Ethel Le Neve

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Ethel Clara Neave, known as Ethel Le Neve, was born in January 1883 in Diss, Norfolk. She was the eldest child of Walter William Neave, a railway clerk, and Charlotte Neave. In 1900 she was hired as a typist by Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, and by 1905 she had become his mistress.

In 1910 Crippen killed his wife, Cora, and the couple fled on the SS Montrose. The ship’s master grew suspicious and alerted Scotland Yard. Chief Inspector Walter Dew arrested them when they reached Canada and brought them back to England. Ethel Le Neve was acquitted of being an accessory to murder.

Crippen was convicted and hanged. Before his death he left his estate to Le Neve as executrix, but the probate court refused her request to administer Crippen’s wife’s estate, saying no one should profit from the crime.

After the trial Le Neve went to Toronto to work as a typist for three years, then returned to London under the name Ethel Harvey. She later worked at a furniture store near Trafalgar Square. In January 1915 she married Stanley Smith and they had two children, living in Croydon. Ethel Le Neve died there in 1967.