SOUND OF THE GALLOWS

I recently came across a question in parliament dated 8th December 1955. Mr Hyde MP asked the Home Secretary Gwilym Lloyd George, if he was aware that prisoners and staff were disturbed by the noise of scaffolding being erected for Ruth Ellis’s execution just before she was hanged. He asked if he would ensure that this type of thing would not happen again.

Major Lloyd George said in his reply to Mr Hyde, “No scaffold was erected in Holloway prison before the execution of Mrs Ellis.”

Mr Hyde replied, “Is my Right Hon and gallant Friend aware that what he has said will reassure those members of the public who were alarmed at a statement to the contrary sense made by the Bishop of Stepney  who visited Mrs Ellis shortly before her execution?”

At that time Dr Joost de Blank was the Bishop of Stepney. He was a great supporter of the campaign against the death penalty. He subsequently became Archbishop of Cape town and was outspoken against apartheid. 

His visit to Ruth Ellis in the condemned cell is mentioned in both the published biographies about him by Bartha de Blank and John Peart-Binns. After the visit, as well as being ‘horrified and aghast beyond words’ he also said that he could not forget Ruth Ellis’s words: “It is quite clear to me,” she told him, “that I was not the person who shot him. When I saw myself with that revolver I knew that I was another person.”

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