By Steve Fielding The Executioner's Bible: The Story of Every British Hangman of the Twentieth Century [Hardcover]

by Steve Fielding

It has been just over 40 years since a 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 still shrouded in mystery. This account tells the story of the working-class men who carried out this profession until its abolition in the late 1960s. The hangman's rope was part of an exact science, and in their day, the men who undertook the job assumed the profiles of infamous celebrities, their reputations often rivaling the notorious criminals they were charged with dispatching. From the bungling hangmen sacked for incompetence and those driven to guilt-ridden suicide to the last to pull the lever at the height of the swinging sixties, the secrets of this form of capital punishment are finally revealed. They were the last of their kind, the hangmen of the 20th century; and this is their fascinating, sometimes repugnant, always enthralling story.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, History

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Lenny · Rating 1 out of 5]

One word review: WHY?!

Long review:

This is possibly the most pointless book I've ever read. It should've been called The Executioner's Catalogue: A List of Every British Hangman of the Twentieth Century. Because that is pretty much what it is. There is nothing biblical about it, and there is no story.

If you're going in expecting - like I did - some sort of insight into the minds of the kind of people who choose or find themselves in a job like this, and what it does to them, don't bother. You won't get it. All you will get is a litany of 'On this-and-this date, so-and-so hangman hanged such-and-such person for that-and-the-other crime' That is all. There is little else in here.

That little else is a smattering of halfway-interesting crime titbits, technical procedural information and capital punishment politics. And - worst of all - teases of what this book could have been. Mentions of hangmen who attempted suicide, quit after one witnessing, turned to alcohol, kept their job secret from family. But all of these are simply thrown in there as asides, things that just happened.

What an utter waste of even the few minutes a day I spent reading it for 2 months. Why? I don't know why.

[Jack Bush · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a great work of literature but full of fascinating (to me) tidbits about the nation's hangmen. A lot i already knew, but a lot I didn't (including things like the training schedule for the last hangmen of the early 1960s). Obviously, if you aren't interested in hangmen and executions, this book won't be for you!

[L · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute waste of 280 pages.
It's a glorified list of who hanged who and when.
Very little detail of the culprits' crimes or anything.
10 page appendix at the end was the only useful bit and nowadays can be accessed via Google anyway.
Don't waste your time or money.

[Pantea Farnejad · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s a list of cases (short summaries) and executions. That’s it.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fielding goes through all the hangmen of England during the 20th century giving snippets of information regarding their lives and some of the criminals they hung. It's slightly unsatisfying in some respects but it does make you want to look into some of the hangmen and criminals/crimes more indepth.

[Garry Marlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and found it interesting about the different acts when they came into practice. Good book

[Mamma Chef · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its a type of book which is interesting but boring at the same time! You want to put it down and stop reading it, but you think. 'Well, I may as well just finish it now!'

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

only slightly interesting.