Ruth Ellis

Ruth Ellis (9 October 1926 – 13 July 1955) was the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom, after being convicted of the murder of her lover, David Blakely.

From a humble background, Ellis was soon drawn into the world of London nightclub hostessing, which led to a chaotic life of brief relationships, some of them with upper-class nightclubbers and celebrities. Two of these were David Blakely, a racing-driver already engaged to another woman, and Desmond Cussen, a retail company director, who gave her a gun, apparently to attack the violent Blakely.

On Easter Sunday 1955, Ellis shot Blakely dead outside a public house in Hampstead, and immediately gave herself up to the police. At her trial, she took full responsibility for the murder, shielding Cussen from blame, and her courtesy and composure, both in court and in the cells, was much noted in the press. She was hanged at Holloway Prison, London, by Albert Pierrepoint.

The case attracted great controversy, since the anti-hanging debate was already in full cry, and she might have won a reprieve had she taken her solicitors' advice. The picture of the attractive blonde murderess remains one of the iconic images of 1950's London.