Ruth Ellis
 For the lesbian activist, see Ruth Ellis (American).
Ruth Ellis, née Neilson (October 9, 1926 – July 13, 1955) was a British murderess who is notable as the last woman to be executed in that country. She was convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely, and hanged at London's Holloway Prison. Her story was told in the 1985 film Dance with a Stranger (director Mike Newell), featuring Miranda Richardson as Ellis.
Biography
Ellis was born in the Welsh seaside town of Rhyl in 1926. Her mother Bertha was a Belgian refugee, and her father a cellist from Manchester who spent much of his time playing on Atlantic cruise liners. One of five children, she was raised as a Catholic. Ruth left school at fourteen to work as a waitress. In 1941, at the height of the Blitz, the Neilsons moved to London.
At 17, she became pregnant by a married Canadian soldier, and gave birth to a son, Clare Andria (Andy), in 1944. The father continued to visit and pay maintenance until he returned to Canada, but Ruth's faith in men had been badly shaken. Via low-level modelling work, she became a nightclub hostess, which paid significantly more than the various factory and clerical jobs she had worked since leaving school. In 1950, looking for some security, she married 41 year old George Ellis, a divorced dentist with two sons, who had been a customer. Unfortunately, George was an alcoholic who became violent when drunk, and Ruth was jealous and possessive, convinced he was having an affair. The marriage deteriorated rapidly. When Ruth gave birth to Georgina in 1951, George refused to acknowledge paternity, and they separated shortly afterwards. She moved in with her parents, and went back to hostessing to make ends meet.
David Blakeley
In 1953, she became manageress of a nightclub, and met David Blakeley, three years her junior. He was a well-mannered former public school boy, but also a hard drinking racing driver with expensive tastes. Within weeks he moved into her flat above the club, despite being engaged to another girl at the time. She eventually accepted Blakeley's proposal of marriage, although Ruth was still married to George Ellis. Blakeley became progressively more jealous of her attentions to male customers, and spent more and more time in the club to keep his eye on her. Her earnings fell as a result, and his inheritance was blown on a playboy lifestyle and development of a racing car. Rows about money, fuelled by alcohol, became violent - from both sides. He also maintained another mistress, and each was extremely jealous of the other's affairs and activities.
On Easter Sunday, April 10 1955, Ruth Ellis shot David Blakeley outside the Magdala public house in Hampstead, London using the gun she kept for security at the club. She made no attempt to leave the scene, asking a witness to call the police. The jury at the trial took just fourteen minutes to convict her of the murder of David Blakeley. The last woman to hang in England went to the gallows at Holloway Prison on July 13, 1955, at the age of 28.
The case caused widespread controversy at the time, a petition to the Home Office asking for clemency was signed by 50,000 people, but the Conservative Home Secretary Major Gwilym Lloyd George rejected the appeal for mercy.
The case's legacy
The hanging of Ruth Ellis strengthened public support for the abolition of the death penalty, which was halted in practice in Britain ten years later. The case continues to have a strong hold on the British imagination, reinforced by the dramatic portrayal in Dance with a Stranger, and the case was referred back to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The Court firmly rejected the appeal, although it made clear that it ruled only on the conviction, not on whether she should have been executed.
Quotation
It is obvious that when I shot him, I intended to kill him. – Ruth Ellis, on the stand at the Old Bailey, 20 June 1955 (This was in answer to the only question put to her by Christmas Humphreys for the Prosecution 'When you fired the gun, did you mean to kill?')
The 1956 film Yield to the Night, starring Diana Dors as the doomed murderess bears a close resemblance to the Ellis case - however, the work is in fact based on a 1954 book of that name by Joan Henry.
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