Harry Allen

Harry Bernard Allen (5 November 1911- 14 August 1992) was one of Britain's last executioners, officiating between 1941 and 1964 when he was the chief executioner at 29 executions and assisted at 53 others. He never executed anyone in Cyprus despite claims to the contrary(i).Fact|date=July 2007

Following the resignation of Albert Pierrepoint and death of Steve Wade (both of which occurred in 1956) Allen and Robert Leslie Stewart jointly became Chief Executioners, but the Homicide Act of 1957 reduced the number of condemned criminals by some 75%, from an average of 15 a year in the early 1950s to approximately 4 a year in the late 1950s. Allen's most controversial case was that of James Hanratty, hanged on 4 April 1962 at Bedford Prison for the A6 murder case, although efforts to clear Hanratty's name continued until 2001 when DNA testing matched Hanratty to the crime scene.

Allen performed the last execution in Northern Ireland when he hanged Robert McGladdery in Crumlin Road Prison, Belfast in December 1961. He also performed the last hanging in Scotland when Henry Burnett was hanged in Aberdeen on 15 August 1963 for the murder of Thomas Guyan. He also performed one of the two final executions in Britain, when at 8.00 a.m. on 13 August 1964 Gwynne Owen Evans was hanged at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West. This occurred simultaneously with the execution of Evans' accomplice Peter Anthony Allen, who was hanged at Walton Prison in Liverpool by Robert Leslie Stewart.

Allen habitually wore a bow-tie during executions, [http://www.murderfiles.com/harry_allen.html] as noted by Albert Pierrepoint in his autobiography.

His life story and those he executed is in a new book published in September 2008 called "Britain's Last Hangman" by True Crime Library publishers of True Crime, Master Detective and True Detective in the UK.

(i) www.truecrimelibrary.com