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INTRODUCTION

Regardless of an individuals opinion on the rights and wrongs of Capital Punishment, most would agree that the subject is usually considered entirely in a male context and that the very idea of executing a woman is perhaps unthinkable, possibly abhorrent to our modern sensitivities. Yet between 1900 and 1955, Britain is known to have executed 27 women at home and abroad, with perhaps many hundreds more suffering a similar fate in previous centuries.

The most common method of Capital Punishment employed by the British courts during our country’s long history has been the public or private hanging of convicted people, although prior to 1874, it would have been more accurately described as “judicial strangling”. Public executioners such as William Calcraft who operated between 1829 and 1874 would have typically employed a “short drop” to suspend people by the neck, a method which resulted in most prisoners being slowly asphyxiated to death while they were still temporarily conscious. One male prisoner, who was revived after suffering one of these judicial hangings in Britain, described the extremely painful nature of this particular method of execution, relating how his “spirits” departed his body and the excruciating pain finally passing away as he lapsed into unconsciousness, only to return as he was later revived.

There is also some evidence from modern day executions, in countries that still employ this “short drop” method of judicial hanging that women prisoners who are subjected to this form of punishment, typically survive and struggle longer on the rope, than do their male counterparts. Whether or not this is simply accounted for by a weight differential between the genders is unclear, but generally most prisoners executed in this fashion take around 15 minutes to die, during which time the condemned person is seen to desperately struggle for the life giving breath which is being denied them.....(continued)

LOUISE JOSEPHINE MASSET

Born around 1864, Louise Josephine Masset was the second daughter of Etienne Ernest Masset and his wife Elizabeth, whose maiden name was Refell. Louise was reported to have lived and worked in France during the second half of the 19^th century and as the result of a love affair with a Frenchman was said to have found herself pregnant with his child around 1896. Despite her own apparent disregard of social conventions, she soon realised that being an unmarried mother, alone and abroad, would inevitably put her and the child in very difficult circumstances and so she decided to return home to England, to be close to her family and friends.

Having delivered a baby boy, Manfred Louis, on the 24^th April 1896, Louise was said to have settled down to a new life in England, but not before she had made arrangements for her new baby to be placed with a nurse-cum-foster mother, Helen Gentle, who lived in the Tottenham area of London. The cost of caring for the young Manfred was reported to have been met by his father, who had remained in France, but obviously took his obligations to the boy very seriously.

As for Louise herself, she was said to have settled down to live with her sister Leonie and her brother-in-law Richard Cadisch at Bethune Road, Stoke Newington and found employment as a private day governess and part-time piano teacher. At least once a week though, it was said that she would go to see her son, spend a few hours with him and according to Helen Gentle behave as any mother in her circumstances would.

The road to Louise’ ultimate ruin and the death of young Manfred was thought to have begun when she started a friendship with a young French bank clerk, Eudore Lucas, who was a neighbour of Louise’s sister Leonie; and at 19 years of age was at least 15 years younger than Louise herself. Lucas was in England ostensibly to gain experience in his chosen profession of finance and as a junior clerk was thought to be paid very little money, which has been one suggested reason for the horrendous events that were to take place in the final few months of 1899.....(continued)

ADA CHARD WILLIAMS

Perhaps because no mother would willingly hand her child over to a male stranger, the common Victorian practice of “baby farming” was almost entirely a female venture or occupation that was perpetrated against members of their own gender and the most vulnerable of victims; children. At a time when contraception was as much a case of luck, as any sort of planning, it was not unusual to find large numbers of young unmarried women looking for solutions to their unexpected pregnancies and what to do with the babies, which were generally unexpected and unaffordable.

Florence Jones found herself in this predicament towards the end of 1897, when as the result of a relationship she delivered a baby girl called Selina Ellen in December of that year. Florence was not married to Selina’s father and still lived at home with her parents in Croydon, but with financial help from her partner she arranged for the baby to be fostered out with a Mrs Muller for the first three months of her life, during which time she was said to have thrived.

She would later testify that she had removed Selina from Mrs Muller because of concerns over the baby’s health and re-housed her with a Mrs Wetherall at a cost of five shillings a week and this was where the baby remained until the end of August 1899. Sometime during this period Selina’s father was thought to have stopped paying towards her keep and the weekly amount paid to Mrs Wetherall was reduced to half-a-crown per week, although this obviously did not affect her care of the child.

Although Florence seems to have been entirely happy with the care offered by the foster mother, this did not stop her noticing an advert placed in the Woolwich Herald in August 1899, which stated that a young married couple would like to adopt a healthy young baby provided that certain terms were met. She subsequently contacted a Mrs Hewetson from Hammersmith who had placed the advert, enclosing a photograph of Selina and requesting that she provide full details of the arrangement and terms required. Within days she had received a reply from the advertiser, stating that she and her husband would like to adopt Selina, they required a fee of £5 and would like to meet her personally to discuss the matter more fully.....(continued)

MARY DALY

Reported to have been born in 1865 to James Byrne and his wife Mary, of Queens County in Ireland, Mary Daly was one of nine children, having four brothers and four sisters. She was said to have married her husband John Daly in 1890 and fairly quickly delivered him two children, a son called John and a daughter called Elizabeth.

The family were said to have lived on a modest smallholding within Queens County, although John was known to be gainfully employed as a carrier, transporting and selling materials from a nearby quarry to customers within the wider region. It was long and tiring work, which often necessitated him being away from home for days at a time and it was perhaps these enforced absences that directly led to his wife forming an unfortunate attachment with a younger man that would have such tragic consequences for all three people.

Although there is little direct evidence that John Daly was either an indolent or abusive husband, it may well be that his work related absences from home caused a degree of frustration or loneliness for his wife, who was not only tied to the family farm but was left with the responsibility of raising their two young children unaided. It was perhaps little wonder then, that when a neighbour’s son who was ten years her junior came into her rather mundane life, that she found her head turned and her feelings towards her husband changed.

The adulterous relationship between Mary and her young paramour, Joseph Taylor, soon became the subject for the local gossips, but whether her husband John was actually aware of the affair is unclear. It is known however, that the relationship between Mary and her young lover must have been fairly tempestuous, as in May 1902 it was reported that Joseph had visited the Daly house and attacked Mary, striking her with an axe. The assault was considered to be serious enough that the Police became involved and Taylor was arrested for the attack, charged and brought before the courts. On the day of the trial however, it was recorded that Mary Daly failed to attend to give evidence against Taylor, so the authorities had little choice but to release him. Whether on not Taylor was a naturally aggressive individual isn’t known, but given the reported attack on Mary and the subsequent events which led to the death of John Daly, it seems clear that he did indeed have a propensity for violence, although maybe only after drinking heavily.....(continued)

AMELIA SACHS & ANNIE WALTERS

Crime partnerships in themselves are not that unremarkable, but where both participants are women, their victims are innocent babies and where the perpetrators played a part in the final double female execution in British legal history, then these two women are indeed notable.

The younger of the two, Amelia Sachs, seems to have been the “brains” behind a murderous venture which is claimed to have cost up to twenty new born infants their lives and netted Sachs and her co-conspirator what we would now regard as a fairly paltry sum of money.

Born in 1873, Amelia Sachs was a married woman with a child of her own, who either through design or circumstance had established a business at Claymore House in Finchley, which financially exploited unfortunate young women who found themselves carrying a child out of wedlock, which was a clear breach of the social conventions and etiquette of Victorian England. Setting up what we might now call an unmarried mothers home, Sachs advertised for suitable young women to lodge with her until their babies were delivered and then offered them the possibility of their new born baby being adopted by childless couples or wealthy individuals. For most of her clients, who were generally unable or unwilling to take on the responsibility of an unplanned child, the chance to have their baby adopted by a loving couple or a well-to-do person was an extremely acceptable solution to their presently uncertain predicament.

This was not a purely altruistic gesture on Sachs’ part however. Generally, the unmarried mother would be asked for a “present” for the potential parents, a financial sweetener of between £20 and £30 which might be used by the adoptive parents to buy things for their new baby. As most of the young women were keen to give their baby’s the very best start in life, they would often ask the infants father for the money required, which in most cases they were more than happy to do, just to see the unexpected problem go away.....(continued)

EMILY SWANN

This was yet another case where an extra-marital affair was to have fatal consequences, but in this instance, the death of the spouse appears to have the result of “hot blooded” rage, rather than any sort of cold blooded calculation.

Forty-two year old Emily Swann was said to be a mill worker in Wombwell, South Yorkshire, who along with her husband William was reported to have produced around eleven children as the result of a sometimes fraught and abusive marriage, which was perhaps typical of a time when male dominance, financial poverty and social deprivation were overriding factors in most working peoples lives.

Possibly to help alleviate their financial hardship, caused by low wages and a large number of mouths to feed, the Swann’s were thought to have taken in a lodger called John Gallagher, who was a miner at one of the towns local collieries and looking to find accommodation close to his employment.

Although Emily was around twelve years older than him and had had a reported eleven children, the new lodger and his landlady soon began an illicit love affair, which almost inevitably soon became the subject of local gossip that finally came to the ears of Emily’s husband, William. Determined to get to the truth of the rumours, the cheated husband was reported to have confronted the pair in a heated argument, which ultimately resulted in Gallagher leaving their home and moving out of the area.

Had that been the end of the matter, then no doubt all three parties would have gone on to live fairly anonymous lives and the affair would have soon been forgotten. However, it seems clear that John Gallagher continued to maintain contact with friends and neighbours in the town, perhaps checking on Emily’s wellbeing and it was as the result of his visiting a former acquaintance in Wombwell that he and Emily were said to have had their fated meeting, which would result in a man being killed and the pair of lovers being condemned to death.....(continued)

RHODA WILLIS

There is perhaps nothing as catastrophic as a promising life that is given over to wasteful addiction; and that was particularly true for Rhoda Willis who went to her grave with the chilling epitaph of being the last baby farmer to hang in Britain.

Reported to have been born on the 14^th August 1863, Willis was thought to have come from a relatively well-to-do family in the north-east of England, where she was given a decent education and later said to have married an upstanding and professional man, who was a marine engineer. Sadly for them both however, the marriage failed to last, although the precise reason for its failure is unclear.

Now separated from her husband and wider family, Willis was reported to have eventually drifted into South Wales, where it was said she was engaged as a housekeeper by a local Pontypool man called David Evans. Presumably to supplement her meagre income and perhaps to support her reputed drinking problem, she was said to have persuaded her employer to agree to her “adopting” babies, so that they could both earn a little more money; and so she began her first foray into the baby farming business. She was said to have placed an advertisement in the local Evening Press offering to adopt unwanted babies and gave a PO Box No. for interested parties to contact her.

On the 20^th March 1907, a young unmarried mother called Emily Stroud was delivered of a generally healthy but unwanted baby and having seen the newspaper advert placed by Willis, arranged for both the child and the associated adoption fee to be handed over to the kindly woman. Unfortunately for everyone, Willis found herself incapable of looking after the new born infant and within a matter of days was devising a plan to rid herself of her new encumbrance.  It was later proved that she had taken the baby to a local Salvation Army meeting house and abandoned it on the doorstep, leaving a note claiming that she was an unmarried mother who was unable to cope with the child and asking the Salvationists to take care of it. Sadly, either through her own incompetence or through just plain bad luck, the baby was not found in time and subsequently died from exposure, an event that would later come back to haunt the unfortunate Willis.....(continued)

EDITH JESSIE THOMPSON

Born on the 25^th December 1893, Edith Jessie Graydon was the first of five children born to William Graydon and his wife Ethel Jessie at the family’s home at 97 Norfolk Road in Dalston, London. A bright and intelligent child Edith was said to be interested in music and dancing, as well as having an aptitude for arithmetic and a love of reading.

On leaving school she was reported to have gained a position as a book-keeper with a local fabrics importer and given her ability quickly rose through the office ranks to become a buyer for the company, a post which allowed her the opportunity to travel abroad and broaden her horizons.

Around 1909 she met her future husband, Percy Thompson, a rather reliable, conservative individual and after a fairly lengthy courtship the pair were finally married in 1916. Setting up home at Ilford in Essex, the successful and professional young couple were said to be able to live fairly comfortable lives, entertaining friends, going to the theatre and taking annual holidays.

Despite their fairly contented lives however, there is a sense that Edith found her existence staid and unexciting, caused in no small party by Percy, who by repute was said to be a rather conventional and predictable man, completely unlike his imaginative and highly receptive 27-year-old wife, who most would probably have considered to be an exception rather than the rule. Perhaps her regular trips to the continent had made her much more aware of the wider world and its infinite possibilities, than she found to be the case in the highly structured society of Victorian and Edwardian influenced Britain.

It was possibly this need for excitement and change that made her more susceptible to the charms of 20-year-old Freddie Bywaters, a merchant seaman that the couple became acquainted with in 1920. Edith was reported to have met him a few years earlier when Freddie attended the same school as one of her younger brothers, but now she saw him as a seafaring adventurer who interested her with his tales of foreign cultures and overseas adventures.

Percy Thompson too seemed to get on well with Freddie Bywaters and the couple were thought to have invited their new acquaintance to holiday with them and Edith’s younger sister Avis on the Isle of Wight during the summer. The vacation was obviously a happy and successful one, as Percy was thought to have invited their new friend to lodge with them after the holiday, while he waited for his next ship to set sail. Although the arrangement was undoubtedly made with the best of intentions, unhappily for the three people involved it would inevitably have tragic consequences for them all.....(continued)

SUSAN NEWELL

Reported to have been born sometime between 1893 and 1895, Susan McAllister was one of 13 children belonging to Peter McAllister, an itinerant tinsmith and his wife Janet, both of whom were thought to have spent their entire lives travelling, settling only occasionally to earn a living or to add to their ever growing brood.

Sometime before the outbreak of war Susan was said to have married a man called Robert McLeod, to whom she delivered a baby daughter, Janet, in 1915. Seven years later, her first husband was dead and Susan McLeod was reported to have married John Newell, who by reputation was a womanising drunk and a less than adequate provider for his short-tempered wife and her young eight-year-old daughter.

By the end of May 1923 the Newell family were thought to have recently moved into new lodgings at 2 Newlands Street, Coatbridge, the building being owned by a widow called Mrs Annie Young. It is entirely likely that the Newell’s had moved there, having been given notice to quit by their previous landlord and given the reported volatility of the relationship between Susan and John Newell this was probably a regular occurrence.

Within three weeks of having moved into their new home their stormy and noisy relationship had already brought their landlady to the limits of her patience and almost inevitably around the middle of June 1923 she told the family that they would have to leave. This announcement just simply sparked even more resentment and recriminations between the warring couple and eventually John was said to have had enough and basically abandoned his wife and her daughter while he went off to find some peace and quiet. It would later transpire however, that even then the highly irascible wife was not content to sit at home and wait for him to return, but instead tracked him down and demanded that he return home immediately. When he refused to come back, the combative wife was reported to head-butted him before storming off back to their lodgings at Coatbridge.

The 20^th June 1923 found Susan Newell and her daughter Janet still inside their lodgings, penniless and still facing the prospect of having to find new accommodation for themselves. Undoubtedly, her tenuous situation and the violent argument with her erstwhile and still absent husband had pushed her to the brink of reason, but even that was a poor excuse for the events which were to follow.....(continued)

LOUIE CALVERT

Reported to have been born in 1893, Louie Calvert was thought to be a true product of the tough Yorkshire working classes that she was born into, with limited means, little education and even less prospects of escaping the violence and poverty which were common factors in her own society.

Not blessed with handsome good looks or indeed a lovable nature, Louie was said to have made her way through life by working in a series of manual, low-paid jobs, committing the occasional petty theft and occasionally selling herself on the streets of her home city. Needless to say, it was probably as a result of these less than legitimate activities that she inevitably came to the attention of the Police and began to adopt a number of different identities, including that of Louise Jackson and Louie Gomersal.

It was as Louise Jackson, that around 1925 she took on the post of housekeeper to a night watchman called Arthur Calvert and it wasn’t long before their relationship was said to have become much more intimate. Within a few months of the relationship having started Louie was thought to have announced to her new partner that she was pregnant with his child and suggesting that they should marry. Clearly, Arthur Calvert was prepared to “do the right thing” and soon after he and Louie were known have settled down as man and wife.

As the weeks and months passed however, the matter of the new baby and its impending birth was thought to have become an issue between the couple, perhaps because of Louie’s failure to show any signs of being pregnant or her avoidance of the subject generally. Whatever the precise reasons, at the beginning of March 1926 Louie was thought to have told her possibly suspicious husband that she was going to stay with a sister in Dewsbury to have the new baby, no doubt explaining that her sister could help with the delivery of the child and any other medical care she required.

In fact Louie simply travelled to Leeds and quickly found lodgings in a private boarding house, run by an eccentric 40-year-old widow called Mrs Lily Waterhouse, who just happened to be in need of a live-in housekeeper-cum-maid and so the newly arrived Mrs Calvert was only too happy to take on the role. Shortly afterwards, Louie was thought to have seen a newspaper advert for a child that needed adopting and perhaps recognising that this might solve her problem in respect of Arthur Calvert, she made arrangements to adopt the baby from its mother and then brought it back to Mrs Waterhouse’ boarding house.....(continued)

ETHEL MAJOR

When Ethel Lillie Brown married local soldier, Arthur Major, who had been wounded during one of the many battles of the First World War, neither one of them could possibly have imagined that their subsequent 16 year relationship would eventually end with mutual suspicion, hatred and death. How different their lives might have been, had Ethel not decided to keep a deep and dark secret from her new husband, which would ultimately lead them both to disaster.

Reported to have been born sometime around 1891, Ethel was thought to have been a fairly plain country girl who made the mistake of getting herself pregnant through having an illicit affair with an obviously unavailable man, but later found herself unexpectedly rescued by her own parents. Rather than putting the baby girl who was called Auriel, up for adoption, Ethel’s parents took the child as their own and as far as the world was concerned, Ethel and Auriel were sisters, not mother and daughter. So when Ethel and Arthur Major met and married in around 1918, as far as the groom was concerned, their own baby boy Lawrence, who was born within 12 months of their marriage, was the first and only child that either husband or wife had had.

However, some 14 or 15 years later rumours began to circulate around their home village that maybe the relationship between Ethel and her sister Auriel wasn’t quite what it purported to be and before long this gossiping had reached the ears of Arthur Major, who was reported to be working in a local quarry. The outraged husband quickly confronted his wife about the allegations and although she initially denied the rumours, eventually admitted to him that Auriel was indeed her daughter, but refused outright to name the father, which as far as Arthur was concerned was a deceit too far.

Their marriage and relationship immediately began to disintegrate and it wasn’t long before their home life became a routine round of bickering, threats and maliciously gossiping about one another around their local village and amongst their mutual friends. Things were said to be so bad, that often Ethel would walk several miles with her son Lawrence to go and stay at her parents home, rather than spend an evening listening to her husband’s continuing taunts and accusations.....(continued)

“NURSE” DOROTHEA WADDINGHAM

Born sometime around 1900, Dorothea Waddingham appears to have been a woman that made the most of what little she had been given by nature and by life, but ultimately found herself undone by her own avarice.  

Reported to be a relatively unattractive individual, with a long thin face and protruding teeth, she was obviously pleasing enough to at least two men by whom she was thought to have had five children. Her husband, Thomas Leech, was said to have been a good deal older than Waddingham when they married and he was later thought to have died as a result of contracting throat cancer, leaving her with a number of small children to care for alone.  

Following her husbands death, she began a relationship with a man closer to her own age, Ronald Sullivan and together the were said to have established a private unregistered nursing home at 32 Devon Drive in Sherwood in 1935. Although neither one had any formal nursing qualifications, this did not appear to be an obstacle to their setting up the business and Waddingham quickly appointed herself as the matron of the new home, with Sullivan acting as a general orderly.

Despite not having undertaken or achieved any sort of formal nursing qualification, Waddingham did have some experience as an orderly herself, having been employed in that role at the Burton-on-Trent Workhouse Infirmary, but this obviously did not qualify her to appoint herself as a matron in her own nursing home. However, this lack of any credible experience or training does not appear to have been a hindrance, as far as the local authorities were concerned and it was reported that the home received official recognition from the local nursing associations within a short period.

Within weeks of the business being opened two relatives were said to have been recommended to the new nursing home by the local authorities. Ada Baguley was an 87-year-old bedridden invalid who was thought to be suffering from dementia and had a serious heart condition. Her 50-year-old daughter, Ada Louisa, who was said to suffer from some sort of creeping paralysis, accompanied her mother into the home.....(continued)

CHARLOTTE BRYANT

Reported to have been born to a Roman Catholic family called McHugh in Londonderry about 1904, the young Charlotte McHugh was unfortunate enough to be born into a politically and religiously divided community that generally saw members of her own faith fail to prosper under what was still then an Ireland ruled by the British.

Whether it was choice or circumstance that caused her to become an illiterate good-time-girl who spent her later teenage years actively pursuing the British servicemen that were stationed in the city isn’t clear, but her striking good looks and easy virtue were said to have certainly helped her to become a well known and popular figure in the pubs and bars of her home town.

It was almost certainly as a result of this lifestyle that she met Frederic Bryant, a serving soldier who was thought to be about eight years older than her and someone who could no doubt regale her with stories of his actions during the First World War. Perhaps he treated her better than the other soldiers did and was a little more understanding of her situation than she was used to, but it seems that for whatever the reason, she soon became attached to Frederic and the relationship blossomed.

With his service in the British Forces completed, Frederic was said to have returned home to England, with Charlotte accompanying him and within a short time they were thought to have settled down into a peaceful and happy married life together. Frederic found employment as a farm labourer at Wells in Somerset and while he toiled on the land, Charlotte was said to have stayed at home caring for their growing family. No doubt a simple man like Frederic considered his life to be relatively fulfilled, but that does not appear to have been the case for his wife, who was said to have found the solitude and isolation incompatible with her own basic nature.

Perhaps to replace the excitement and freedom that she had left behind in Londonderry, it was said that Charlotte soon began to have illicit affairs with a number of local men and in some cases charging them for her services. Although in a small community such secrets are hard to keep and people tend to gossip, when questioned about his wife’s infidelity Frederic was reported to have been completely indifferent to her behaviour, even joking that at least her “work” brought extra money into the home.....(continued)

ELIZABETH VOLKENRATH

Elizabeth Volkenrath was born on 5^th September 1919 at Schonau in the Silesia region of Germany. Although little is known of her early life, she was perhaps a typical product of a generation brought up on the rhetoric and teachings of Hitler’s Nazi regime that first came to power when Volkenrath was only 14 years of age.

Up until 1939, she was known to have been employed as a hairdresser and following the outbreak of World War II was reported to have been reassigned to work in a munitions factory, helping to produce the arms that German troops would require in their war with Britain and her allies. She remained in this post until October 1941, when she was transferred to the SS Auxiliaries and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp to train as a female guard, as part of the Nazi Party’s emerging “Final Solution”. The training at Ravensbruck was intense and Volkenrath, along with her fellow guards was instructed on how to treat prisoners, the rules and regulations governing their behaviour, as well as learning how to identify prisoner slowdowns and attempts at sabotage.

In March 1942 she was transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, working under another SS Auxiliary Johanna Langefeld, and was initially put in charge of a working party responsible for sewing. Although she admitted having attended selection parades at the camp, she defended herself by stating that she was there purely to supervise the prisoners and had no hand in actually choosing those who lived or died.

In December of the same year she was put in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau Parcel Store, where Red Cross packages from relatives would arrive for those interned or imprisoned at Auschwitz. She was also said to have been in charge of the camp’s bread store. At her trial in 1945, Volkenrath would state that she always made sure that the Red Cross parcels were delivered to inmates and those prisoners who worked with her in the stores would testify to that fact.....(continued)

IRMA GRESE

Of the 10 former female concentration camp guards executed by the British military after World War II, the youngest and reportedly one of the most notorious was Irma Grese, who has alternatively been dubbed the “beautiful beast” and the “angel of death” by a number of the women who had previously been held prisoner at the notorious Ravensbruck, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen Belsen camps.

The title was well deserved for the strikingly handsome 22-year-old Grese, who with her Aryan good looks was the epitome of the German poster girl, with curly blonde hair, big blue eyes and pleasing countenance. It was hard for most reporters to reconcile the fact that the pretty young girl sitting in the dock, was in reality a monster who had helped to deliberately subject thousands of prisoners to inhumane treatment, brutal beatings, bitter starvation and ultimately to certain death.

She was born on October 7^th 1923 at Wrechen, near Mecklenburg to an agricultural worker, Alfred Grese and his wife Bertha, one of five children that they would have together. Although little is known about Grese’s early life, evidence given by her sister Helene to the British military tribunal in 1945, points to a young girl that was not academically gifted or particularly self confident and the loss of her mother through suicide in 1936, when she was just 13-years-old, would undoubtedly have been a shattering blow to the five young Grese children. It also became clear, from her sister’s evidence that Irma, along with a generation of other German youngsters, had become totally enthralled by the teachings and ideology of the ruling Nazi Party, who advocated purity of the German race and the total eradication of the Jewish, Communist and Slavic influences that they believed had corrupted and undermined the former Weimar Republic and threatened their German way of life.       

Although her father was known to have remarried, there is little evidence that Irma or her siblings were close to their father, or indeed to their new step-mother. At 15 years old Irma was reported to have left school, largely as a result of poor scholastic ability, an inability to fit in with her peers, which led to her being bullied and her preoccupation with the Nazi party, particularly the League of German Girls, a female youth organisation, of which her father strongly disapproved. Despite her poor academic qualifications, Irma still hoped to pursue a career in nursing, but found that the Labour Exchange would only offer her agricultural work, so for the next 6 months she was employed on a local farm, before she finally found a post working as a shop assistant in the town of Luchen.....(continued)

JUANA BORMANN

According to her own evidence, given to the British military tribunal convened in 1945, to investigate war crimes committed at Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Bormann was born on 10^th September 1893, at Birkenfelde in East Prussia. This was at odds with the widely accepted information, that she had been born in 1903 and was 42 years of age when she was brought to trial, when in fact she appears to have been ten years older than was generally assumed. Which of these two dates is actually her correct date of birth is unclear, but if she hoped that a greater age might help her to avoid punishment for her crimes, then she was tragically mistaken.

Along with many of her contemporaries who served with her in the SS Auxiliary, prior to her service in the concentration camps Bormann appears to have been an unremarkable individual, who was poorly educated, lacked self confidence and had been employed in a variety of unskilled and badly paid jobs. By her own admission, she had first joined the SS Auxiliaries as a civilian worker at the Lichtenburg concentration camp in 1938, ostensibly to earn more money. Prior to this she had been employed as a worker in a Lunatic Asylum, where she had received a fairly low monthly salary, so the prospect of earning three or four times as much money with the SS appealed to her.

Lichtenburg concentration camp was one of the first in Germany and was reported to have been in operation between 1933 and 1939, centred on a medieval castle complex. From 1933 until 1937 it was said to have held male prisoners, but from 1937 through to 1939 it held female internees only.

At Lichtenburg she was said to have worked under another SS Auxiliary Jane Berginau and was initially employed in the camps kitchens. However, in 1939 Bormann was reported to have been assigned as a female overseer for a working party which was helping to construct the new and emerging Ravensbruck concentration camp. Almost all of the staff from Lichtenburg was reported to have been transferred to Ravensbruck by May of 1939 and Bormann was said to have remained there until 1942.

In March of that year, she was transferred to the main Auschwitz camp, before being reassigned to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in the October of 1942. Her supervisors at the camp included the likes of Maria Mandel, Margot Drechler and the young Irma Grese, all of whom were notorious for their treatment of the prisoner inmates.....(continued)

DOROTHEA “THEA” BINZ

Of the 3500 or so female camp guards that were employed as SS Auxiliaries, many of them were reportedly trained by Dorothea Binz and her cohorts at the infamous Ravensbruck Concentration Camp in Germany. Located some 50 miles north of Berlin, the prison camp at the “bridge of the Ravens” had first been constructed between November 1938 and May 1939, ostensibly to house German born female inmates whose activities were deemed by the new Nazi regime to be either criminal or anti-social. Women prisoners from two other camps, Sachsenhausen and Lichtenburg, were reported to have been forced to help in the construction of Ravensbruck’s buildings, including the inmate barracks, camp kitchens and the main punishment block and jail, which later became known as the bunker.

Once the internal buildings had been constructed, the whole camp area was then surrounded by high barbed and electrified wire fences, which carried a lethal enough charge to prohibit most prisoner escapes and was in addition to the ranks of armed male SS guards who patrolled the site accompanied by their highly trained and extremely vicious guard dogs.

Born on 16^th March 1920 to a middle class German family, her father was reported to be a forester in the village of Alt Globsow near Furstenberg, Dorothea “Thea” Binz shared many similarities with her equally infamous compatriots, Irma Grece, Elisabeth Volkenrath, etc. In common with many of these young women, she was thought to be poorly educated and highly susceptible to the propaganda and rhetoric of Hitler’s National Socialists party, who through organisations such as the League of German Girls, sought to indoctrinate the nations youth with their own distorted political beliefs and creed.

Having left school at 15 years of age in around 1935, Dorothea was said to have found employment as a housemaid to a local well-to-do family, a post that required little education, no great skill and by inference, offered little by way of reward. Finally in 1939, having turned 18 and no longer requiring her parent’s permission to join, she was said to have applied for a training post with her local SS office, who could no doubt offer her the opportunities she so desperately sought and at the same time pay her twice the money she had previously earned.....(continued)

ELISABETH MARSCHALL

Born sometime around 1886 in Germany, as Elisabeth Marschall took her final few steps to the British gallows which would ultimately end her life on the 2^nd May 1947, she not only entered the history books as the oldest female Nazi concentration camp worker ever to be hung by Britain, but also joined the relatively small number of trained nurses who have gained worldwide recognition and everlasting condemnation for the cruelty and cold indifference that they showed to those who were seeking their pity and care.

Thought to have qualified as a nurse in 1910, Marschall was said to have received her formal medical training at Meiningen, before finding employment at the Hermann Goering Works in Braunschweig. In 1931 and having become enraptured by the ideals and philosophy of the emerging National Socialist party led by Adolph Hitler, the 45-year-old nurse was reported to have willingly joined the Nazi party, later telling the allied authorities that she believed Hitler to be the only man who could save Germany from almost certain destruction.

Despite her membership of the ruling party, she was thought to have found herself being investigated and interrogated by the fearsome Gestapo, after she had been accused of secretly giving food to two French prisoners who were employed within the factory, thereby depriving her fellow Germans of much needed food supplies. As a result of her apparently unpatriotic generosity towards the two prisoners, Marschall was then said to have been forcibly transferred to the new Ravensbruck concentration camp, located north of Berlin and in common with many other German prison camps in desperate need of trained personnel.

Because of her specialist medical knowledge and experience the disgraced nurse was put to work in the camp’s hospital and within a short period of time was said to been appointed as the Head Nurse or Oberschwester, the person who was in day-to-day charge of the ward orderlies and conscripted prisoner-nurses. It was a role that she was said to have relished, allowing her to play a full and uncompromising part in the Nazi party’s “cleansing” of both their home nation and the countries of continental Europe that were unfortunate enough to fall under the influence of Hitler’s National Socialist Party.....(continued)

GRETA BOESEL

Born Greta Mueller on the 9^th May 1908 at Elberfeld in Germany, Boesel was yet another trained nurse who found her way into the Nazi concentration camp system established by Hitler’s National Socialist Party and who was reported to have played an active part in the mistreatment and murder of the female prison population.

Initially assigned to the Ravensbruck concentration camp for training, Boesel was reported to have remained there throughout the war, starting her career as an ordinary “Aufseherin” or wardress and later being promoted to the rank of Work Overseer. In common with most of her contemporaries, she was said to have shown nothing but utter contempt and cruelty to the prisoners in her care and her attitude to the sick and infirm was clear as she was heard to state “If a prisoner cannot work, then let them rot”.

By November 1944 she was thought to be actively participating in the selection of prisoners who were to perish in the gas chambers of both Ravensbruck and Auschwitz-Birkenau, generally those deemed too old or sickly to continue slaving away in the industrial complexes of the Third Reich. Many of those chosen were invariably sent to the satellite camp at Uckermark, where their misery was continued and compounded until the day they would be loaded into sealed truck and poison gas canisters thrown in to murder the inmates, several hundreds at a time.

It was also in 1944 that Boesel was reported to have taken over the post of Report Overseer, a job that required her to administer the daily roll calls and oversee the general discipline of the prisoners within the camp. The roll calls were said to be tiresome and chaotic affairs, with tens of thousands of sickly, half-starved and extremely noisy inmates having to be counted and balanced against the camp records and any discrepancy accounted for. Often this daily routine would begin around five o’clock in the morning and last for several hours, with little consideration given to adverse weather conditions or the fact that the women faced at least twelve hours of hard labour in the coming day.

Whilst the female prisoners stood in rows to be counted, they were continually monitored by the SS guards who were assigned to watch them and who were only too happy to inflict pain and suffering on those inmates who disrupted or delayed the daily roll calls. Even seriously ill prisoners were required to attend these daily counts and there were hundreds of reported incidents where SS overseers would beat and bludgeon a sickly woman until she was finally forced outside to attend the block count, or simply died through her illness or mistreatment.....(continued)

VERA SALVEQUART

Born on the 26^th November 1919 in Czechoslovakia Vera Salvequart was yet another trained nurse who was accused and found guilty of misusing both her vocational and professional skills by actively participating in the mass murder of women prisoners at Ravensbruck concentration camp and its associated extermination centre, which was known as Uckermark.

Having moved to Germany during the inter-war years, Salvequart was reported to have fallen foul of the Nazi states stringent racial laws which forbade intimate relationships between people of Germanic or Aryan descent and those deemed to be impure by the National Socialist leadership, including Jews. Salvequart was arrested for the first time in 1941 having been accused of conducting a relationship with a Jewish man and subsequently refusing to disclose his whereabouts to the Gestapo officers who interviewed her. As a result of her offences and undoubtedly because of her refusal to co-operate she was thought to have been sentenced to a 10 month jail term at Flossenberg.

Having served her sentence and been released back into German society, Salvequart was rearrested in 1942 for the same offence, conducting an illegal relationship with a Jewish man, although whether or not it was the same person who was involved in the first case is unclear. Found guilty of the charge yet again, this time Salvequart was sentenced to a two-year jail term, presumably in the same prison that she had so recently left.

Released yet again, the nurse was thought to have come to the attention of the Nazi authorities in the December of 1944 when she was arrested on suspicion of having helped five allied officers to escape capture, an offence which was regarded so seriously that she was sentenced to imprisonment at the female concentration camp at Ravensbruck, which by this time had become a death camp for most of the women that were incarcerated within its barbed wire fences.

Because of her status as a trained nurse and due to the shortage of trained personnel, as soon as Salvequart arrived at Ravensbruck she was assigned to the infirmary or “Revier” at the satellite camp known as Uckermark. This had originally been established as a prison camp in May 1942 for German girls, aged between 16 and 21, who were deemed to be either criminal or anti-social by the Nazi authorities and who were later transferred to the main camp at Ravensbruck, once they had turned 21.....(continued)

RUTH CLOSIUS-NEUDECK

Ruth Hartmann was born into an ethnic German family who lived in Breslau, Germany on the 5^th July 1920 and although little is known about her early life, it is likely that she and her family were directly affected by the rise of Hitler’s National Socialist Party, which not only sought to rebuild the country, but also to re-educate and control its native population. The young Ruth particularly would have been susceptible to the propaganda of the emerging Nazi Party, especially after 1933 when the party came to political power and the League of German Girls became an almost mandatory youth organisation for young female teenagers. Unlike the Hitler Youth which was aimed at boys and young men who could ultimately be diverted into the country’s armed forces, the League of German Girls was designed to foster and support required Germanic and Aryan traits within the nation’s young women, including beauty, health and ethnic purity.

As with all classes of the native German population, young and old, the dangers of foreign, ethnically unclean races, notably the Jews, was a major part of the Nazi re-education and propaganda program which was directed at the country’s youth particularly. Both at school and during League summer camps, the likes of the teenage Ruth Hartmann and her many contemporaries, like Irma Grese, Elizabeth Volkenrath, etc would have been fully indoctrinated with the idea that all non-Aryan people were essentially worthless and represented a real danger to the German way of life and its racial purity. It is perhaps little wonder that so many of these former League members would eventually go on to become integral parts of the Nazi war machine, participating in some of the most vile and despicable actions against helpless civilians, who in their eyes were little more than vermin to be exterminated.

Once again, in common with a number of her more infamous contemporaries, Ruth Closius does not appear to have been an above average student and it has been suggested that having left school she simply drifted from one low paid job to another before deciding to settle down into married life. In July 1944 however, she was reported to have applied for work as a camp wardress and was initially sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp for training. Like Irma Grese, Ruth was said to have made an almost immediate impression with her superiors, treating the camp’s female prison population with a level of cruelty that was much admired by the SS officials who administered the vast extermination centre.....(continued)

IDA SCHREITER

Of the ten former female SS camp guards executed by the British military authorities following the end of World War II, Ida Schreiter is the one individual about whom, little if anything is known. Publicly available records suggest that she was born on the 27^th December 1912 and served as an Aufseherin or wardress at the Ravensbruck concentration camp sometime between 1939 and 1945 and was subsequently executed by the British on 20^th September 1948 at Hameln Prison by Albert Pierrepoint.

Clearly however, she was a war criminal of some note, given that she was given an equal sentence to that of the other nine female guards including the notorious Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath and Dorothea Binz, all of whom were infamous for their individual brutality and the cold indifference that they showed to the prisoners in their charge.

It seems fairly certain to assume therefore, that when Schreiter was finally brought to trial at the 7^th Ravensbruck Trial, held between the 2^nd and 21^st July 1948 at Hamburg, that there was sufficient documentary evidence and witness testimonies to safely convict her of the charges laid against her. In the dock with her, was Emma Anna Maria Zimmer, the former Chief Overseer at Ravensbruck, who was said to have personally selected thousands of female prisoners for the camp’s gas chambers and who ultimately, received a similar sentence from the court. 

It is perhaps also worth noting for this particular guard, that various sources appear to have used entirely different names to identify her, including Gertrude Schreiter, Bertha Schreiter and Ida Schreider, all of which may have helped to distract reporters and confuse later records.

The principal charges laid against Schreiter, Zimmer, Luise Brunner, Anna Klein, Christine Holthower and Ilse Vettermann was that they had mistreated prisoners of allied nationalities and had participated in the selection of prisoners for the camps gas chambers. As with virtually all of the SS staff who were prosecuted by the various Allied Courts following the defeat of Nazi Germany, they were held to be equally culpable for the atrocities visited on any and all allied citizens or inmates who were imprisoned at their particular camp, generally being guilty by association as well as by individual deed. Consequently, most of the leading female guards at Ravensbruck were subsequently found to be responsible for the mistreatment and deaths of the many French, Polish, Russian and British women who were imprisoned in the “living hell” that the camp eventually became.....(continued)

EMMA ANNA MARIA ZIMMER

Born Emma Anna Maria Mezel at Schlutern in Germany on the 14^th August 1888, she was yet another more mature German citizen who felt compelled to answer the Nazi party’s call for volunteer’s and at the same time set out to improve her own prospects and personal situation by choosing to work in one of Germany’s emerging death camp’s purely for better pay and conditions. 

Reported to have begun her career as a camp guard at Ravensbruck in around 1939, Zimmer is thought to have been in one of the first intakes of German women who willingly volunteered to take on the role of “Aufseherin” or “Wardress” at the newly opened concentration camp. It was clearly a job that she was temperamentally well suited for, as she was reported to have progressed quickly to the rank of Chief Overseer at the camp, a title she was thought to have held from 1939 through to 1941.

It was during this period that Zimmer was later accused of actively participating in the selection of specific prisoner’s who were found to be suffering from mental illnesses or physical disorders, that were deemed to be incurable and which might well be inherited by future generations. To counter any possibility of such “tainted” blood entering the Nazi gene pool, the staffs at Ravensbruck, Buchenwald, Flossenburg and Sachsenhausen were reported to have actively sought out and identified prisoners who were suffering from either genetic or psychiatric afflictions and sent them to euthanasia centres like Bernberg, which was located near Magdeburg.

This mental hospital had been partially converted in 1940 to secretly dispose of Germany’s sickest citizen’s under the terms of a Nazi inspired euthanasia programme known as Aktion T4 which was primarily designed to eradicate those German nationals who were deemed by nature of their illness, to be expendable, for the purpose of purifying the Aryan race. As with the later much larger death camps which were established throughout continental Europe, Bernberg was equipped with a gas chamber, that was designed to resemble a shower room and where the selected prisoners would ultimately die. The corpses were then transferred to another part of the buildings cellar complex, where two ovens had been installed, specifically for the purpose of disposing of the patients bodies.....(continued)

MARGARET “BILL” ALLEN

In a case that was perhaps reminiscent of the Susan Newell murder trial, the killing of 68-year-old Nancy Ellen Chadwick by 42-year-old Margaret “Bill” Allen appeared to be a random and motiveless act, perpetrated for no other reason than the accused woman having been in a “funny” mood. Unlike her Scottish counterpart however, Allen’s actions have later been accounted for by some students of the case, because of her then unrecognised and undiagnosed psychological trans-gender issues, which they believe somehow played a part in the killing.

Reported to have been born in 1906, the third youngest of 22 children, Maggie Allen was said to have always been a bit of a “tom-boy”, preferring to dress and act as a lad rather than the young girl that nature had deemed her to be. Throughout her formative years she was thought to have continued to adopt this more masculine persona, so by the time she had reached adulthood she was known and generally accepted as some sort of odd local character who preferred to be known as “Bill” rather than by her given names of Margaret or Maggie.

Both her working career and social life were said to have reflected her very masculine lifestyle, taking on jobs that typically might have been undertaken by men, such as a coalman and a bus conductor, a job from which she was eventually dismissed for being too physically rough with the passengers. In the local pubs and bars, rather than sit with the ladies in the much more comfortable lounge or snug, she would spend her evenings sitting in the often sparse public bars with the men, sharing their habits and their language, but no doubt still treated with a degree of suspicion by her fellow drinkers.

Her character was thought to have changed markedly in 1943 when her mother died, which might have accounted for her much more aggressive and less tolerant attitude, which would eventually get her fired from her job as a bus conductor. Her physical health was said to have suffered as a result of the deep and dark depressions that regularly beset her, as well as the heavy smoking and irregular diet she was noted for.

In the post war period and following her dismissal from the local bus company, Allen was said to have been employed in several of the local mills, as well as working as a post woman and finally been employed in a local slipper factor before losing that job for some unspecified reason. Clearly she was a hard worker and her regular employment posts were said to have allowed Allen to buy a property in the town on Bacup Road, one of the main routes in and out of Rawtenstall.

By August of 1948, Allen was said to have been between jobs and perhaps it was this situation, allied to depression over her personal life and a naturally aggressive attitude, that saw her temper primed to such a degree that even the most inconsequential act would cause her to react violently. So when a local 68-year-old woman called Mrs Nancy Chadwick called at Allen’s home to borrow a cup of sugar, it seems that her unexpected and unwelcome visit provided the impetus for a sustained and murderous attack perpetrated by Margaret “Bill” Allen which would ultimately cost both women their lives.....(continued)

LOUISA MAY MERRIFIELD

When 79-year-old bed-ridden Sarah Ricketts advertised for a couple to act as her live-in housekeeper and handyman, she was thought to have been inundated with applications from married couples who were anxious to secure a position in the famous northern beach resort of Blackpool. Unfortunately for her however, it appears that most of the couples that applied for the post were either unsuitable or were quickly put off accepting the position by the behaviour and habits of the old lady herself.

Despite her apparent wealth and respectability, suggested by both her comfortably modern bungalow and her ability to employ live-in staff, Sarah was thought to be a no-nonsense, plain speaking working class woman who had the money to indulge a fairly peculiar lifestyle and dietary regime. It was said that the nearly 80-year-old woman would commonly eat a meal of glycerine and jam, washed down with a tot of rum and a bottle of stout, delivered to her room by the resident staff. 

Reported to be a highly irritable and demanding employer, the person who immediately appealed to Mrs Ricketts was 46-year-old Louisa May Merrifield, who along with her husband, 71-year-old Alfred Merrifield seemed to be just the sort of people she was looking for, caring, considerate and perhaps more importantly, a couple that appeared to be compliant.

Sadly though, the old lady had obviously and totally misjudged the couple and that proved to be a critical mistake which would ultimately cost her life. In reality, Louisa Merrifield was a convicted fraudster who had an equally poor temperament as the old lady herself and was reported to have had more than 20-odd jobs in the previous three year period, none of which she could sustain. Her private life was said to have been as chaotic as her working career, having been married three times and with her two children being taken into care, ostensibly as a result of her heavy drinking and unreasonable behaviour.

Her third husband, Alfred Merrifield, was thought to be the perfect partner for the overtly dominant Louisa, a simple compliant individual who would later be reported as an innocent partner in the murderous machinations of his wife, but whose actions to this day remain highly questionable.....(continued)

STYLLOU CHRISTOFI

Born on the British dependency of Cyprus in 1900, Styllou Pantopiou Christofi was reported to be a member of the islands largely Greek community, who along with most of her contemporaries was brought up with no formal education, which left her almost illiterate and with little opportunity to venture outside of her own small village, the foundations of which were firmly built on a family’s traditions and its heritage.

Perhaps because of the intense insularity that such isolated villages generated within themselves, personal disagreements and arguments within the community, were often seen as a matter for those that lived there, perhaps leading to levels of behaviour or resolutions that the wider world might consider improper or unreasonable, but which to the village itself were seen as entirely acceptable.

In 1925, Styllou Christofi was reported to have been charged with killing her mother-in-law by forcing a burning torch down the older woman’s throat, purely as a result of the two women not being able to get along with one another. This crime, had it taken place in most modern countries of the period, would almost certainly have resulted in her receiving a lengthy jail term if not the death penalty, but this was not the case in Cyprus. Rather, the court was reported to have taken the view that Styllou had been so seriously provoked by her mother-in-law, that her actions, although extreme, were not sufficiently serious enough to warrant a prison term.

Regardless of the reasons for her escaping any sort of judicial punishment for her murderous actions, the event was undoubtedly pivotal, in that Styllou was subsequently released to commit her second known killing some 20-odd-years later that would bring her to the attention of the British public.....(continued)

RUTH ELLIS

For older generations of the British public, the execution of Ruth Ellis remains a pivotal moment in the long fought campaign to finally remove Capital Punishment from the statute books, even though the perpetrator herself clearly accepted the concept and practice of judicial retribution and according to some reporters even willingly welcomed the very idea of paying for her crime with her own life.

Born on the 9^th October 1926 in the North Wales seaside resort of Rhyl, Ruth Hornby was one of five children born to Arthur Neilson a professional musician and his wife Bertha, a Belgium national who had settled in Britain. Although the family’s original surname was said to be Hornby, Arthur seems to have adopted the name Neilson, either as a professional stage name or for some other unknown reason, but by the time the family had relocated to London in around 1941; Neilson was their generally accepted surname.

The young Ruth was thought to have left school at 14 years old and found work in a number of low paid and often unskilled jobs, such as a waitress or shop worker, rather than finding employment in any of the extensive war-time industries which were always looking to recruit new workers. Perhaps these casual positions offered her the opportunity to exploit and be a part of the vibrant social scene which existed in London at that time, the city being populated by cash rich servicemen from across the Atlantic who were keen to have a good time in the capital.

In 1944, at the age of 17, Ruth was reported to have become pregnant by a Canadian serviceman, who was said to have kept in touch with her and helped her financially only until he returned home after the war. Now left alone with her baby boy Andre to take of, Ruth was thought to have entered the seedy world of Britain’s post war nightclub scene where she managed to find work as a hostess, a role which had obvious associations with both the criminal fraternity and female prostitution.....(continued)