Charles Thomas Wooldridge

Charles Thomas Wooldridge (c.1866 – 7 July 1896) was a Trooper in the Royal Horse Guards who was executed in Reading Gaol for the murder of his wife and who, as 'C.T.W', was the dedicatee of Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

The son of Eleanor (born c.1827) and Charles Wooldridge (born c.1824), Wooldridge was born in East Garston and joined the Royal Horse Guards in 1886. He married Laura Ellen "Nell" Glendell (1873–1896) in 1894 when his regiment was posted to Windsor. However, as his commanding officer had not given permission for the wedding to take place she was "off the strength" and so was unable to join her husband when his regiment moved from Windsor to Regent's Park Barracks in London, forcing the couple to live apart and putting a strain on the marriage.

At first the couple were devoted to each other, despite the enforced separation. "Nell" Wooldridge was of a lively and flirtatious nature, while Charles Wooldridge was of a jealous and suspicious disposition; consequently, they argued a great deal when they were together. By March 1896 she had started to use her maiden name again, and when he visited her Wooldridge attacked his wife and blacked her eyes and injured her nose. From then on she avoided Wooldridge, refusing to see him. Having heard rumours that she was having an affair with either another soldier or an official at the General Post Office where she worked, and having received a document from her to sign stating that he would stay away from her, he arranged to meet Laura Ellen outside Regent's Park Barracks on 29 March 1896; but when she failed to turn up he travelled to her lodgings at Clewer, near Windsor. A violent argument ensued, which spilled out on to the street outside, where he used a cut-throat razor he had taken with him to cut her throat before giving himself up to Police Constable Forster, who arrested him and took him to Windsor Police Station. Wooldridge told the police that he would have cut his own throat if he had not dropped the murder weapon.

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