Edith Thompson

Edith Thompson
Frederick Bywaters, Edith Thompson and Percy Thompson in July 1921
Born	Edith Jessie Graydon (1893-12-25)25 December 1893 Dalston, London
Died	9 January 1923(1923-01-09) (aged 29) HMP Holloway, London
Cause of death	Execution by hanging
Resting place	Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, England 51°18′14″N 0°37′34″W / 51.303983°N 0.626007°W / 51.303983; -0.626007
Nationality	United Kingdom
Criminal charge	Murder
Criminal penalty	Death
Criminal status	Executed
Spouse(s)	Percy Thompson
Motive	Crime passionel
Conviction(s)	Murder (11 December 1922)
Partner(s)	Frederick Bywaters
Killings
Victims	Percy Thompson

Edith Jessie Thompson (25 December 1893 – 9 January 1923) and Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters (27 June 1902 – 9 January 1923) were a British couple executed for the murder of Thompson's husband Percy. Their case became a cause célèbre.

Edith Thompson was born Edith Jessie Graydon on 25 December 1893, at 97 Norfolk Road in Dalston, London, the first of the five children of William Eustace Graydon (1867–1941), a clerk with the Imperial Tobacco Company, and his wife Ethel Jessie Liles (1872–1938), the daughter of a police constable. During her childhood Edith was a happy, talented girl who excelled at dancing and acting, and was academically bright, with natural ability in arithmetic. After leaving school in 1909 she joined a firm of clothing manufacturers near Aldgate station in London. Then, in 1911, she was employed at Carlton & Prior, wholesale milliners, in the Barbican and later in Aldersgate. Edith quickly established a reputation as a stylish and intelligent woman, and was promoted by the company several times, until she became their chief buyer and made regular trips to Paris on behalf of the company.

In 1909, at the age of fifteen, she met Percy Thompson who was three years her senior. After a six-year engagement they were married at St Barnabas, Manor Park in January 1916. At first they lived in Westcliff (Southend-on-Sea), before buying a house at 41 Kensington Gardens in the fashionable suburb of Ilford in Essex. With both their careers flourishing they lived a comfortable life.

In 1920 the couple became acquainted with 18-year-old Frederick Bywaters, although Bywaters and Edith Thompson had met nine years earlier when Bywaters, then aged nine, had been a schoolfriend of Edith's younger brother. By 1920 Bywaters had joined the merchant navy. The 26-year-old Edith was immediately attracted to the 18-year-old Bywaters, who was handsome and impulsive and whose stories of his travels around the world excited Edith's love of romantic adventure. To Edith, the youthful Bywaters represented her romantic ideal; by comparison, 29-year-old Percy seemed staid and conventional. Percy welcomed the youth into their company, and the trio—joined by Edith’s sister Avis—holidayed on the Isle of Wight. Upon their return, Percy invited Bywaters to lodge with them.