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following day, and Mack, who had been held in custody following her admission to hospital, was then charged with murder. Tried before Mr Justice Jelf, the defence claimed that accounts of the attacks had been greatly exaggerated by the witnesses and offered a plea of guilty of manslaughter. It took the jury just 20 minutes to return a verdict of guilty of murder.
    Mack weighed 168 pounds and stood just under 5 feet 9 inches tall. The drop was calculated at 6 feet 9 inches, and the execution was timed at 75 seconds. At the inquest the coroner recorded that death had been due to dislocation of the second and fourth vertebrae.
    The next entry in Harry’s diary notes that he assisted at the execution of Thomas Fairclough-Barrow at Pentonville on 9December. He records that the condemned man was 49 years old, weighed 137½ pounds, stood 5 feet 8½ inches tall and was given a drop of 6 feet 6 inches. Barrow was a partially disabled man who lived with his stepdaughter Emily Coates (aged 32), as man and wife, at Wapping. In October 1902, Fairclough-Barrow saw Emily drinking with another man and became violent towards her, to the extent that she feared for her life. As a result, she left him and took out a summons for assault. On 18 October, Fairclough-Barrow approached her as she walked to work and stabbed her several times in the heart; she died instantly. At his Old Bailey trial, a weak defence was put forward based on a claim of insanity; it proved unsuccessful. Prison records list the hangmen as William Billington assisted by his brother John – no mention of Harry – and the details of the prisoner’s height, weight and drop differ slightly from those recorded by Harry. It’s difficult to see why he should record the details in his diary if he wasn’t present. However, it is recorded in the diary and contributes towards the overall total of 105 executions credited to Harry Pierrepoint.
    There is no confusion surrounding the next entry in the diary. William and Elizabeth Brown had been married for 22 years. On 2 November they were heard to quarrel in a public house at Mortlake and on the following morning 42-year-old Brown, a labourer, went to a neighbour’s house and announced that his wife was dead. The police were called and found Elizabeth’s body at the foot of the stairs. Arrested and charged with murder, William claimed Elizabeth had fallen down the stairs, but later he was alleged to have made a statement admitting that he had killed her. At his Old Bailey trial, held just three weeks after the death of his wife, Brown denied ever making such a statement. The key witness for the prosecution was a young neighbour, who claimed that through a window he had seen Brown beating his wife.
    As sentence of death was passed, the father of the victim stood up in court and shouted to the judge: ‘Give him mercy, my Lord. I know her faults and he was a good husband to her for twenty years.’ But even as petitions for clemency were being forwarded to the Home Secretary, the Governor of Wandsworth wrote to Harry asking him to carry out the execution as the chief. As on his previous engagement as number one, he was assisted by John Ellis. Brown was given a drop of 6 feet and the execution passed off without incident.
    The last execution of the year took place at Warwick on 30 December and again Harry was asked to act as chief, after Billington had to turn down the offer, being engaged for a job in Ireland at the time. George Place had taken lodgings with Eliza Chetwynd at Baddersley Ensor, Warwickshire. Shortly thereafter, the 28-year-old miner began a relationship with her 30-year-old daughter, also named Eliza. Within a year George and the younger Eliza were living together as man and wife and she became pregnant. A son was born and Eliza took out a bastardy naming George as the father of the child. When he heard about this, George became enraged, stormed out of the house and did not return for two days. On 23 August, he was