James Berry (executioner)

James Berry (8 February 1852 – 21 October 1913) was an English executioner from 1884 to 1891. He is best known for his main contribution to the practice of hanging, a refinement of the long drop method developed by British state hangman William Marwood. His improvements were intended to diminish mental and physical suffering, and some of them remained standard practice until the 1965 abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom.

An insight into Berry's behaviour and methods can be read in the book My Experiences as an Executioner, in which he describes his methods and recalls the final moments of some of the people he executed.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.