Portrait of a Glasgow prison's execution chamber and a man who worked there in the 1950s.
Shot on 16mm black and white film stock at Barlinnie Prison in the mid-1990s.
A film by David Graham Scott.
Shot on 16mm black and white film stock at Barlinnie Prison in the mid-1990s.
A film by David Graham Scott.
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00:00I knew what had actually gone on in that execution chamber, and it was quite an eerie place to
00:19pass. And, as I say, when I went back to Berlin again and saw that it had actually demolished
00:24this place, I thought, that's the end of an era. To me, it was quite sad to see it go.
00:44Albert Pierpoint, I think he was Great Britain's most famous executioner. He did all the executions
00:49at Berlin whilst I was there. And I was a great friend of Albert Pierpoint. I used to
00:54have a drink with him, and right up till his death, I used to go and visit him in his nursing
00:59home. In some of the papers, it said he was obsessed with nuts, which I don't believe
01:04for one minute, because Albert Pierpoint was compensamentous right up till he died.
01:09A nicer man. I couldn't have wished to meet.
01:13Well, I started as a prison officer in Berlin prison in November 1951. I think I was the
01:18youngest officer to join the service, actually. And I joined as a discipline officer, which
01:24means that you open up prisoners, locking them up, taking them out for exercise, dealing
01:29with their necessary things that they want, like visits, passes. If they want a toothbrush,
01:34you've got it for them.
01:41My first encounter with murderers in Berlin was when I was in the untried, unconvicted
01:47cell with James Smith. He actually was about the same age as myself. He was 21. In fact,
01:51he had his 21st birthday in Berlin in, I think it was December 1951, and I gave him his birthday
01:56cards into the cell.
02:04This is the condemned cell in the Berlin prison, where the condemned prisoner would be kept
02:09approximately three to six weeks prior to his execution. And he'd be guarded 24 hours
02:14a day by prison officers in three shifts.
02:18Prisoners under a serious sentence for murder were not allowed to keep any of their bedding
02:23or anything in their cell during the day.
02:26George Francis Shaw, an Irish fella, big fella, he was making his bed up outside the door.
02:31This particular officer came up the back of Shaw and put his hand round the back of Shaw's
02:35neck and said, I wonder what size rope you'll take, Shaw. Quite jovial and jocular, you
02:40know. And Shaw turned and said, oh, I don't know, Mr. McKeen. He says, I'll probably take
02:44a size 18, what do you think? Sure enough, he took a size 18, all right, on a rope.
02:52If the prisoner wanted to go to the toilet, it was adjacent, in the adjacent cell next
02:56door here. And if the prisoner had to go to the toilet, the whole cell block would be
03:02locked up because nobody was allowed to see the condemned prisoner. The prisoner would
03:06spend all his time in here and during the day, the prison officers that would guard
03:11him would take him on the outside of the block for his morning exercise and his afternoon
03:17exercise.
03:21An interesting thing that happened was a prisoner under sentence of death, he actually married
03:26in the condemned cell. And the wedding took place and his sentence was committed to life
03:33imprisonment, which he served. He did his first life sentence and he was actually on
03:39release only three weeks when he committed murder again. And he was under sentence of
03:44death for a second time. And his sentence was again committed to life imprisonment.
03:51And he's actually still in prison today. He's Scotland's longest serving murderer. He's
03:56Donald Ferguson Forbes. And he's actually still in prison today.
04:03There was always quite a good supply of tea in a big brown teapot in the condemned cell
04:18and you just chatted away with the prisoner about anything at all except the obvious.
04:25But only you had to come out of the condemned cell and walk across from one side of the
04:29gallery into the double doors on the other side into the execution chamber. The prisoner,
04:33although he passed that door many a time going to his exercise, he didn't know that that's
04:37exactly where the death cell was.
04:40One occasion when the death watch officers were bringing the prisoner out to take him
04:43across into the death cell, he actually broke away and ran along the gallery with his arms
04:49strapped behind him. One of the officers died at his feet and brought him down with a rugby
04:52tackle. And they picked him up and they dragged him along the gallery and got him into the
04:56execution chamber and then he was hanged.
05:00The actual layout of the scaffold in Barlinnie Prison is on three levels. The higher level,
05:06which is the third floor, has the beam which attaches the rope onto. It comes through into
05:12the second floor where the lever the hangman uses to open the trap doors which go down
05:16to the ground floor. After the body has been taken down, it's laid on the post mortem slab.
05:23Well here I am in the beam room of the execution chamber. It's 40 odd years ago since I was
05:34last in here. And looking at it back again brings back some memories. Harry Allen and
05:41Jock Stewart, the Edinburgh hangman, did the last execution on this beam on the 22nd of
05:46December 1960. This beam here is designed to do multiple executions. It could do three
05:55at a time here in Barlinnie. But the ten executions that they did here were all done in singles.
06:00Now two or three days prior to the execution, the executioner's box would arrive in the
06:06prison containing all the equipment for the execution, which would include two ropes,
06:12a brand new one and one that had already been used before. This is the type of rope
06:18that was used in executions. It's three quarter inch white Italian hemp. There would be a
06:24brass eyelet on this piece here and that would slot through it. The brass eyelet on that
06:30longer end of the rope was actually ten foot six long. This piece of the rope would be
06:35all lined in very soft calf leather so that when it was placed around the neck, over the
06:41top of the hood, because there was such a backdraft when the trap doors fell open, that
06:45it was liable to blow the hood off. Then there was a black rubber washer slid down the rope
06:50and held it tight. Always had to be underneath his left jaw so that it snapped the second
06:55and third vertebrae and that was him instantaneous dead. The prison engineer would have all this
07:02fixed up before the executioners arrived. When they arrived at the prison one day before
07:07the execution, they would then come up in the afternoon up to the beam room here and
07:12check that the apparatus had all been fixed up correctly by the prison engineer. Then
07:17we'd put copper wire down the side of the rope and put a chalk mark across the side
07:21of the rope so when they dropped the sandbag to leave it suspended all night, they would
07:27come back in the morning and they could check that the chalk mark had moved maybe down two
07:31three inches. That means the rope had stretched that distance. This piece of the apparatus
07:37was used by the executioners to do their final adjustments to the rope to make sure that
07:42it was the exact drop that the executioner had decided according to the weight of the
07:46prisoner. One thousand pounds divided by stones and pounds gives the executioner to the nearest
07:51half inch what he's going to drop him in the morning. He would then adjust on the chains
07:54up here and bring the rope up two or three inches. He said that the rope was going to
07:59drop at seven foot one, five foot six, six foot six, whatever drop he had decided, the
08:04rope would stop dead on that line marked on the rope.
08:08The executioners would mark a T mark across the centre of the trap door so that when the
08:30trap door's opened he'd be dead centre and go straight down through the middle. There's
08:35a sandpit. The purpose of that was to catch any body fluids or excrement from the prisoner
08:40after he'd been hanged. The two prison officers would step onto these safety blinds on either
08:48side of the prisoner just to steady him and the prison officers would look up and get
08:52hold of their own safety strap to stop them falling through the trap doors. By this time
08:56the executioner had the hood on, then the rope and the system was doing the feet. Then
09:01the executioner stepped backwards and made sure that the trap doors were clear and then
09:04threw the lever and that was it, all over. After the execution the body would be left
09:13suspended for one hour. When the executioners would come back he was re-examined again to
09:17prove that he was dead. He would then be lowered down into the chamber underneath where his
09:22coffin would be lying there and he would be sealed and he would be taken outside. His
09:27body belongs to the state so he's buried within the prison grounds.
09:32This is the grave area in Berlinie Prison where the executed prisoners were buried.
09:39It started in Berlinie in 1946 after Duke Street Prison closed down and the first one
09:45was approximately here, which was John Lyons. The next one after him, shortly after him
09:51was Carricker. Then we came to Caldwell. Then the next one after that was Harris. Then
09:58we came to this grave here that always seems to be sinking. Robertson, the Glasgow policeman,
10:03he killed his wife, knocked her down with his car and he backed the car over her to
10:07make sure that he killed her. That's the Glasgow policeman. The next one after the
10:12Glasgow policeman was James Smith. This seems to be the grave that always seems to be missing
10:17in Berlinie. He was hanged on the 12th April 1952 and he was actually hanged on my birthday
10:22on a Saturday morning. The next grave after him was Patrick Devaney. He killed his wife
10:29with a hatchet and then to finish her really off he strangled her and that was Patrick
10:37Devaney. The next one after him was George Francis Shaw. He killed, I think it was a
10:42hermit down in Dumfries. After Shaw we come to Peter Manuel's grave, Scotland's most
10:49famous, notorious mass murderer. Then we come to the last one who was Anthony Miller. He
10:58was hanged by Harry Allen and Jock Stewart, the Edinburgh hangman. As the hangman were
11:03about to execute him, he said to the hangman, please mister, and just as they were putting
11:07the hood over his head, he said there was tears in his eyes and that was the last execution
11:11that was carried out in Berlinie Prison on the 22nd December 1960.
11:37Music
12:02Music
12:22They'd taken the trap doors away, the post mortem slab, they'd taken the beam away from
12:27the floor where the rope was attached to. It was quite emotional to actually see that
12:32had gone and there was just nothing left there whatsoever. It was like taking the Scott Monument
12:36from Princes Street. It really upset me. I thought well, here's a piece of history that
12:41they've actually taken away from the prison and demolished it and it can never, ever be
12:46rebuilt again. I was quite amazed to see all the graves open and I used to take the ashes
12:52from the boiler house and fill these graves in to keep them level. Never dreaming that
12:57I would ever see them opened again.
12:59Music
13:18I'm a believer in capital punishment. You've got to get rid of these evil people that are
13:23going about. I know that there's the possibility that there have been mistakes made, but if
13:30you are 100% sure, hang them.
13:36I have a letter from the Home Office saying that if I still wish to remain on the list
13:41of executioners, to fill in the appropriate form, which I did and I sent back to the Home
13:47Office. My name has been on the list for the last 40 odd years. I've made three applications
13:53to become an executioner. So as far as I know, I'm still on the list of a person willing
14:00to train as an executioner.
14:02Music
14:32Music
15:02Music
15:05What they've done to the body, they've killed it by judicial hanging. They've snapped its
15:10neck and that's it.
15:32.
16:02.