Edith Thompson was having an affair with 20-year-old Frederick Bywaters, a ship’s steward. Their relationship began in June 1921 when he accompanied the Thompsons on holiday to the Isle of Wight. Bywaters moved in as a lodger while waiting for his next ship assignment but was evicted by Percy Thompson for getting too friendly with Edith. He witnessed a violent row between Edith and Percy and later comforted her. Bywaters’ next ship was scheduled to sail on 9th September 1921, and he saw Edith secretly from time to time until ultimately booking into a hotel with her under false names.
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Bywaters was a decisive (impulsive) young man who, at least according to him, acted alone in stabbing Percy Thompson, whom he felt was making Edith’s life miserable.
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The Murder
On October 4th, 1922, Bywaters lay in wait just after midnight for Edith and Percy, who were returning home to Ilford (in Essex) after a night out at a theatre in London. He stabbed Percy several times. The attack took place on the public highway at de Vere Gardens in Belgrave Road, Ilford. Edith was said to have shouted “Oh don’t! Oh don’t!” Bywaters escaped, and Percy died at the scene. Edith was hysterical but was questioned by police once she calmed down, alleging that a strange man had stabbed Percy.
Investigation and Arrest
The Thompsons’ lodger, Fanny Lester, informed the police about Bywaters, who had also lodged with them. They also learned that he worked for P & O, the shipping line. Inspector Scholes of the Port of London police discovered about 60 letters in Bywaters’ cabin on the S.S. Morea moored at Tilbury, all written by Edith to him. Bywaters was arrested and charged with murder.
Edith was also arrested soon afterward and charged with murder or alternatively with being an accessory to murder. She did not know Bywaters had been arrested but later saw him at the police station and said, “Oh God, why did he do it?” continuing, “I didn’t want him to do it.”
Bywaters’ Account
Bywaters insisted he had acted alone and gave his account as follows:
“I waited for Mrs. Thompson and her husband. I pushed her to one side, also pushing him into the street. We struggled. I took my knife from my pocket and we fought and he got the worst of it.”
“The reason I fought with Thompson was because he never acted like a man to his wife. He always seemed several degrees lower than a snake. I loved her and I could not go on seeing her leading that life. I did not intend to kill him. I only meant to injure him. I gave him the opportunity of standing up to me like a man but he wouldn’t.”
Bywaters stuck to this story during the trial, which opened at the Old Bailey on December 6th, 1922, before Mr. Justice Shearman.
Edith’s Letters
Edith had written no less than 62 intimate letters to Bywaters—and foolishly, they had kept them. In these, she referred to Bywaters as “Darlingest and Darlint.” Some letters described how she had tried to murder Percy on several occasions. In one referring, apparently, to an attempt to poison him, she wrote, “You said it was enough for an elephant.” “Perhaps it was. But you don’t allow for the taste making it possible for only a small quantity to be taken.” She had also tried broken glass and told Bywaters that she had made three attempts but that Percy had discovered some in his food, so she had to stop.
Edith had sent Bywaters press cuttings describing murders by poisoning and had told Bywaters that she had aborted herself after becoming pregnant by him.
The Trial
At the trial, Bywaters refused to incriminate Edith. When cross-examined, he told the prosecution that he did not believe Edith had actually attempted to poison Percy but had rather a vivid imagination and a passion for sensational novels that extended to imagining herself as one of the characters.
Edith was advised against going into the witness box by her lawyer but decided to do so and promptly incriminated herself when asked what she meant when she had written to Bywaters asking him to send her “something to give her husband.” She said she had “no idea.” Hardly convincing!
The Judge’s Summing Up
The judge described Edith’s letters as “full of the outpourings of a silly but at the same time, a wicked affection.” The summing up was fair in law but the judge made much of the adultery. Mr. Justice Shearman was obviously a very Victorian gentleman with high moral principles.
He also instructed the jury, however:
“You will not convict her unless you are satisfied that she and he agreed that this man should be murdered when he could be, and she knew that he was going to do it, and directed him to do it, and by arrangement between them he was doing it.”
The jury was not convinced by the defence case and took just over two hours to find them both guilty of murder on December 11th. Even after the verdict was read out, Bywaters continued to defend Edith loudly. However, the judge had to pass the death sentence on both of them as required by law.
Imprisonment and Appeals
Edith was taken back to Holloway and Bywaters to Pentonville, prisons half a mile apart in London, and placed in the condemned cells. Both lodged appeals, which were heard before the Lord Chief Justice and Justices Darling and Salter on December 21st, 1922, and were dismissed.
She was an adulteress, an abortionist, and possibly a woman who incited a murder—or worse, had tried to poison her husband. At least this is how she was judged against the morals of the time.
That is until she was sentenced to death.
Public Reaction and Execution
The public and media, initially hostile, did a complete U-turn and campaigned for a reprieve. Nearly a million signatures were collected on a petition to spare her. However, this, together with Bywaters’ repeated confession that he alone killed Thompson, failed to persuade the Home Secretary to reprieve her.
At 9:00 a.m. on January 9th, 1923, both were executed in their respective prisons. Bywaters met his end bravely at the hands of William Willis, still protesting Edith’s innocence.
Edith’s Final Hours
Edith had major mood swings up to the morning of the execution, expecting to be reprieved all along. According to René Weis’ book The True Story of Edith Thompson, Dr. John Hall Morton, governor and medical officer of Holloway, administered medication to Edith. At 8:15 a.m., 45 minutes before her death, she was injected with 1/32 grain (2 mg) of strychnine, and at 8:40 a.m., with 1/100 grain of scopolamine-morphine (Purlight sleep) and 1/6 grain of morphia (10.8 mg).
At the stated dose, strychnine is a tonic, and the other drugs would have sedated her with maximum effect reached after 20 minutes. It has been variously stated that she fainted and had to be carried to the execution shed or was dragged screaming to it. Elizabeth Cronin, deputy governor of Holloway and present at the time, refuted these claims.
This is supported by a statement in the Commons, reported in Hansard on 27 March 1956, by then Home Secretary Major Lloyd-George, who said Edith was sedated and thus had to be carried to the gallows and supported on it. He told Parliament he had examined all evidence and concluded that nothing untoward happened.
The Execution
The LPC4 form gives fracture/dislocation as the cause of death and mentions bruising of the neck from the rope but does not mention the allegedly considerable amount of blood dripping from between her legs after hanging.
When hangman John Ellis entered, she was semi-conscious as he strapped her wrists. According to his biography, she looked dead already. She was carried from the condemned cell to the gallows in the execution shed by two warders and two assistants (Robert Baxter and Thomas Phillips) and held on the trap while Ellis completed preparations. Edith weighed 130 ¼ lbs and was given a drop of 6’10”.
Depending on whose version you believe, there was considerable blood dripping after the hanging. Some, including Bernard Spilsbury, the famous pathologist who carried out the autopsy, claimed it was caused by her being pregnant and miscarrying, while others said it was due to inversion of the uterus. Elizabeth Cronin, present at the hanging, claimed nothing untoward happened.
Pregnancy and Aftermath
Edith had been in custody over three months before the execution and would probably have known she was pregnant. Under English law, the execution would have been stayed until after she had given birth; in practice, she would likely have been reprieved. She had everything to gain from claiming pregnancy, so it is surprising she did not, even if she had missed two or three periods.
However, she had aborted herself earlier, which may have damaged her uterus; combined with the force of the drop, this could have caused inversion. The bleeding may also have been the start of a heavy period. Research done in Germany before and during World War II on condemned women showed menstruation was often interrupted by the stress of trial and sentence but could be triggered by the shock of learning the execution date—likely only one or two days before Edith’s hanging.
Legacy and Burial
This hanging had a profound effect on those present. Several prison officers took early retirement. John Ellis retired in 1923 and committed suicide in 1931.
Her body was buried “within the precincts of the prison in which she was last confined,” per her sentence, but was reburied at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, in 1970, when Holloway Prison was rebuilt. On November 22nd, 2018, she was formally reinterred alongside her parents, in accordance with her mother’s wishes, in the City of London Cemetery.
Comment
Although there is no evidence that Edith physically participated in the murder, and I personally tend to believe she did not intend Bywaters to kill Percy, there is the problem of “common purpose.” In law, if two people conspire to murder a third, it does not matter who struck the fatal blow—both are equally guilty.
The law favors written evidence as safer and stronger than hearsay or confused witness statements. In this case, there was a veritable pile of it, mostly incriminating—letters about poisoning Percy, and asking Bywaters to “do something,” etc.
The jury accepted the prosecution’s case that this amounted to common purpose to murder Percy, after a short 2¼ hour discussion.
So was she evil or just a silly, over-romantic woman who gave no thought to the consequences of her irresponsible letters? My personal view, having studied the case, is the latter.
It should be noted that divorce was much harder in those days. If Percy refused to divorce her, as he did, her only alternatives were to run away with Bywaters or kill Percy.
As with all capital cases, the Home Secretary had the power of reprieve. Many were shocked he did not exercise it here. I feel he should have given her the benefit of the doubt. Her crime was hardly in the same class as four of the other seven women hanged since the beginning of the century—they had been baby farmers!
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