On 3 October 1922 Percy Thompson, a shipping clerk and old member of the Stepney Elocution Class, was stabbed to death in the street near his home in Ilford. His wife, Edith, was with him; her lover and former lodger, Frederick Bywaters, was the attacker. These circumstances were not disputed when the couple were charged with Thompson's murder. But when they were found guilty and sentenced to hang, the clamour for reprieve was insistent. The magistrate who had committed them for trial at the Old Bailey protested to the Home Office. The Daily Sketch featured front-page pictures of the lovers' parents. A petition seeking commutation of the sentence, placed in cinemas, tube stations and theatres, was signed by over a million people. It took a poet to applaud the verdict. Thomas Hardy enthused:

LRB 4 August 1988 | PDF Download