The soft-heartedness of Mr. Berry's nature would quite unfit him for his post if it were not that he possesses a strong resolution, and can control his feelings when he finds duty warring against inclination.
In personal appearance he is a kindly-looking man, thickset and muscular, with a florid complexion and sandy hair. He stands 5ft. 8½in. high, weighs 13 stones, and does not look the sort of man to willingly injure anyone. The appearance of his right cheek is somewhat marred by a long, deep scar, extending downwards from the corner of the eye, which has given rise to one or two sensational stories from the pens of imaginative newspaper men. The scar was caused by the kick of a horse which he attempted to ride when he was a boy about ten years old. The horse was young, unbroken and vicious, and its kick narrowly missed being fatal. Across his forehead is another great scar, the result of a terrible blow received when arresting a desperate character in a Bradford public-house. The man was one of a gang of six, and his comrades helped him to violently resist arrest, but Berry stuck to his captive until he was safely locked in the Bradford Town Hall, and the six men all had to "do time" for the assault.
Mr. Berry was born on February 8th, 1852, at Heckmondwike, in Yorkshire. His father was a wool-stapler, holding a good position in the district. Young Berry's education was obtained at the Wrea Green School, near Lytham, where he gained several prizes for his writing and drawing. His writing ability was useful to him later in life, when he was employed by a lithographer, to write "copper-plate" transfers. In 1874 he was married, and has had six children. Of these, two boys and a girl died while young, and two boys and a girl are living.
The "executioner's office," as Mr. Berry likes to call it on his official communications, is a house just off City Road, Bradford. It is one of six owned by Mr. Berry. When he first took the position of executioner some of his neighbours were so prejudiced against the work, that they refused to live "next door to a hangman," and as landlords naturally object to losing two or three tenants for the sake of keeping one, Mr. Berry was obliged to move once or twice, and came to the conclusion that he had better be his own landlord. The prejudice which then existed has been lived down, and there is now no difficulty in letting neighbouring houses to respectable tenants.