Edith and Frederick Thompson and Bywaters British couple executed for murder Country: Great Britain

Biography of Edith and Frederick Thompson and Bywaters

Edith Jessie Thompson, born on December 25, 1893, in Dalston, London, was the eldest of five children of clerk William Eustace Graydon and his wife Ethel Jessie Liles, the daughter of a police constable. In her childhood, she was a happy and gifted girl, who sang and danced beautifully and showed her aptitude for arithmetic. After finishing school, Edith became an accountant for a company that imported fabrics, quickly establishing herself as a stylish and intelligent woman. She was appointed as the chief buyer and regularly traveled to Paris on behalf of the company.

In 1909, at the age of 15, Edith met Percy Thompson, who was three years older than her, and after six years of courtship, they married in 1916. The couple bought a house in the fashionable area of Ilford, Essex, and enjoyed a comfortable life while their careers flourished. In 1920, they met 18-year-old Frederick Bywaters, whom Edith already knew as he was her younger brother's school friend. Bywaters joined the merchant navy in 1920, and the 26-year-old Edith immediately became interested in this handsome and impulsive young man. Furthermore, the married woman saw him as her romantic ideal, especially after Fred started sharing stories of his adventures around the world, while Percy seemed like a conservative bore to her.

Percy welcomed the youthfulness around him, and the trio, including Edith's sister Avis, went on holiday to the Isle of Wight. Upon their return, Percy rashly invited Freddie to temporarily live with them. Shortly thereafter, Edith and Frederick started an affair, which her husband discovered. A quarrel ensued, and when Bywaters demanded Percy to grant Edith a divorce, Percy threw him out of the house. Later, Edith claimed that after Bywaters' departure, Percy had been violent towards her, hitting her several times and throwing her across the room.

From September 1921 to September 1922, Bywaters was at sea, and during this time, Edith wrote him constant letters. When he returned, the lovers reunited. On October 3, 1922, the Thompson family was returning from London's Criterion Theatre on Piccadilly Circus when a man suddenly emerged from the bushes near their home and attacked Percy. After a brutal struggle, during which Edith was also knocked to the ground, Percy was fatally stabbed. He died before Edith could call for help. The assailant fled the scene. Neighbors reported hearing a woman screaming hysterically, "No, please don't," and by the time the police arrived, she was still inconsolable. In the police station, the distraught woman claimed to know the killer's identity and named Frederick Bywaters. Believing she was a witness to the crime rather than an accomplice, Edith revealed her relationship with Bywaters.

During the investigation, the police discovered over 16 love letters Edith had written to Frederick. These letters became tangible evidence of Edith Thompson's involvement in the murder. It was concluded that if two people conspired to cause the death of a third person, and one of them carries out the act, expressing the intention of both, then according to the law, they are equally guilty. The trial began on December 6, 1922, at the Old Bailey. Bywaters claimed to have acted without Edith's knowledge, stating that she couldn't have known because he himself didn't want to kill Percy. However, Edith's passionate love declarations and her desire to be free from Percy were evident in the letters. She wrote about breaking a lightbulb and mixing the shards into Percy's mashed potatoes and poisoning him, although he not only survived but also didn't fall ill. She pleaded with Frederick to "do something desperate."

Edith's flirtatious behavior, self-pity, and melodrama in the courtroom didn't earn her any respect from the judge and jury. She insisted that she hadn't poisoned her husband and had merely written about it to impress her lover. Later, her lawyer stated that her answers of "I have no idea" and her vanity and arrogance destroyed any chances of an acquittal. Bywaters told the court that he never truly believed Edith had attempted to harm her husband, claiming that she had a vivid imagination fueled by the novels she loved to read and that in the letters, she saw herself as a fictional character. However, on December 11, the jury found both Thompson and Bywaters guilty, and they were sentenced to be hanged. Thompson had a breakdown and started screaming in court, while Bywaters loudly protested, declaring Thompson's innocence.

Nearly a million people signed a petition against the death penalty. Although many considered Thompson foolish, the fact that no woman had been hanged in Britain since 1907 generated sympathy and revulsion towards the idea of her execution. Edith stated that she did not want to be hanged, and when her parents were allowed to visit, she insisted her father simply take her home. In the last days of her life, Thompson was in a near-hysterical state. She cried, screamed, moaned, and refused to eat. On January 9, 1923, at 9:00 am, two executions took place simultaneously at Holloway Prison and Pentonville Prison, located about half a mile apart. Edith Thompson became one of the 17 women hanged in the United Kingdom during the 20th century.