Ruth Ellis


Ruth Ellis was a Welsh-born nightclub hostess and convicted murderer who became the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom following the fatal shooting of her lover, David Blakely.
Ellis was abused by her father from the age of 11 and entered the world of nightclub hostessing as a teen, which led to a chaotic life that included various relationships with men. One of these men was Blakely, a racing driver engaged to another woman. On Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, Ellis shot Blakely dead outside The Magdala public house in Hampstead, London. She was immediately arrested by an off-duty policeman. At her trial in June 1955, Ellis was found guilty of premeditated murder and was sentenced to death; on 13 July she was hanged at Holloway Prison.

Early life

Ruth Ellis was born Ruth Neilson in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales, on 9 October 1926, the fifth of six children. She moved to Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, with her family during her childhood. Her mother, Elisaberta Goethals, was a Belgian war refugee; her father, Arthur Hornby, was a cellist from Manchester who played on Atlantic liners. The Register of Marriages gives Arthur Hornby as marrying Elisa B. Goethals at Chorlton-cum-Hardy in 1920. Arthur later changed his surname to Neilson.
Arthur's twin brother Charles was killed in 1928, when Ellis was two years old. Arthur began to be physically and sexually abusive to his elder daughter Muriel. Bertha, despite being aware of the abuse, took no action. Muriel stated this was due to how badly Arthur treated her mother; it made Bertha afraid to say anything. As a result of the sexual abuse, 14-year-old Muriel conceived a child by her father. Although Arthur was subsequently questioned by the police, he was released. Bertha then passed as the child's mother. Arthur began targeting Ruth when she turned 11. Muriel often tried to prevent it, kicking Ruth out of the house when Muriel sensed trouble. The sisters never openly discussed their father's sexual abuse.
Ellis briefly attended Fairfields Senior Girls' School in Basingstoke until 1940, after which she attended Worting village school before leaving school when she was 14 years old. Her first employment was as an usherette at a cinema in Reading. Arthur moved to London on his own shortly after, accepting a job offer for the live-in position of caretaker-chauffeur for Porn & Dunwoody Ltd., a lift manufacturer. In 1941, Ellis befriended Edna Turvey, the girlfriend of her older brother Julian, who was on leave from service in the Royal Navy. Edna introduced Ellis to what Muriel later called "the fast life." Eventually, Ruth and Edna moved to London and lived with Arthur. His abuse against Ellis continued while he simultaneously engaged in an affair with Edna, although the affair ended when Bertha caught the pair in bed after making an unannounced visit. Bertha moved to London following the discovery of her husband's affair.
In 1944, when Ellis was 17 years old, she became pregnant by Clare Andrea McCallum, a married Canadian soldier. As a result, she was forced to move to a nursing hospital in Gilsland, Cumberland. On 15 September, she gave birth to her son, Clare Andrea Neilson. McCallum stopped sending money around a year after the delivery. Andy, who eventually went to live with Bertha, was supported by Ellis through her employment in several factory and clerical jobs.

Career

By the end of the 1940s, Ellis had become a nightclub hostess in Soho through nude-modelling work, which paid significantly more than her previous jobs. Morris Conley, her manager at the Court Club in Duke Street, blackmailed his hostess employees into sleeping with him. By early 1950, Ellis was making money as a full-service escort and became pregnant by one of her regular clients.
On 8 November 1950, Ellis married 41-year-old George Johnston Ellis, a divorced dentist with two sons, at the register office in Tonbridge, Kent. A regular customer at the Court Club, George was a violent and possessive alcoholic who became convinced that his new wife was having an affair. Ellis left him several times but always returned. When she gave birth to a daughter, Georgina, in 1951, George refused to acknowledge paternity; they separated shortly afterwards and later divorced.
In 1951, while she had been four months pregnant, Ellis appeared, uncredited, as a beauty queen in the Rank film Lady Godiva Rides Again. She returned to prostitution following her divorce from George, having moved into her parents' residence with her daughter.

Murder

In 1953, Ellis became the manager of the Little Club, a nightclub in Knightsbridge. At this time, she was lavished with expensive gifts by admirers. Ellis met David Moffett Drummond Blakely, three years her junior, through racing driver Mike Hawthorn. Blakely was a former public school boy who was educated at Shrewsbury School and Sandhurst but was also a hard-drinking racer. Within weeks, he moved into Ellis's flat above the club despite being engaged to another woman, Mary Dawson. Ellis became pregnant for a fourth time but had her second abortion, feeling she could not reciprocate the level of commitment Blakely showed towards their relationship.
Ellis then began seeing Desmond Cussen, a former Royal Air Force pilot who had flown Lancaster bombers during the Second World War, and who had taken up accountancy after leaving the service. He was appointed a director of the family business Cussen & Co., a wholesale and retail tobacconist with outlets in London and South Wales. Ellis eventually moved in with Cussen at 20 Goodwood Court, Devonshire Street, north of Oxford Street. The relationship with Blakely continued, however, and became increasingly violent as he and Ellis continued to see other people. Blakely offered to marry Ellis; she consented, but in January 1955, she had a miscarriage after he punched her in the stomach during an argument.
On Easter Sunday, 10 April 1955, Ellis took a taxi from Cussen's home to a second-floor flat at 29 Tanza Road, Hampstead, the home of Anthony and Carole Findlater, where she suspected Blakely might be. As she arrived, Blakely's car drove off, so she paid off the taxi and walked the to The Magdala public house in South Hill Park where she found Blakely's car parked outside.
At around 9:30 pm, Blakely and his friend Clive Gunnell emerged. Blakely passed Ellis waiting on the pavement when she stepped out of the doorway of Henshaw's, a newsagent next to The Magdala. As Blakely searched for the keys to his car, Ellis took a.38 calibre Smith & Wesson Victory Model revolver from her handbag and fired five shots at Blakely. The first shot missed. Ellis pursued Blakely as he started to run around the car, firing a second shot which caused him to collapse onto the pavement. She then stood over him and fired three more bullets, with one fired less than half an inch from his back, leaving powder burns on his skin.
Ellis was seen to stand over Blakely as she repeatedly tried to fire the revolver's sixth shot, finally firing it into the ground. This bullet ricocheted off the road and injured Gladys Yule, a bystander, who lost the use of her right thumb.

Trial

Ellis, in apparent shock, asked Gunnell, "Will you call the police, Clive?" She was arrested immediately by an off-duty policeman, who heard her say, "I am guilty, I'm a little confused." Blakely's body was taken to hospital with multiple fatal wounds to the intestines, liver, lung, aorta and trachea. Originally taken in as evidence, the revolver is now in the Metropolitan Police's Crime Museum.
At Hampstead police station, Ellis appeared to be calm and not obviously under the influence of drink or other drugs. She made her first appearance at a magistrates' court the next day, 16 April, and was ordered to be held on remand. Ellis was twice examined by principal Medical Officer, M. R. Penry Williams, who failed to find evidence of mental illness; an electroencephalograph examination on 3 May found no abnormality. While on remand, Ruth was examined by psychiatrist Duncan Whittaker for the defence and by Alexander Dalzell on behalf of the Home Office. Neither found evidence of insanity.
On 20 June 1955, Ellis appeared in the Number One Court at the Old Bailey, London, before Mr Justice Havers. She was dressed in a black suit and white silk blouse with freshly bleached and coiffured blonde hair. Her defending counsel, Aubrey Melford Stevenson, supported by Sebag Shaw and Peter Rawlinson, expressed concern about her appearance but she did not alter it to appear less striking.
The only question put to Ellis by prosecutor Christmas Humphreys was, "When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?"; her answer was, "It's obvious when I shot him I intended to kill him." This reply guaranteed a guilty verdict and the mandatory death sentence. The jury took twenty minutes to convict her.

Reprieve decision

Ellis remained at Holloway Prison while awaiting execution. She told her mother that she did not want a petition to reprieve her from the death sentence and took no part in the campaign. However, at her relatives' urging, her solicitor, John Bickford, wrote a seven-page letter to Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George setting out the grounds for reprieve. Lloyd George denied the request. Ellis dismissed Bickford and asked to see Leon Simmons, the clerk to solicitor Victor Mishcon. Before going to see her, Simmons and Mishcon visited Bickford, who urged them to ask her where she had obtained the gun.
On 12 July 1955, the day before her execution, Mishcon and Simmons saw Ellis, who wanted to make her will. When they pressed her for the full story, Ellis asked them to promise not to use what she said to try to secure a reprieve; Mishcon refused. Ellis divulged that Cussen had given her the gun and taught her how to use it on the weekend prior to the murder. She also revealed that Cussen had driven her to the murder scene. Following a two-hour interview, Mishcon and Simmons went to the Home Office; the Permanent Secretary, Sir Frank Newsam, was summoned back to London and ordered the head of Criminal Investigation Department to check the story. Lloyd George later said that the police were able to make considerable enquiries but that it made no difference to his decision, and in fact, made Ellis's guilt greater showing the murder was premeditated. He also said that the injury to the bystander was decisive in his decision: "We cannot have people shooting off firearms in the street! As long as I was Home Secretary I was determined to ensure that people could use the streets without fear of a bullet."
In a final letter to Blakely's parents from her prison cell, Ellis wrote, "I have always loved your son, and I shall die still loving him."