The last, whispered words of a young woman whose throat was cut by her fiancé were enough to see him hanged for the crime. Ada Louisa James, 21, used her last ounce of strength to tell police her killer’s identity, before she succumbed to her injuries in hospital.
By 1913, Ada and her boyfriend Edward Henry Palmer (known as Ted) had been an item for two or three years. She worked in a button factory at St James’s Square. He was a chairmaker, amateur boxer and petty thief, jailed in 1912 for the theft of some tools.
On his release he travelled to Canada, writing regular letters to his beau until his return six months later. On 23 December he proposed, winning her father’s permission to wed Ada.
