I am an avid collector of detective memoirs – I have several – and one of most interesting is that of Frederick Porter Wensley, who served in the Met for 41 years rising to the rank of chief constable of the CID. Towards the end of his career, Detective Wensley was involved in one of the most sensationalised and controversial cases of the early twentieth century, which led to the conviction of Edith Thompson, and her lover Freddy Bywaters, for the murder of her husband, Percy. A century later, this historical homicide is still being discussed and debated today.
On 3 October 1922, Edith and Percy Thompson were on their home to Ilford after attending a preformance at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus, central London. After separating from their company for evening, they caught the 23:30 train to Ilford. As they walked through a dark side street, a man jumped out from behind some bushes and attacked Percy. After a violent struggle, during which Edith was pushed to the ground, Percy collapsed. His wife called out to passers-by for help and a doctor arrived soon after. Blood was pouring from Percy’s mouth and the doctor thought he had had a seizure. He died in the street. However, when Percy’s body was examined later at the police mortuary, it was discovered that he had been stabbed 11 times. One of the wounds to his neck had severed the carotid artery and he had bled to death.
Edith and Percy Thompson had been married for almost seven years at the time of Percy’s sudden and violent death. They had met in 1909, when Edith was 15 and Percy was 18. After being engaged for six years, they were married on 15 January 1916 in Manor Park, after which they settled down to a comfortable life together in the suburb of Ilford, Essex. During their married life, Percy was a shipping clerk with a City firm, and Edith was working as a bookkeeper and manager. They had no children.
During World War One, Percy enlisted in the London Scottiish Regiment but had been discharged as unfit because he had been suffering from heart trouble.
Edith Jessie Graydon was born on Christmas Day, 1893 in Dalston, London. She was the eldest of the five children of William Eustace Graydon, who was a clerk with the Imperial Tobacco Company, and his wife Ethel Jessie née Liles, the daughter of a police constable.
Edith enjoyed a happy childhood. She was good at acting and dancing, and after leaving school in 1909, she joined a firm of clothing manufacturers in Aldgate. Two years later, she was working for a wholesale milliner’s in the Barbican. She was promoted several times and eventually became the business’s chief buyer, which involved making regular trips to Paris.
When the police questioned Edith about her husband’s death, she seemed at first to have been unaware of an attack and could not account for his horrific injuries. Through further interviews with family members, it came to light that Edith had been having an affair with seaman Frederick Bywaters, and he was soon in the frame for murder.
Edith had known Freddy Bywaters in 1911, as he was a schoolfriend of her younger brothers. At the age of 16, after his father’s death, he had joined the Merchant Navy as a clerk.
In 1921, when Freddy was 18, the couple had become reacquainted with him, after he was invited to a Graydon family holiday in Shanklin, Isle of Wight by Percy Thompson, who had met the young man and liked him. Percy then asked him if he woud like to lodge with them at their home in Ilford. Over the next rwo years, Freddie went to sea several times, and during his absence, Edith wrote to him almost every day.
Freddy Bywaters was arrested for the murder of Percy Thompson on 4 October. He first told the police that he had been at Edith’s family home nearby, after which he had gone straight to his lodgings. However, Edith, during further questioning by the police, revealed that Freddy was her husband’s assailant. A week later, her letters to him were found in the sea chest in his cabin on the Morea, which was moored in Tilbury.
Much of the evidence in this case was centred on the stack of letters uncovered by police, between Edith and Fred. Their correspondence, which comprised more than 60 letters, contained many references to Edith’s wish for her husband’s death, even going as far as suggesting that she had tried to kill him by putting poison and ground glass into his food. The correspondence had also contained newspaper cuttings about women who killed their husbands. There were only two surviving letters from Freddy.
During the trial, which opened at the Old Bailey on 6 December 1922, the press painted Edith as an immoral adulteress, who led a fun-loving and independent lifestyle, completely inappropriate for a married woman. This representation of Edith featured strongly in the judge’s summing up at the trial and was instrumental in her conviction. Although Freddy admitted that he had attacked and killed Percy, this damning correspondence firmly connected Edith with her husband’s murder.
Investigating officer Frederick Porter Wensley later published his account of the murder, including his interview with Percy’s brother which led to the discovery of the letters at Fred’s mother’s house in Upper Norwood. When Wensley interviewed Freddy at the police station, he noticed that he had small spots of blood on his jacket sleeve. Detective Wensley explained that the letters were ‘a sinister under-current’ to the case. He surmised that: ‘Whichever of them first thought of murder there is no question that she [Edith] had such power over him that he [Frederick] was prepared to do her bidding, even at the cost of his own life.’ The trial lasted for five days and on 11 December 1922, both defendants were found guilty of Percy Thompson’s murder.
On 9 January 1923, 29-year-old Edith Thompson was executed at Holloway Prison, and her lover Frederick Bywaters was hanged at Pentonville. Detective Wensley concluded that the incriminating letters had ‘played a great part in hanging Mrs Thompson’ and that ‘Many of the disputants overlooked the fact that this was a cruel and calculated murder in which it was hard to see a redeeming feature.’
A hundred years after her execution, a campaign was initiated to have Edith Thompson posthumously exonerated of her crime. The case has recently been referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and it is expected to publish the conclusion of its reexamination in the coming months.