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Pierrepoint was born in Clayton, a village near [[Bradford]], [[Yorkshire]]; his father, Henry Pierrepoint (1878-1922) served as an official executioner between 1901 and 1910, and Henry's brother Thomas Pierrepoint (1870-1954) between 1909 and 1946. The Pierrepoints were not the only hanging dynasty; three members of the Billington family served as executioners in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Pierrepoint was born in Clayton, a village near [[Bradford]], [[Yorkshire]]; his father, Henry Pierrepoint (1878-1922) served as an official executioner between 1901 and 1910, and Henry's brother Thomas Pierrepoint (1870-1954) between 1909 and 1946. The Pierrepoints were not the only hanging dynasty; three members of the Billington family served as executioners in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Albert Pierrepoint went 'on the list' (the list of [[Home Office]] approved executioners in 1931, following a training course at Pentonville Prison in [[London]]. However, such was the professional dominance of his Uncle Tom that it was ten years before he received the opportunity to act as 'Number One' - executioner - in the hanging of a London gangster. In the interim he frequently travelled with his uncle acting as his assistant.

Albert Pierrepoint went 'on the list' (the list of [[Home Office]]) approved executioners in 1931, following a training course at Pentonville Prison in [[London]]. However, such was the professional dominance of his Uncle Tom that it was ten years before he received the opportunity to act as 'Number One' - executioner - in the hanging of a London gangster. In the interim he frequently travelled with his uncle acting as his assistant.

Pierrepoint's was the last face to be seen by many famous criminals, including the acid-bath murderer [[John George Haigh]], the murderer [[Ruth Ellis]], the last woman to hang in the UK, John Christie, the Rillington Place killer, and wartime traitors John Amery and [[William Joyce]] (Lord Haw-haw). He also hanged two men who later received posthumous pardons: [[Timothy Evans]] (hanged for a crime almost certainly committed by John Christie, and whose fate helped those campaigning for abolition of capital punishment) and [[Derek Bentley]], a teenage burglar whose under-age accomplice murdered a police officer when Bentley was already in police custody. Pierrepoint served after the war in Germany as executioner for the British military government, and hanged numerous war criminals including Josef Kramer, the 'Beast of [[Belsen]]'. His greatest professional disappointment was that he did not conduct the execution of the top Nazis following the [[Nuremberg Trials]] in 1946. Nuremberg was in the American zone of occupation, and in his memoirs Pierrepoint was critical of the bungled and inhumane way in which they were conducted. He took pride in the speed and efficiency with which he conducted a hanging, and claimed that between his entering the condemned cell and the instantaneous death of the convict could be achieved within eight or ten seconds.

Pierrepoint's was the last face to be seen by many famous criminals, including the acid-bath murderer [[John George Haigh]], the murderer [[Ruth Ellis]], the last woman to hang in the UK, John Christie, the Rillington Place killer, and wartime traitors John Amery and [[William Joyce]] (Lord Haw-haw). He also hanged two men who later received posthumous pardons: [[Timothy Evans]] (hanged for a crime almost certainly committed by John Christie, and whose fate helped those campaigning for abolition of capital punishment) and [[Derek Bentley]], a teenage burglar whose under-age accomplice murdered a police officer when Bentley was already in police custody. Pierrepoint served after the war in Germany as executioner for the British military government, and hanged numerous war criminals including Josef Kramer, the 'Beast of [[Belsen]]'. His greatest professional disappointment was that he did not conduct the execution of the top Nazis following the [[Nuremberg Trials]] in 1946. Nuremberg was in the American zone of occupation, and in his memoirs Pierrepoint was critical of the bungled and inhumane way in which they were conducted. He took pride in the speed and efficiency with which he conducted a hanging, and claimed that between his entering the condemned cell and the instantaneous death of the convict could be achieved within eight or ten seconds.