes would have made this book more interesting .
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- Jean
- 06-05-13
The Hangmen
This book was written a bit differently than what I was expecting from the blurb about the book. I was expecting a biography type story of the men and their lives, instead it is mainly a chronicle of their more famous executions. The time frame of the book is from 1903 to 1956 when the death penalty was revoked. The opening of the book is what I was originally expected, in that, it tells about Henry's application to be an executioner, the process at the time to be come one, the interviews he went too and the training he took. Once he started working as an executioner the story mostly changed to the person to be executed and their crime. Albeit, I did find it interesting and noted how murder has evolved in society over the years. I found the stories in World War One and World War Two intriguing the execution changed from murder to treason. The part of the story covering post WWII war crimes trials and executions were fascinating, I am well versed in the American Nuremburg trials but was unaware of the British War Crime Trials of the concentration camp commandants and guards. I would like to learn more about the trials by the Allied countries and how they decided which country would try what type of war crimes. The last part of the book covered the controversy of the death penalty and Albert's response to it. Steve Fielding did a lot of research to gather the material for this story. Norman Gilligan did a great job of narrating the story.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Doc Pearce
- 07-26-13
Reads like an accountant's journal.
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
This is a listing of Pierrepoint's "clients." Very little insight into the man, , his uncle, or his father. Pierrepoint: Executioner was a better read, but neither book opened the door on how it really feels to hang so many men and women.
Would you ever listen to anything by Steve Fielding again?
That would depend on the reviews. I purchased the Pierrepoint book without reading what others had to day. I am not sorry I did, for what it has it is informative, but it missed the mark.
What didn’t you like about Norman Gilligan’s performance?
Nothing, the performance, because of the prose, was stilted and wooden.
Any additional comments?
Pierrepoint was never very forth coming about his profession. I surmise that he would have been content never to have become a person of public acclaim. I choose to believe that in the end the notoriety is what made him give up the business.
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1 person found this helpful