*Ideally this would have gone up yesterday, but I was working on a shorter version for Instagram (@thatliteraturestudent, this blog is essentially its evolved form) and that seemed a big enough task for one night. The next Edith post will be a more introductory one but it felt important to get this out.*

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Described by Henry Curtis-Bennett, who defended her at her trial in December 1922 for her husband Percy’s murder, as perhaps ‘one of the most extraordinary personalities that you or I have ever met? […] You have read her letters. Have you ever read, mixed up with criticisms of books […] more beautiful language of love?’ [1]

The recipient of such passionate and eloquent letters was 20-year-old Frederick “Freddy” Bywaters, for over a year they had been having an affair, chiefly through written correspondence because Freddy worked as a merchant seaman and was off in the far-flung lands Edith saw in her beloved books. On October 2^nd 1922, Edith wrote to Freddy: ‘Your love to me is new, it is something different, it is my life and if things should go badly with us, I shall always have this past year to look back upon and feel that ‘Then I lived’. I never have before and I never shall again.’ [2]

Within forty-eight hours things did indeed ‘go badly’, as midnight approached the following night, Freddy would kill Percy in the middle of an Ilford street. ‘I lost my temper. He always made her life a hell and he used to say if she ever left him he would make it worse than ever for her. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no intention of killing him, and I don’t remember what happened. I just went blind and killed him. …’ Freddy insisted on behalf of Edith: ‘She didn’t commit murder. I did. She never planned it. She never knew about it. She is innocent, innocent, absolutely innocent. I can’t believe that they will hang her.’ [3]

If we are to briefly set aside these events and remember Edith; Rene Weis (author of Criminal Justice: The True Story of Edith Thompson) describes Edith as being “possessed of an irresistible zest for life” [4] and after my research, I couldn’t agree more. Other than finding solace in a fellow lover of books, I really like this sentiment addressed in a letter to Freddy:

‘I daren’t think too much I should always be weeping & that wouldn’t do, would it? because you told me to dance.’ [5]

There’s hope in the idea of ‘dance’, however and whenever you can, metaphorically or literally. Edith did both. It helps me worry less.

On 26th Dec. 1922, Edith wrote to a friend from Holloway:

‘Yesterday I was twenty-nine; it’s not really very old, I suppose, and yet it seems so to me.
Yesterday I was thinking about everything that has ever happened, it seems to help in all sorts of way when I do this. […] We all imagine we can mould our own lives – we seldom can, they are moulded for us – just by the laws and rules and conventions of this world, and if we break any of these, we only have to look forward to a formidable and unattractive wilderness. […] However, I’m going to forget all that now. I’m going to hope […] I’m going to live in those enormous moments […] Thank you so much for writing to me, and helping to keep me cheerful.’ [6]

On 9th January 1923, Edith Thompson was hanged for a murder she didn’t commit. The fight to officially clear her name continues.

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[1] Letters of Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, at https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/primary-source-texts/letters-of-edith-thompson-and-frederick-bywaters/ [Rene Weis]

[2] Rene Weis, Criminal Justice: The True Story of Edith Thompson, Ch. 2: ‘The Darlingest Boy’, https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/criminal-justice/chapter-2/

[3] ibid Ch. 6: ‘When Winter Came’, https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/criminal-justice/chapter-6/

[4] ibid, ‘Overview’  https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/criminal-justice/

[5] Quoted in Laura Thompson’s Rex vs. Edith Thompson: A Tale of Two Murders, 2018.

[6] ‘When Winter Came’ https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/criminal-justice/chapter-6/

Image: https://edithjessiethompson.co.uk/image-galleries/#album-1