Early Life and Marriages Louisa Merrifield was born in 1906, making her 46 at the time of her execution at Strangeways Prison in Manchester on the 18th of September 1953. She would be the third-to-last woman to be hanged in the U.K. and the last of four at Strangeways. She had been married three times, … Read more
The penultimate British female hanging was that of Styllou Pantopiou Christofi, a fifty four year old Greek Cypriot, at London’s Holloway prison on Wednesday the 15th of December, 1954. Styllou had been convicted of the murder of her daughter in law, thirty six year old Hella Dorothea Christofiswhom she had battered and strangled to death at … Read more
Attribute Detail Subject Ruth Ellis (née Neilson) Historical Significance Last woman executed under British law Date of Execution 13 July 1955 Location HM Prison Holloway, London Executioner Albert Pierrepoint (assisted by Royston Rickard) Victim David Blakely (shot 10 April 1955 at The Magdala, Hampstead) Key Statutory Impact Spurred the Homicide Act 1957 (Diminished Responsibility) Ruth … Read more
Background and Early Life Twenty-two-year-old John Wilson Vickers became the first person executed in England and Wales since August 1955, and the first under the new Homicide Act, which became law on March 21, 1957. Section 5 of this Act made murder committed in the course or furtherance of theft a capital crime. Vickers, originally … Read more
The Homicide Act of 1957 was a landmark in British law, as it was the first time different categories of murder were distinguished. This act limited the death penalty to five specific categories of what would now be known as capital murder: Additionally, it allowed for the execution of a person who committed a second … Read more
