The Executioner's Bible

It is a little over forty years since the gallows was last used in Great Britain, and the secrets behind the men who pulled the lever and dropped the condemned to their deaths are to this day shrouded in mystery. The Executioner's bible tells the story of the working-class men who carried out this macabre profession until its abolition in the late 1960s. The art of dispensing instant death at the end of the hangman's rope was an exact science, and the men who undertook these duties received special training at an executioner's training school. In their day and age many of these characters assumed the profile of infamous celebrities in their own right, their reputations often rivallung the notorious criminals they were charged with despatching. Despite often being unassuming and professionally quiet, men like Albert Pierrepoint, William Bollington and many other Chief and Assistant executioners made a name for themselves in a world hungry for salacious and gruesome news. This is the story of these men - the truth about how Britain hired and fired its hangmen - and their stock in trade: the hanging of convicted criminals.

Steve Fielding is the author of several historical crime titles including Pierrepoint: A Family of Executioners, The Hangman's Record and The Murder Casebook series. He was worked as the Historical Consultant on the Discovery Channel series The Executioners and has contributed to several magazines such as The Criminologist, True Crime and Master Detective.