Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters - Imprisonment and Execution

Imprisonment and Execution

Before and during the trial, Thompson and Bywaters were the subjects of highly sensationalist and critical media commentary. However, after they had been sentenced to death there was a dramatic shift in public attitudes and in the media coverage. Almost one million people signed a petition against the imposed death sentences. Bywaters attracted admiration for his fierce loyalty and protectiveness towards Thompson. Thompson was regarded as a foolish woman, but attracted sympathy because it was generally considered abhorrent to hang a woman – no woman had been executed in Britain since 1907. Thompson herself stated that she would not hang, and when her parents were allowed to visit her she urged her father to simply take her home. Despite the petition and a new confession from Bywaters (in which he once again declared Thompson to be completely innocent) the Home Secretary, William Bridgeman, refused to grant a reprieve. A few days before their executions, Thompson was told that the date of execution had been fixed, at which point she lost her composure. She spent the last few days of her life in a state of near hysteria, crying, screaming, moaning, and unable to eat. On the morning of her execution she was heavily sedated, but remained in an agitated state. On January 9, 1923 in Holloway Prison, 29-year-old Thompson collapsed in terror at the prospect of her hanging and, unconscious, had to be supported on the gallows by four prison warders, who half carried her to the scaffold, where she had to be held upright while the noose was placed around her neck. Various accounts report that "guards had to tie her to a small wooden chair before drawing the noose around her neck", and that "she was hanged in a bosun's chair".

In Pentonville Prison, 20-year-old Bywaters, who had tried since his arrest to save Thompson from execution, was himself hanged. The two executions occurred simultaneously at 9.00 am, only about a half-mile apart, as Holloway and Pentonville prisons are located in the same district. Later, as was the rule, the bodies of Thompson and Bywaters were buried within the walls of the prisons in which they had been executed.

Several years later it was revealed that when the gallows trapdoor opened and Thompson fell, the sudden impact of the noose caused her to suffer a massive haemorrhage. The large amount of blood spilled, combined with the fact that Thompson had gained weight during her imprisonment even while resisting food, led to conjecture that she had been pregnant. However, no subsequent post-mortem examination was made. John Ellis, her executioner, eventually committed suicide, stating that he had remained haunted by the horror of Thompson’s final moments. All women hanged in Britain after Thompson were required to wear special knickers made of canvas, which would prevent a recurrence of the massive bleeding suffered by Thompson. Edith Thompson was one of only seventeen women hanged in the United Kingdom during the 20th century.