Albert Pierrepoint and the cultural persona of the twentieth-century hangman

Albert Pierrepoint was Britain’s most famous 20th-century hangman. This article utilises diverse sources in order to chart his public representation, or cultural persona, as hangman from his rise to prominence in the mid-1940s to his portrayal in the biopic Pierrepoint(2005). It argues that Pierrepoint exercised agency in shaping this persona through publishing his autobiography and engagement with the media, although there were also representations that he did not influence. In particular, it explores three iterations of his cultural persona – the Professional Hangman, the Reformed Hangman and the Haunted Hangman. Each of these built on and reworked historical antecedents and also communicated wider understandings and contested meanings in relation to capital punishment. As a hangman who remained in the public eye after the death penalty in Britain was abolished, Pierrepoint was an important, authentic link to the practice of execution and a symbolic figure in debates over reintroduction. In the 21st century, he was portrayed as a victim of the ‘secondary trauma’ of the death penalty, which resonated with worldwide campaigns for abolition

Application of Consistency Checking to Evaluation of Uncertainty in Multiple Replicate Measurements

The use of repeated measurements in the field of quantitative chemical analysis is common but leads to the problem of how to combine the measurement values and produce a result with an uncertainty following the GUM. A solution for combining repeated measurement results and their individual uncertainties is proposed here based on simple interval logic. The individual measurement values and their uncertainties are compared with the calculated average value to see if this implies that another, possibly unknown source of uncertainty is present. A simple numerical example is given showing how the method can be implemented in practice.JRC.D.3-Knowledge Transfer and Standards for Securit

Stable Noble Gas Isotopes for Strengthening Nuclear Safeguards: The Measurement Point of View

The lAEA is currently investigating new technologies to strengthen the effectiveness of its inspection and verification activities. In particular, the IAEA is looking for new methods and instruments, applicable to the detection of undeclared nuclear activities and facilities. Noble gases are produced during nuclear fission and are commonly released during reprocessing of the nuclear fuel. Recently, the IAEA Department of Safeguards held a Co-ordinated Expert Meeting on Noble Gas Monitoring at IAEA Headquarters in Vienna, to review the applicability of noble gas sampling, analysis and monitoring for IAEA safeguards. A feasibility study was performed at the EC-JRC¿Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements (IRMM) in cooperation with the ECJRC-Institute for Transuranium Elements (ITU.) This study investigated the potential to identify reprocessing activities by means of isotopic measurements of xenon and krypton. The KORIGEN code and the SCALE program were used to calculate the nuclear inventory of spent fuel for two scenarios involving high burn-up fuel, as well as for two scenarios that could be used for production of weapons-grade plutonium (low burn-up).JRC.E.8-Nuclear safeguards and Securit