July 13 - The Execution of Ruth Ellis

This Day in History: 13 July 2020

 

13 July 1955

 

65 years ago, today, Ruth Ellis became the last woman to be hanged for murder in the United Kingdom, after she murdered her boyfriend. She was born in Wales in 1926, but left school as a young teenager, before having her own child and working a wide variety of jobs. Eventually, she would become a nightclub hostess, and marry dentist George Ellis, with whom she had a second child. However, the marriage was short-lived, and she returned to working in nightclubs. She later became involved in a volatile relationship with David Blakely, conceiving his child but miscarried after he hit her in the stomach. Her obsession with Blakely grew, and on April 10, she shot him to death in Hampstead, North London.

 

During Ellis' trial, she stated that she obviously intended to kill Blakely when she shot him. This key statement allowed the law to convict Ellis of intent to murder, so Ellis automatically received the death penalty. Despite this, thousands of people signed petitions that protested her punishment, but she was still hanged at Holloway Prison in Islington. Although she was the last woman executed for murder in Great Britain, Peter Anthony Allen and John Alan West were the last people executed in England in August 1964. The next year, the death penalty for murder was outlawed in England, Scotland and Wales, with Northern Ireland banning capital punishment in 1973. Nevertheless, several crimes, including treason, were still punishable by death until 1998.

 

Want to find out more about the life and execution of Ruth Ellis? Click here for more information, or here for more about the history of the British death penalty.