Executioner Pierrepoint

Alvert Pierrepoint resigned in 1956 over a disagreement with the Home Office about his fees.

He was the only executioner in British history whose notice of resignation prompted the government to write to him begging him to reconsider, such was the reputation he had established as the most efficient and swiftest executioner in British history.

What is true is that, ironically, he was an opponent of capital punishment.

But Pierrepoint kept his opinions to himself on the topic until this autobiography: "I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off."