Yorkshire Hangmen by Stephen Wade (Pen and Sword Books, £9.99)

1:23pm Saturday 26th April 2008

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WHAT kind of man can do a job that demands the cold-blooded killing of complete strangers time after time after time?

The centuries-long macabre fascination with hangmen is heightened by their habitual anonymity, partly for safety and partly for respectability's sake.

This leaves precious little material for historians such as Wade to work with, now that the last hangmen are dead or approaching death themselves.

Despite this, Wade manages to show us how the hangman was always a part-timer and often used drink to cope with the emotional stresses of the job.

In the 18th century, successive hangmen from York Prison were prisoners themselves. One, sheep stealer William "Mutton" Curry, had twice escaped the death sentence himself and made a highly incompetent hangman. Nor was he the only bungler. The 19th century debacles described in this book are a powerful argument against hanging in general.

By the 20th century, the hangman was justly proud of his expertise and speed, such as the Pierrepont family of Bradford, one among whom was Albert, who thanks to his memoirs and production line executions of Nazi war criminals is possibly the best known of all hangmen.

He was still in work when the supply of condemned men and women failed completely. Wade nobly resists the temptation to devote a large part of the book to him simply because there is more material available and tells us as much about Albert's father Harry, his uncle Tom, and James Billington, all of whom brought a professionalism to Yorkshire's death cells, despite the efforts of the clients' at times to frustrate them. These included the condemned man who was "so helpful he was getting in the way".

Hangmen needed other employment to make ends meet. It is a pity we don't hear more about their day jobs so that we get a more rounded picture of them. Likewise, their occupational secrecy means that Wade has to fill out his pages with many accounts of the crimes that filled the condemned cells. But at least the court cases provide relief from the endless procession to the gallows.