Alma Rattenbury

Alma Victoria Rattenbury ( Wolfe, also Clarke, Radclyffe Dolling and Packenham; 1897/84 June 1935) was an English-Canadian songwriter who was tried for murder.

Born and educated in Canada, she was a talented musician and played with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. She married for the first time to Caledon Robert John Radclyffe Dolling in 1914, a relative of the Earl of Caledon. With the outbreak of the First World War, her husband joined up. He was initially stationed in Prince Rupert, where she involved herself in entertaining the troops. In August 1915, they moved to England and her husband was posted to France in October 1915. She worked at the War Office. Her husband was awarded the Military Cross for bravery before being killed in action during the First Battle of the Somme. Following her husband's death, she volunteered with the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Foreign Service, and served with distinction in France. Having been wounded twice, she was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for her war service.

In 1918, she began a relationship with the then-married Compton Packenham. He divorced his wife in 1920, and the couple emigrated to the United States. He was employed as a lecturer, wrongly claiming to hold a doctorate, and she worked as a piano teacher. They married in 1921 and had a son. However, the relationship failed, and she took her son and returned to her native Canada in 1922; they formally divorced in 1925. She continued to give music lessons, and also composed song music with the pen name .

While in Vancouver, she met Francis Mawson Rattenbury, a noted architect, and they began a relationship. In 1925, he divorced his first wife and married Alma. The scandal that followed the affair and divorce meant that the couple chose to emigrate to England to start a new life. They settled in Bournemouth and had a son in 1928. Following the birth, they lived a celibate life with separate bedrooms on separate floors of their home, Villa Madeira. In September 1934, they employed George Stoner (born 1916) as a chauffeur and handyman, and he moved in to live with them. Stoner and Alma began an affair; Rattenbury was aware and tolerated it.

On 24 March 1935, Rattenbury was attacked with a wooden mallet while sleeping in an armchair in their drawing room. A local doctor was called and Rattenbury was transferred to a nursing home, but he died five days later. The morning after the attack, and having been heavily sedated the night before by the doctor, Alma admitted to attacking him. After Rattenbury died, both Alma and Stoner were arrested and charged with having murdered him alone. The sensational trial took place between 27 May and 31 May 1935, and was heavily covered in the press. Alma was found not guilty, while Stoner was found guilty and sentenced to death, with a recommendation for mercy from the jury. Days later, on 4 June, Alma committed suicide by stabbing herself in the chest six times. Stoner's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, but he only served seven years before being allowed to join the British Army during World War II.

Biography Alma Victoria Wolfe was born to a gold mining prospector and his wife, Elizabeth, who was reputedly related to the cricketer W. G. Grace. Alma was probably born in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada. After her father disappeared, her mother re-married and Alma took her step-father's surname of Clarke. She was educated in Kamloops and Toronto. Showing great musical talent, she was reportedly a soloist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra by the age of seventeen.

First marriage and the First World War In 1914, Alma married Caledon Robert John Radclyffe Dolling, the nephew of Eric Alexander, 5th Earl of Caledon and a resident of Vancouver. With the outbreak of the First World War, he joined up and was commissioned in the 11th Irish Fusiliers of Canada. He was injured for a second time on 25 April during a raid on the German trenches and required hospital treatment. This left Alma widowed at the age of 24. Amongst his designs were the British Columbia Parliament Buildings and The Empress Hotel. The advertisement was answered by George Percy Stoner (born 1916), a 17-year-old who was thereafter employed by the couple as a chauffeur and handyman. The trial opened on 27 May 1935 at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales (the Old Bailey), before Sir Travers Humphreys. Stoner said he had been accepted in Bournemouth:"I have lived here all my life and no one has ever said they were disgusted. They have always sympathised and I have admitted I made a mistake."

Cultural references In 1937, playwright and actor Emlyn Williams suggested to producer Alexander Korda the idea of making a film about "the Rattenbury murder case" with actors Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Williams then joined Oberon in the cast of Korda's film I, Claudius instead. A television play based on the case, Killer In Close-Up: The Rattenbury Case, written by George F. Kerr, and produced by Melbourne television station ABV-2, was broadcast on June 18, 1958. The case was dramatised for Australian television in 1958 by George F. Kerr as an episode of Killer in Close-Up The case was the basis of the radio and stage play Cause Célèbre by Sir Terence Rattigan. A British television adaptation of the Rattigan play was produced by Anglia and shown on ITV on 23 August 1987, with Helen Mirren portraying Alma. The 2014 Sarah Waters' novel The Paying Guests was part inspired by the murder. The 2018 novel Our Friends In Berlin by the author Anthony Quinn mentions the trial as part of its historical background. Sean O'Connor's 2019 account of the case The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury