Ruth Ellis

She was born Ruth Hornby in Rhyl[?], north Wales, although her birth certificate shows her surname as Neilson, her father's professional name as a travelling musician.

She had the misfortune to spend most of her short life surrounded by men who were either drunks, self-absorbed charlatans, physically abusive misfits, or combinations of the three. In 1933 her father's musical career ended and he found employment as a porter in a mental hospital; he turned to excessive drink, taking out his frustrations on his wife and daughters, and was eventually dismissed for his behaviour in 1939, becoming a caretaker in Reading, west of London. In 1941 Ruth left school and found a job as a waitress in a cafe, but later that year her father found a better job as a chauffeur in Southwark, central London, and Ruth moved into the flat that went with her father's new job, while she worked in a munitions factory, then in a food processing factory. She was almost sixteen and had reached her full height of five feet two inches. She made the most of her face and figure, and bleached her hair, which contributed to making a poor impression when she stood trial for her life fifteen years later. She was nearsighted but refused to wear glasses. Confidently she embarked on a mission to fill her leisure time with fun and excitement, spending her evenings in dancehalls, cafes, and drinking clubs, at a time when there were men in uniform available everywhere. Whenever anyone tried to reproach her because of her behaviour, she would respond, “Why not? A short life and a gay one.” Her words were prophetic.

In the winter of 1941/2 she was hospitalised for several months with rheumatic fever - when she was discharged she received medical advice that dancing would strengthen her body and speed her recovery, so she followed this advice religiously and as a result found herself a job as a photographer's assistant in the West End of London. There, aged 17, she met a French-Canadian soldier called Clare, and after a short affair she became pregnant soon after Christmas 1944; however he was already married with children in Canada and soon was on his way back home, never to see Ruth again. On 15 September 1945 a son, Clare Andrea Neilson, known throughout his life as Andy, was born. Returning to London and a mixed reception from her parents, Ruth needed a job to support herself and her son, and applied for a position at the Camera Club where she was soon posing nude before 20 men who snapped away (often with empty cameras). At the Camera Club she met Morris ("Maury" or "Morrie") Conley, a crook who already had a reputation as a fraud, con man and ponce and named in the press in 1956 as "Britain's Biggest Vice Boss". Although once described as "ugly as a toad", Conley was affable, shrewd, and very rich, and Ruth was flattered by him; he in turn recognised in her the perfect formula for a good club hostess. Ruth joined Conley's club with six other hostesses supplying the feminine charms at his club in return for a weekly wage far in excess of the average at the time together with perks such as a clothing allowance, free drinks, and most importantly for Ruth, the chance to mix with "a good class of people". She and Conley formed an alliance that would last for nine years, she being one of his best managers operating several clubs in the West End, while he would use her for sexual favours and abuse her when he was drunk. Along with Conley, Ruth would also make herself available to some of the club’s clients, and was soon establishing a reputation with men of substance and high social standing, the two attributes that Ruth had yearned for all her short life. The money she earned seemed to evaporate on living the good life, but she also helped support her parents and made sure her son was well cared for.

Early in 1950 Ruth became pregnant by one of her regular clients. She had an illegal abortion by the third month, and while under the stress of having to maintain a happy image for her customers she started to drink heavily. Soon afterward she met George Johnson Ellis, a 40-year old dentist with an unhappy marriage, whose frequent drinking bouts eventually forced his wife and two sons to abandon him. Ellis took to frequenting London drinking clubs, where he eventually met Ruth. There was a whirlwind courtship, and after Ruth made Ellis dry out in an alcoholism clinic they were married on 8 November 1950. Before long Ellis was hitting the bottle again and he and Ruth had a love-hate relationship with Ruth several times leaving to live with her parents only to return a few days later. In May 1951 Ellis was fired from his dental practice, but eventually found a new position in Torquay. Ruth was pregnant again, but their time together was again disrupted by alcohol-fuelled arguments. Eventually Ellis was again re-admitted to hospital to dry out, but Ruth developed a phobia that he was having improper relationships with nurses and female patients there, and on one occasion she became so distressed that she had to be restrained and sedated. From this point on she was under the care of a psychiatrist, Dr T P Rees, who prescribed drugs for her. It is a mystery why her defence counsel at her trial did not call him to give evidence of her state of mind, and that fact that the legally prescribed sedatives, combined with alcohol, could have made her incapable of rational behaviour at the time she fired the fatal shots.

On 2 October 1951 Ruth gave birth to a daughter, Georgina. Less than a year after their marriage, George Ellis filed for divorce on the grounds of cruelty. Ruth was 25 years old, with two children to support, and no better off than when she had first started to work ten years earlier. In desperate need of an income, Ruth soon found herself back with Maurie Conley.

During the summer of 1953, Ruth found herself in a far more interesting circle of friends than the paunchy businessmen she usually hosted and occasionally slept with. They were a group of young racing car drivers, including Mike Hawthorne[?], Sterling Moss[?], and Peter Collins, who based themselves at the Steering Wheel Club. Towards the end of 1953 a young man, David Blakely, 24, joined this circle but did not make a good initial impression on Ruth, but within two weeks they were sleeping together. In her evidence in court, Ruth said that Blakely "was very persistent and jealous". In February 1952, Blakely's father had died suddenly, and in due course, he received seven thousand pounds as his share of his father’s estate. He had also by this time met and formed a relationship with a regular visitor to the Hyde Park Hotel where he worked desultorily as a management trainee, a Miss Linda Dawson, the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer from Huddersfield in Yorkshire. This did not stop David from sleeping around with other women however. At one time he was having an affair with an American model, going out with a theatre usherette, having another affair with a married woman as well as spending time with Miss Dawson. His sense of morality was loose and his commitment to anyone was tenuous to say the least. A month after Blakely and Ruth met, he became engaged to Linda Dawson. On 11 November 1953, an engagement announcement appeared in the Times newspaper.

So here was Ruth Ellis, still officially married to George, and David Blakely now officially engaged to Linda, sharing a bed in the two-room flat, with son Andy and daughter Georgina, taking up some of the small space that was available. David would stay overnight through the week and then go and stay with his mother and stepfather for the weekend. He would have had no patience with the children, and Ruth must have found her time management squeezed thin between the demands of her manager’s job, her children’s needs and the sexually demanding tantrums of a man not renowned for equanimity and understanding. To complicate matters, on 17 June 1954 Ruth started an affair with Desmond Cussen to spite Blakely who had not returned to her from racing at Le Mans in France. Cussen was an ex-RAF bomber pilot, now an accountant, a solitary, shy man who hung out at the Steering Wheel Club but did not really belong there. Cussen and Blakely disliked each other even before Ruth came between them.

By the spring of 1954, events were starting to develop an inevitable momentum. George, Ruth’s husband, had reappeared on the scene and was stopping in at the Little Club, which she managed, from time to time. He and Ruth were trying to manoeuvre themselves around a number of their problems. He wanted their divorce to become final; she was fighting it off, in order to keep the maintenance he was paying. More pressing was the problem of their young daughter Georgina, who was now three. Ruth’s lifestyle and living quarters were not an ideal environment for a small child. It was finally agreed that George would take her back to Warrington and arrange for the child to be adopted. This happened in May 1954. Earlier, in April, Ruth had met Carole Findlater for the first time. Carole and her husband Anthony "Ant" Findlater were the people who would finally complete the fatal pattern which would develop over the next year. The Findlaters also moved in the motor-racing circle. Blakely had attempted to make Carole Findlater elope with him, but she stayed with her husband until the year after Ruth was hanged.

Ruth always suspected the Findlaters, especially Carole, of exerting an influence over Blakely and turning him against her towards the end of their relationship. She became convinced that the Findlaters conspired to persuade Blakely to desert her in the fateful week before Easter 1955.

In mid-July 1954 Blakely returned from France and Ruth decided to throw him a belated birthday party. Blakely was late for his own party, explaining that he had been at the Hyde Park Hotel breaking off his engagement with Linda Dawson. He asked Ruth to marry him, and as a result Ruth decided to stop contesting her own divorce from George Ellis. In September 1954, Andy, now ten years old, went off to boarding school with his uniform and school fees paid for by Desmond Cussen.

Blakely had been occupying his spare time building a racing car, with Ant Findlater as chief mechanic. This was using up his financial resources and he started drinking heavily, with Ruth supporting him financially. Pleading poverty, he persuaded Ruth to allow him to move in with her; also, she started allowing him to run up a slate at the Little Club. They were both drinking heavily by this time. Ruth, who was basically a gin and tonic and champagne type, started using Pernod[?], a potent French aperitif made from the wormwood plant. Often known as “lunatic soup” for its strength and power of intoxication, Pernod may well have contributed to her unstable condition the night she went after Blakely with a .38 Smith and Wesson. In October, Ruth hosted her own birthday party at the club. Ruth and Blakely were becoming increasingly jealous of each other -- she had found out about his earlier affair with Carole Findlater, and he was becoming increasingly suspicious of her socialising with people at the club. Their arguments were becoming increasingly violent, and he was regularly beating her.

As 1954 ended, Ruth needed to make some serious decisions. The takings at the club were dropping from £200 a week to £80 and Conley was pressing her to do something about it. She had permitted Blakely to run up an enormous bar tab which he had no prospect of paying. In December she either resigned or was fired; in any case she was out of work and needed somewhere to live, so she moved in with Desmond Cussen. Although Blakely was livid at the thought of Ruth moving in with Cussen, she placated him by pointing out that at least she was breaking away from club life, the first step to a level of respectability -- something Blakely had wanted her to do for months. She assured him that she would not sleep with Cussen, and between the 17th December and February 5th, 1955, she and Blakely stayed off and on at the Rodney Hotel in Kensington, registering as Mr and Mrs Blakely. To Cussen, she explained her nights away by saying she was visiting either girl friends or her daughter, Georgina, up north. That Christmas, Ruth gave her lovers identical silver cigarette cases as presents. On December 25th, Ruth hosted a party at Cussen’s flat. Cussen was at a business party and did not arrive back at his flat until later in the evening. By then, Blakely had turned up and he and Ruth had another furious row over Ruth leaving her son asleep in the flat while she and her guests had gone out clubbing. Blakely railed at Ruth for being a tart and sleeping with Cussen; she in turn accused him of still having an affair with Carole Findlater. Later that night, drunk as lords, they both made their way to the Findlater's house, where they found the Findlaters had gone off for the Christmas break to stay with friends at Brighton, and eventually Ruth and Blakely collapsed drunk and exhausted in bed to sleep off their hangovers. Cussen, worried about Blakely's drunkenness, had followed them across London. However Blakely had somehow negotiated the journey safely. Cussen sat in his car, watching the house until almost nine in the evening. Then he returned home to look after Andy and the guests who were waiting for their hostess to return. The next day, December 26th, Ruth returned to Cussen, explaining her night away by saying Blakely had threatened to commit suicide and that was why she had been forced to spend the night with him.

Blakely spent the day at the Brands Hatch racing circuit, driving his car in its first race and coming a respectable second. Early in the New Year, Ruth became suspicious that Blakely was having another affair and had Cussen drive her across London. She saw Blakely leaving the home of a married woman, whose husband was away on a business trip. She was of course, older than Blakely and very good-looking. It can be imagined just how this stirred up the anger and jealousy in Ruth. On the 8th January, while staying at the Rodney Hotel, they became involved in another blazing row, brought to a head by Blakely's relationship with this other woman.

The fiery relationship continued for the next few months. Ruth discovered in March that she was pregnant. The identity of the father was hard to determine; it could easily have been any of a number of men, but Blakely and Cussen must have been the prime suspects.

By the end of March, Ruth had miscarried and had an abortion. She later claimed this was exacerbated by yet another fight she had with Blakely. This time, he had smacked her in the face with a clenched fist and then struck her a severe blow in the stomach. The Findlaters, particularly Carole, did not believe that Blakely was necessarily the father, after all, Ruth had been living with Desmond Cussen as well as sleeping with David Blakely.

On Friday 8th April, the beginning of the Easter long weekend, Blakely left early in the morning, about ten o’clock, saying he had a meeting with Ant to discuss options that were open on the racing car. He said he would be home early. He had promised Ruth that he would not visit Ant at his home, without telling her. Ruth distrusted both the Findlaters, but in particular Carole. By 9.30 pm that night Blakely had not returned home. Ruth rang the Findlaters. The first time she spoke to their 19-year-old nanny who said there was no one at home. Later Ruth rang again and this time spoke to Ant. He said Blakely was not there. Later in evidence, Ruth stated, "I knew at once that David was there, and they were laughing behind my back.".

Ruth had loved Blakely passionately and now she switched to hating him with the same emotional excess. Throughout the rest of that evening, Ruth kept calling the Findlater’s flat. Eventually, they removed the phone from its cradle. By midnight, Ruth was frantic and hysterical. She called Cussen and he agreed to drive her to the Findlaters'. When they arrived, she repeatedly rang the doorbell and hammered on the front door but no one would answer. Ruth then set about smashing in the windows of Blakely's car. By now, it was about two in the morning of Saturday. Someone in the house called the police and an incident car from Hampstead Station arrived. The police eventually left after having calmed things down, but Ruth persisted in her demands to see Blakely who, true to form, would be cowering somewhere, anywhere away from a potential source of violence. The Findlaters recalled the police, but by the time they had arrived, Cussen had coaxed Ruth into his car and driven off.

The Findlaters persuaded Blakely to stay with them over the Easter weekend. Several times on the Saturday Ruth returned to spy on their movements. Because of Blakely, she had lost her job. Because of Blakely, she had lost the comfort and security of Desmond Cussen’s comfortable and expensive home. Because of Blakely, she was broke. When she was arrested, she had six copper pennies in her handbag and her bank account was cleared out. She was sick and tired of waking up every morning feeling sick and tired; she had not slept for forty-eight hours. She was taking drugs -- tranquillisers prescribed by Doctor Rees -- and drinking heavily.

Eventually, Cussen persuaded her to go home and in the early hours of Sunday morning they returned to her flat. She would spend another restless and troubled night, fuelled by drugs and alcohol. By dawn, she would have made up her mind and committed herself to the only course of action she felt left open.

In her trial evidence, Ruth stated that she could not recall how she spent her Sunday. She was no doubt drinking, more and more often; it was now Pernod. At about 8.45 pm, Carole ran out of cigarettes and Blakely agreed to pop down to the pub and get her a fresh supply. Clive went along to help bring back some beer to top up their dwindling stock and they drove off in Blakely's car. Thirty minutes later, David Blakely was lying dead, his body torn by four or five gunshot wounds. Ruth herself had only thirteen weeks and two days before she herself would pay the ultimate price then required by the law to atone for her actions.

On Monday, 20 June 1955, Ruth appeared in the Number One Court at the Old Bailey in London before Mr. Justice Havers. Ruth was dressed in a smart, well-cut black suit trimmed with astrakhan collar and cuffs, over a white silk blouse. Her hair was freshly bleached and coiffured, her face, pale but composed. Her lawyers had tried to get her to play down her appearance, but Ruth was determined to have her moment of stardom. To many in the courthouse, probably including the jury, she came across as a hard-faced tart. The defence had desperately wanted a very different impression to be created: a bewildered, emotionally crippled victim. The trial would last a mere day and a half; the evidence against Ruth was so overwhelming. She had a gun; she shot her lover dead in cold blood. End of story.

The prosecuting counsel asked Ruth, "Mrs Ellis, when you fired that revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?"

She replied, "It is obvious that when I shot him, I intended to kill him."

The jury retired at 11.52 a.m. on the second day. They returned to the court within only twenty-three minutes. It appears that most of the jury members spent most of their time visiting the toilets. They came back with a verdict of guilty. They had no other option -- British law makes no allowance for the crime passionel. Although her lawyers had tried to create a novel defence, that Ruth was so overwhelmed by her jealousy that she was incapable of forming a premeditated intention to murder, the judge had ruled against this. He briefed the jury thoroughly on the differences between murder and manslaughter. It all hinged quite simply on whether or not Ruth fired deliberately into David Blakely’s body. The jury decided she did. As Ruth heard the verdict, she simply said, "Thanks," accepting the sentence as baldly as the foreman of the jury had given it.

At 9 a.m. on 13 July 1955 Ruth was taken from her cell at London's Holloway Prison to the adjacent execution chamber and was hanged by the Chief Executioner, Albert Pierrepoint. Her body was buried inside the prison until it was being demolished many years later, when her son Andy received permission to rebury her body in St Mary's Parish Church, Amersham, where her headstone reads "Ruth Hornby". David Blakely is buried four miles away, at Penn.

It remains a mystery where Ruth got the gun and ammunition from. Suspicion fell upon Desmond Cullen, but he maintained his innocence until his death in Australia in 1991.

The story of Ruth Ellis was the basis of the film Dance With a Stranger.