The smiling executioner

Albert Pierrepoint hanged more than 400 criminals in his long career. He said "I hanged John Reginald Christie, the Monster of Rillington Place, in less time than it took the ash to fall off a cigar. I had left half-smoked in my room at Pentonville."


This tribute, along with the tools of his trade and life castings of his face and hands, are to be found in the Wandsworth Prison Museum.


A  shed packed full of well curated memorabilia has been curated by Prison Officer Stewart McLaughlin. With no official funding, he has been keeping this collection as a labour of love.


Open just for today I discovered that D R Hill, the architect designed it in such a way that the wheel hub design could be extended from the original 700 single inmate occupancy, to 1000. Today it is two prisoners per cell but given that the Victorians the prison was designed for were smaller and less well nourished, it's going to be a squeeze now.


I also asked about the infamous arrow design on prison uniform. It was derived from the crest of a landowner who was trying to identify thieves. Today the MOD still use the sign to denote their property.


Fascinating stuff.