50 years ago on this
date, 30 April 1966, a British Anti-Death Penalty Activist passed away with a
reduced fortune.
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Violet Van der Elst
(4 January 1882 Feltham - 30 April 1966
Ticehurst)
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.granthammatters.co.uk/van-der-elst-violet/]
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INTERNET SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Van_der_Elst
Violet Van der Elst (4
January 1882 Feltham
- 30 April 1966 Ticehurst) is best remembered for her activities against
the death penalty. She was born Violet Anne Dodge, the daughter of a coal porter
and a washerwoman, she herself worked as a scullery maid. At age 17, she
married Henry Arthur Nathan, a civil engineer 13 years her senior. She
developed cosmetics including Shavex, the first brush-less shaving
cream and became a successful businesswoman. After her first husband died
on 15 November 1927, she married Jean Julien Romain Van der Elst, a Belgian who
had been working for her as a manager but was also a painter.
Having amassed a huge
personal fortune she purchased Harlaxton
Manor, in Lincolnshire, England.
She gained publicity
from her vocal campaigns against capital punishment, and stood three times, unsuccessfully,
as a candidate to be an M.P.. She fought Putney at the 1935 General
Election as an Independent, coming third. She fought Hornchurch at the 1945
General election as an Independent, coming fourth.
She wrote the book On
the Gallows in 1937 as part of her efforts to eradicate the death penalty.
In the same year she published a collection of 13 ghost stories, The Torture
Chamber and Other Stories.
Her campaigning, her
behaviour, and unsuccessful political career reduced her fortune, forcing her
to sell her house and move to a flat in Knightsbridge,
London, in
1959.
Largely forgotten,
she died in a nursing home, her wealth reduced to some ₤ 15,000, having seen
the abolition of capital punishment for murder in Britain the previous year.
In the 2005 film Pierrepoint, she is played by Ann Bell.
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