Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters - Burial

Burial

The body of Edith Thompson was buried in an unmarked grave within the walls of Holloway Prison, as was customary. In 1971, the prison underwent an extensive programme of rebuilding, during which the bodies of all the executed women were exhumed for reburial elsewhere.

With the exception of Ruth Ellis, the remains of the four women executed at Holloway, (i.e., Edith Thompson, Styllou Christofi, Amelia Sach and Annie Walters) were reburied in a single grave at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. The new grave (in plot 117) remained unmarked for over twenty years. It was acquired in the 1980s by René Weis and Audrey Russell, who had interviewed Avis Graydon (Edith Thompson's surviving sister) at length in the 1970s. On 13 November 1993, a grey granite memorial was placed on plot 117 and dedicated to the memory of the four women buried there. The grave and plot were formally consecrated by the Reverend Barry Arscott of St. Barnabas, Manor Park, the church in which Edith Thompson was married in January 1916. Edith Thompson's details appear prominently on the face of the tombstone, together with her epitaph: "Sleep on beloved. Regrets. Her death was a legal formality". The names of the other three women are inscribed around the edges of the tombstone. The precise location of Thompson's grave within Brookwood Cemetery is 51°18′13.67″N 0°37′33.33″W / 51.3037972°N 0.625925°W / 51.3037972; -0.625925.

Representatives of the Home Office did not inform Avis Graydon of the exhumation and the fact that she had the right to take control of her sister's funeral arrangements. Avis Graydon died in 1973, seemingly without ever knowing that her sister had been reburied in Brookwood. Thus, she never had the opportunity either to visit the grave or to erect some form of memorial over it.

The remains of Frederick Bywaters still lie in an unmarked grave within the walls of HMP Pentonville, where they were buried shortly after his execution in January 1923. The precise location of the cemetery within the prison is 51°32′44.05″N 0°06′54.62″W / 51.5455694°N 0.1151722°W / 51.5455694; -0.1151722.

The remains of Percy Thompson are buried at the City of London Cemetery.

Edith's parents are buried at the City of London Cemetery. Their grave is number 92743 in Area 197, adjacent to Central Avenue. In 1973, her devoted sister Avis Graydon, who had previously dated Freddy Bywaters, gave a long interview to Mrs. Audrey Russell, the first time she had spoken about the case since the early 1920s. Avis died on 6 August 1977. She is buried at St. Patrick's RC Cemetery, Leytonstone. In her will she expressed a wish for mass to be said for members of the Graydon family every 9th January, the anniversary of her sister Edith's death. This annual service of remembrance was restarted after the publication of Weis's book in 1988. Since the early 1990s, an annual service of remembrance has taken place at St. Barnabas, Manor Park (East Ham) every 9 January at 8:30 am.