Ethel Le Neve

Ethel Le Neve worked as a typist and secretary for Hawley Harvey Crippen and became his lover. After the disappearance of Crippen’s wife, Ethel wore some of Cora’s jewellery and later left Britain with Crippen aboard the SS Montrose , travelling in male clothing as his supposed son.

Le Neve became closely associated with the Crippen case when she left Britain with Crippen after the disappearance of his wife, travelling aboard the SS Montrose disguised as a boy. Wireless messages between the ship and authorities enabled police to arrange the pair's arrest in Canada. Le Neve was tried as an accessory after the fact but acquitted, and she later lived under a different name away from the publicity of the case.

In Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck, in a parallel narrative, London doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen lives unhappily with his wife, music-hall performer Belle Elmore, while beginning a relationship with his secretary Ethel Le Neve. In John Boyne’s Crippen, London at the beginning of the twentieth century. Hawley Harvey Crippen, an American doctor practising dubious patent medicine, lives unhappily with his wife Cora, a music-hall performer known as Belle Elmore. His affair with the younger Ethel Le Neve develops against Cora’s ambitions, financial demands and volatile marriage.