CAPITAL PUNISHMENT ALSO KNOWN AS THE DEATH PENALTY . A CHILLING REMINDER OF THE WORK OF BRITAIN’S HANGMEN AND EXECUTIONERS …. HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK

Talk about objects that evoke strong feelings and debate ….  you need look no further than a simple rope which just happens to be the Hangman’s Noose .

Here at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail we house and display several original Hangman’s Nooses including the one used by James Berry on ” The Man They Couldn’t Hang ”  John “Babbacombe” Lee.  

We also house and have on display  several official government regulation nooses made by John Edgington , Old Kent Road, London. Some of which have the chamois leather noose and the the gutta percha on the noose ends. The gutta percha was later omitted from the regulation noose ends in 1955.

These noose’s would have possibly  been used for both test drops and executions  by several of Britain’s 20th Century Hangmen and Executioners, and also for executions carried out abroad . These ropes would undoubtedly have been used by the likes of Stephen Wade, Henry Kirk, Robert Lewis Stewart, John Ellis, Albert Pierrepoint and the last hangman in England Harry Allen .

Above : Original oil painting of  3 generations of the Pierrepoint family , who were all Britain’s chief executioners  … Painted by local Gloucestershire artist Paul Bridgman , on display at Littledean Jail.

Sadly official records no longer appear to exist in regards to  where and on whom these official government regulation J Edgington & Co noose’s were used . All we know is that Edgingtons were awarded the Government contract to supply all the execution noose’s from 1888 up until the abolition of the death penalty in 1964.

The only other official documentation or records  that exists in regards to the storage and transportation of  numbered J Edgington nooses is that which is held at HMP Wandsworth , London.

We also feature on display an array of handwritten and signed correspondence from a number of hangmen.

All in all a hopefully  unique,  historical and educational insight into the life and times of Capital Punishment within the UK .

ABOVE AND BELOW: VARIOUS EXAMPLES OF OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT ISSUE HANGMAN NOOSE’S WHICH WERE MADE BY J EDGINGTON & CO , OLD KENT ROAD , LONDON. THESE WERE MANUFACTURED BY THEM FROM 1888 UNTIL THE ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN 1965 .

Official inscription of Government  Hangman nNoose makers  J. Edgington  on brass eyelets .

close-up image of vulcanised rubber noose washer and ” gutta percha ” covering

 

Close up image of Chamois Leather covered noose

 

BELOW IS AN INSIGHT INTO SOME OF VARIOUS HANGMEN RELATED EXHIBIT MATERIAL HERE ON DISPLAY, WHICH INCLUDES  ORIGINAL HANGMAN’S NOOSE’S USED BY GEORGE SMITH POPULARLY KNOWN AS ” THROTTLER SMITH ” AND  JAMES BERRY ON THE “MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG ” – JOHN “BABBACOMBE” LEE . ALSO  HANDWRITTEN  AND SIGNED  LETTERS, BUSINESS  CARDS AND RECEIPTS ETC.

GEORGE SMITH ( 1805-1874 )

George Smith, popularly known as Throttler Smith, was an English hangman from 1840 until 1872. He was born in Rowley Regis in the English West Midlands, where he performed the majority of his executions George Smith, popularly known as Throttler Smith, was an English hangman from 1840 until 1872. He was born in Rowley Regis in the English West Midlands, where he performed the majority of his executionsNOOSE’S USED BY GEORGE SMITH POPULARLY KNOWN AS ” THROTTLER SMITH “NOOSE USED BY GEORGE SMITH POPULARLY KNOWN AS ” THROTTLER SMITH “

WILLIAM CALCRAFT  (1800 -1879 )

William Calcraft was a 19th-century English hangman, one of the most prolific of British executioners. It is estimated in his 45-year career he carried out 450 executions.

WILLIAM MARWOOD ( 1818-1883)

William Marwood was a hangman for the British government. He developed the technique of hanging known as the “long drop”.

JAMES BERRY (1852-1913 )

James Berry was an English executioner from 1884 until 1891. Berry was born in Heckmondwike in the West Riding of Yorkshire, where his father worked as a wool-stapler.

JOHN ELLIS (1874 -1932 )

John Ellis was a British executioner for 23 years, from 1901 to 1924. His other occupations were as a Rochdale hairdresser and newsagent.

ALBERT PIERREPOINT  ( 1943 -1992 )

Albert Pierrepoint was a long-serving hangman in England. He executed at least 400 people, including William Joyce and John Amery. In Germany and Austria after the war, he executed some 200 people who had been convicted of war crimes

DARK TOURISM HERE IN THE UK ORIGINAL KU KLUX KLAN EXPLOITATION AND SEXPLOITATION MOVIE POSTERS … BANNED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD , BUT HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK

HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AND THROUGH OUR BUSINESS FACEBOOK WE TRY AND PROVIDE A BALANCED AND EDUCATIONAL INTERACTIVE INSIGHT INTO WHAT MANY DEEM TO BE TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS .

PLEASE DO BE AWARE THAT  THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IT’S OWNER , OR ANY OF IT’S STAFF HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVE NO AFFILIATION , CONNECTION OR INVOLVEMENT WITH ANY EXTREMIST , POLITICALLY MOTIVATED OR OTHERWISE MOVEMENTS WHATSOEVER …… WE SIMPLY EXHIBIT AND TOUCH UPON A GREAT MANY POLITICALLY INCORRECT AND TABOO SUBJECT MATTERS THAT NO OTHER VISITOR ATTRACTIONS DARE COVER IN THE WAY WE CHOOSE TO DO HERE. …. “IT’S ALL HISTORY FOR GOODNESS SAKE”….EVEN IF ON OCCASIONS, SENSITIVE , THOUGHT PROVOKING SUBJECT MATTERS THAT INCITE STRONG DEBATE .

WIDELY REGARDED TO BE BLACK RACISM MOVIES MANY OF THESE NOW BANNED KU KLUX KLAN MOVIE POSTERS WERE DEEMED TO BE A GLORIFICATION TOOL AND USED FOR RECRUITMENT OF NEW MEMBERS INTO THIS WHITE EXTREMIST HOODED ROBE MOVEMENT

 

HERE BELOW IS A BRIEF PICTORIAL INSIGHT INTO SOME OF THE KKK MEMORBILIA ITEMS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL

Movies about the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Ever since the release of legendary director D.W. Griffith’s controversial epic The Birth of the Nation (1915), based on Thomas F. Dixon Jr.’s (play and) novel titled The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan and featuring silent star Lillian Gish and future Oscar winner Donald Crisp (among others), classic Hollywood seems to have avoided taking on the KKK to expose its wicked acts or its members’ ignorant beliefs in any substantive way. Though there are several dramas which incorporate it – or at least Klan-like organizations – peripherally, classic films that feature any real detail about its beginnings, longevity, charters, or even insight into its leaders and/or their motivations etc. are surprisingly absent. Maybe the studios felt that real evil and its practitioners were being adequately portrayed in their gangster and war pictures, or perhaps there were fears that a movie about the Klan wouldn’t make good at the box office (particularly in the South)?

The Warner Bros.’s Storm Warning (1951) wasn’t very specific about the KKK’s prejudices, though much of the film’s dialogue (from prosecutor Ronald Reagan and the miscast Ginger Rogers character) does deliver the requisite indictment of the organization and its members: too scared to act without the courage of numbers or show their faces (hence the hoods). But the twist is that the Grand Dragon’s real motivation for leading the clandestine group is financial – there’s real money for him in the dues and the paraphernalia he sells to its members – such that he comes off as a corrupt union boss, or worse a capitalist;-) In the end, the leader’s true self centered (versus “all for one”) nature is revealed and the enraged and disillusioned group wises up and runs for cover from the law. Warner’s Black Legion (1937), starring Humphrey Bogart and featuring a plot plausible enough to earn Robert Lord his second Best Writing-Original Story AA nom, did a better job of exploring the roots of hatred and xenophobia that can seduce one to join such an organization. Since I wrote about MGM’s Stars in My Crown (1950) in my earlier Films about Faith essay, I’ll not include any more text about it here other than to mention that actor Ed Begley (Sr.) seemed to have excelled in portraying angry racist characters. The WB’s (and producer-director Mervyn LeRoy’s) overlong drama The FBI Story (1959), a veritable paean to the organization’s squeaky clean agents and the stout leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, warrants barely a mention except that one of its storylines includes the infiltration of the KKK by the film’s principal character, played by James Stewart.

Which brings me to The Mating Call (1928), produced by Howard Hughes and including titles written by future Oscar winner Herman J. Mankiewicz. The Klan-like organization in this one is named “The Order” and its purpose is to enforce a morality code within its community: black hooded individuals tie a wife beater to a cross and whip him for abusing his spouse. But the primary sin herein is adultery. Upon returning home a hero after serving his country during World War I, Leslie Hatton (Thomas Meighan) finds that his wartime marriage to Rose (Evelyn Brent, playing a sexually aggressive man-eater) was annulled by her parents. But even though he’s (somehow) not interested in having an affair with his former bride, Hatton’s accused of fooling around with Rose by her current husband Lon, a hypocrite that’s having extramarital relations of his own (with a judge’s daughter, no less). Lon uses The Order to threaten the war hero to leave his wife alone. Hatton’s solution to avoid future visits and further scrutiny from these local self-appointed moral authorities includes his going to Ellis Island and marrying a French girl (Renee Adoree, The Big Parade (1925)) whose parents want to immigrate to the United States. However, a subsequent scandal affecting the aforementioned characters (and others) leads The Order to become involved in Hatton’s life again.

Some other dramas that feature the KKK or like-minded groups are: Legion of Terror (1936), The Burning Cross (1947), Another Part of the Forest (1948), The Klansman (1974), Places in the Heart (1984), which earned writer (director) Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)) his third Oscar, and Mississippi Burning (1988); plus, it’s hard to forget the hilarious scene in Mel Brooks’ western spoof Blazing Saddles (1974) in which Cleavon Little (accompanied by Gene Wilder) dons a white rob and hood

ALEX SANDERS “KING OF THE WITCHES ” AND HIS HIGH PRIESTESS WIFE MAXINE “QUEEN WITCH ” …. ON DISPLAY IN AND AMONGST THE ” WITCHCRAFT AND THE OCCULT COLLECTION ” AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL , UK

One of the collage features on display within Littledean Jail’s “Witchcraft, Paganism, Wiccan, Satanism, The Occult, The Illuminati and Secret Societies Collection ” .

Alex Sanders ( 6 June 1926-30 April 1988).  Born Orrell Alexander Carter, who went under the craft name Verbius, was an English occultist and High Priest in the Pagan religion of Wicca, responsible for founding the tradition of Alexandrian Wicca during the 1960s. Raised in a working-class family, he was introduced to esoteric ideas by his mother and grandmother from a young age, and as a young man began working as a medium in the local Spiritualist Churches before going on to study and practice ceremonial magic. In 1963, he was initiated into Gardnerian Wicca before founding his own coven, through which he merged many aspects of ceremonial magic into Wicca. He claimed to have been initiated by his Grandmother as a child, though evidence for this is lacking. Throughout the 1960s, he would court publicity in the press, appearing in a number of documentaries, marrying the far younger Maxine Sanders, and being declared to be the “King of the Witches” by his followers, something that led to other prominent Gardnerian Witches, such as Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone, attacking him in the press. In the late 1970s and 1980s, he went on to work with a ceremonial magical group known as the Ordine Della Luna, prior to his death. The tradition he founded with Maxine Sanders became known as Alexandrian Wicca.

Below : An intriguing video footage on the seemingly bizarre life of Alex Sanders

Below : One of the collage features on display within Littledean Jail’s “Witchcraft, Paganism, Wiccan, Satanism, The Occult, The Illuminati and Secret Societies Collection ” .

Below : Alex Sanders initiation into the sacred Mysteries

Below : One of the collage features on display within Littledean Jail’s “Witchcraft, Paganism, Wiccan, Satanism, The Occult, The Illuminati and Secret Societies Collection ” .

Above: Original painting by Paul Bridgman on display here at Littledean Jail of Alex Sanders , Maxine Sanders during the initiation of Janet Farrar, the wife of High Priest husband Stewart Farrar.

Above: Original painting of High Priest Stewart Farrar and his High Priestess wife Janet , here on display at Littledean Jail

Below: Baphomet Ouija board on display at Littledean Jail

Below: Original paintings by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman depicting Alex Sanders and his High Priestess wife Maxine,  along with Baphomet… The Horned God , both on display at the jail

Below : Collage of newspaper clippings featuring Alex Sanders on display at Littledean Jail

Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman depicting Gerald Gardner, and High Priestess’s Monique Wilson and Patricia Crowther  on display at the jail

LP Album cover of Alex Sanders  ” A Witch Is Born ” on display at the Jail

Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman depicting Aleister Crowley ,   on display at the jail

Below: Various images and a brief insight into an Alexandrian Casting Circle, Baphomet Horned God, Witchcraft Altar etc , here on display at Littledean Jail, Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire, UK .

Above and Below : Original oil paintings by local artist Paul Bridgman depicting our Alexandrian Baphomet “Horned God” on display in and amongst our exhibition areas.

HEINRICH HIMMLER – INFAMOUS NAZI SS WARLORD, a.k.a “LORD OF THE RUNES”…. THE NAZI OCCULT & HIS WEWELSBURG CASTLE. WITCHCRAFT, ILLUMINATI, SECRET SOCIETIES & MUCH MORE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, UK.

BELOW IS  A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO THE NAZI SS AND OCCULT EXHIBITION HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL . VERY DIVERSE AND THOUGHT PROVOKING TO SAY THE LEAST .

WE ALSO FEATURE AN INTRIGUING INSIGHT INTO THE WORLD OF THE ILLUMINATI , WITCHCRAFT, THE OCCULT, DEVIL WORSHIP, MYSTERIOUS CELEBRITY DEATHS AND BEYOND

Above: Original painting on display at The Crime Through Time Collection, Littledean Jail, Forest of Dean, UK.

Above: Original painting on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail, Forest of Dean , UK.

Below: Image of Baphomet, favoured by Himmler’s Nazi Occult.

Above: Baphomet Ouija Board on display at Littledean Jail .

BELOW IS LINK TO OUR WEBSITE PAGE WHICH FEATURES MORE INFORMATION, IMAGES AND VIDEOS …. AS IS FEATURED HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO ACCESS OUR PAGE 

Himmler’s SS Mystical castle: Wewelsburg:

 

 

It is said that the Wewelsburg was going to be the “Holy Grail Castle” of the Nazi regime, once it had established itself as rulers of the world. Is this true, and, if so, what was their ambition in this vast building project?

 

It is clear that any Grail Castle to be built would have a geometrical design, and in the case of the Wewelsburg, that is a triangle. For Himmler, the Wewelsburg was not so much the location where the Grail was hidden, but where his Grail Order – the SS, the Schutzstaffel – and its sacred treasures – rumoured to be the Spear of Destiny – would be brought, and from which the magical power of the Nazi regime would radiate out.

The castle was not built by the Nazi regime; its history started several centuries before the National Socialists came to power in 1933. In its current form, the castle was built from 1603 to 1609, as a secondary residence for Fürstbischof Theodor von Fürstenberg, the prince-bishop of Paderborn, whose primary residence was the castle at Neuhaus. However, there existed a castle on the site from the 9th century onwards. At the time, it withheld an invasion of the Huns, its location near what was believed to be the site where the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest occurred. This battle occurred in 9 AD, when various Germanic tribes made an alliance and ambushed and destroyed three Roman legions. The battle was the start of a seven year long war, whereby the Rhine became the boundary of the Roman Empire. It should therefore not come as a surprise that it was seen as a symbol of German unity and a demonstration that a united Germany could conquer all – as it was, of course, felt it would do again….

 

The Nazis plans: put into effect by the use of slave labour…

It meant that the estate had the shape of a spear, underlining the unconfirmed belief that the site would become the location where the Spear of Destiny would be held. One story goes that Hitler saw his future when he visited the Museum in Vienna where the Spear was on display, and that he became convinced that whoever possessed it, controlled the fate of the world. That the Wewelsburg was going to be the New Jerusalem and the centre of Germany is in evidence as from 1941 onwards, the architects called the complex the “Centre of the World”. In line with sacred mythology, the design would sit on a mountain, surrounded by a lake, as there were plans to flood the valley.

         

Original painting on display at The Crime Through Time Collection , Littledean Jail, Forest of Dean, UK