The Second-last Woman in England

Mrs Harriet Wallis is found guilty of the murder of her husband in London. It is 1953, the same year as Elizabeth’s Coronation, and this woman is set to become the second-last woman in England to be hanged. ‘In early 1950s London, the Wallises are a well-to-do family and a model of rectitude. The glacial Harriet and her husband, Cecil, a big name in shipping, enact the rituals of family life with an exactitude that reflects the expectations of their class. Joel creates the veneer of moral austerity that typified the times then chips away at it, exposing the inconsistencies that belied an idealised family life.