Alma Victoria Rattenbury was an English-Canadian songwriter and accused murderer.
36 Facts About Alma Rattenbury
1.
2.
Alma Rattenbury married for the first time to Caledon Robert John Radclyffe Dolling in 1914, a relative of the Earl of Caledon.
3.
Alma Rattenbury was initially stationed in Prince Rupert, where she involved herself in entertaining the troops.
4.
Alma Rattenbury's husband was awarded the Military Cross for bravery before being killed in action during the First Battle of the Somme.
5.
Alma Rattenbury divorced his wife in 1920, and the couple emigrated to the United States.
6.
Alma Rattenbury was employed as a lecturer, wrongly claiming to hold a doctorate, and she worked as a piano teacher.
7.
Alma Rattenbury continued to give music lessons, and composed song music with the pen name Lozanne.
8.
Stoner and Alma began an affair; Rattenbury was aware and tolerated it.
9.
On 24 March 1935, Alma Rattenbury was attacked with a wooden mallet while sleeping in an armchair in their drawing room.
10.
The morning after the attack, and having been heavily sedated the night before by the doctor, Alma Rattenbury admitted to attacking him.
11.
Alma Rattenbury was found not guilty, while Stoner was found guilty and sentenced to death.
12.
Alma Rattenbury was probably born in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada.
13.
In 1914, Alma Rattenbury married Caledon Robert John Radclyffe Dolling, the nephew of Eric Alexander, 5th Earl of Caledon and a resident of Vancouver.
14.
Alma Rattenbury was posted to Prince Rupert as second in command, and was involved in local guard duties and the training of soldiers.
15.
Alma Rattenbury devoted her spare time to entertaining the troops and creating competitions for them.
16.
Alma Rattenbury worked at the War Office in central London, while living with her aunt-in-law in Chislehurst.
17.
Alma Rattenbury was granted leave to attend the investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace for his MC on 29 May 1916: Alma accompanied her husband to the palace but was obliged to wait outside while he received his medal from King George V Alma Rattenbury returned to France and the front in July 1916.
18.
Alma Rattenbury was killed in action on 20 August 1916 during the First Battle of the Somme.
19.
On 6 January 1917 Alma Rattenbury arrived in Creil, France, to begin her work as an orderly at the Scottish Women's Hospital at Royaumont Abbey.
20.
Alma Rattenbury wrote in a letter that she could sleep through the bombing falling nearby, but would regularly wake at the sound of rats scratching near her sleeping area.
21.
Alma Rattenbury gave piano lessons, in contrast to her pre-war status as a concert soloist.
22.
However, Alma Rattenbury left Pakenham to return to her native Canada in March 1922; their marriage formally ended in divorce in 1925.
23.
Alma Rattenbury earned her living in Canada by giving music lessons and composing song music under the pen name Lozanne.
24.
Alma Rattenbury's songs were sung by the likes of Richard Tauber and Frank Titterton, and played by bandleaders such as Bert Ambrose.
25.
In 1925, Alma officially divorced Pakenham and was cited in the divorce of Francis Rattenbury was born on 1867 and from his first wife.
26.
Alma Rattenbury had been born and educated in Leeds, England, and had trained as an architect.
27.
On 24 March 1935 Alma Rattenbury was sleeping in an armchair in the drawing room when he was struck multiple times in the head with a wooden carpenter's hammer.
28.
Alma Rattenbury found Rattenbury lying on his bed in the downstairs bedroom, with a blood-soaked sheet wrapped around his head and without his trousers; he was unconscious.
29.
The local doctor called in a surgeon who, having inspected Rattenbury with difficulty as Alma kept interfering, called an ambulance to take him to Strathallen Nursing Home.
30.
Alma Rattenbury was "highly excited, incoherent, and intoxicated" and, when the police arrived, declared that she was the one who had attacked her husband with a mallet.
31.
Alma Rattenbury had to be sedated by the local doctor, who had returned to Villa Madeira at 4am with "half a grain of morphia".
32.
Alma Rattenbury was charged with grievous bodily harm with intent to murder.
33.
Alma Rattenbury later stated that she had no recollection of that night and could not remember signing a confession.
34.
On 28 March 1935 Alma Rattenbury died of his injuries and Stoner admitted that he had struck him with a mallet.
35.
Alma Rattenbury was buried on 8 June 1935 at St Peter's Church, Bournemouth.
36.
Alma Rattenbury served seven years in prison before being released to serve in the British Army for the Second World War.