Ada Chard-Williams

Ada CHARD-WILLIAMS (*1876) was hanged March 08, 1900 in London’s Newgate Prison. Thus she was the last woman to be executed here. After 1900 women were executed in women’s prison Holloway.

Ada Chard-Williams was convicted of battering and strangling to death 21 month old Selina Jones in Barnes in London in September 1899. Florence Jones, a young unmarried mother, had read an advert in the local paper which offered to find adoptive homes for unwanted children. She agreed to pay £5 to a Mrs. Hewetson (Ada Chard Williams) but could only give her £3 on the day. Being an honest woman she went back later with the balance and found that Mrs. Hewetson and Selina had vanished. Florence reported the matter to the police who discovered that Mrs. Hewetson was really Ada Chard Williams. However they had no body to prove there had been a murder, at least not until little Selina’s corpse was washed up on the bank of the Thames at Battersea. Like Amelia Dyer Chard -Williams had her own „signature“ way of wrapping up bodies she wished to dispose of which was a crucial piece of evidence at her trial at the Old Bailey on the 16th and 17th of February 1900. She went to her appointment with James Billington on the gallows in the execution shed in the yard of Newgate prison on Wednesday the 8th March 1900. She was the last woman to be hanged at Newgate. She was suspected of killing other children although no further allegations were proceeded with.