Tom started out on the path to Official Executioner after his brother, Henry, persuaded him to try for a position on the Home Office list of executioners.
Unlike the other Pierrepoints, Tom had not cherished a lifelong ambition to be a hangman and his career in the profession was largely by default. After spending one of the compulsory two weeks training at Pentonville he was sent home by the authorities as he was considered already up to standard. This was probably because Tom had already received training from Henry in the art of execution, in a stable at the back of Henry's cottage.
Tom was the longest serving of the Pierrepoint executioners and in over forty years carried out around 300 hangings. He was responsible for hanging such notorious criminals as Louie Calvert, Frederick Seddon and Charlotte Bryant.
He retired in 1946 by which time he was in his mid-seventies. He encouraged his nephew, Albert to assist him when it became obvious of Albert's vocational ambitions.
Tom Pierrepoint died in 1954 just ten years before the last hanging took place in the United Kingdom.
