ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how in the aftermath of the end of public execution the executioner became not merely the agent of punishment, but a privileged interpreter of it. It explores executioners’ memoirs reflecting on the period between the abolition of public execution (1868) and the end of the death penalty in the UK (1965), considering autobiography as a means of writing on the death penalty for, among others, James Berry, John Ellis, Albert Pierrepoint and Syd Dernley. As only a small group of judicially sanctioned observers could witness an execution after 1868, it argues that the consumption of life-writing produced by executioners was a key means by which readers accessed direct knowledge of capital punishment. This writing often came with powerful truth claims about the nature and psychology of punishment. However, practicing executioners were contractually prohibited from making their sensational secrets public: therefore, this publishing culture depended on executioners retiring from or becoming disillusioned with their role. Even so, the chapter shows how formidable restrictions were placed on their ability to tell their story. Drawing on these memoirs and Prison Commission records, the chapter demonstrates how textual representations of the death penalty ensured that capital punishment retained its visibility in the post-1868 culture.
