The Aftermath

An appeal of Crippen’s sentence was refused, and his execution was set for 23 November. Ethel visited Crippen in prison every day, and followed each visit up with a letter.When he was executed at Pentonville Prison in London, on 23 November 1910, he requested that the letters, and a photograph of Ethel, be buried with him. He also bequeathed his estate to her.On the day that he was executed, Ethel left the country by ship, bound for New York; from there she travelled to Toronto, where she worked as a secretary for 5 years, before returning to the UK, where she married and settled in Croydon. She died in hospital in 1967, aged 84.Given the publicity surrounding Number 39 Hilldrop Crescent, it is unsurprising that the house remained empty for most of the next 30 years. It was destroyed in a German air raid during the Second World War.Captain Kendall of the SS Montrose narrowly escaped death himself, when his ship, the SS Empress of Ireland, was wrecked in 1914, with the loss of more than 1000 lives, in the exact spot where Crippen had been arrested four years earlier, Father Point in Quebec. Kendall was one of the few to survive the disaster.