|
"Baby Farming" – a
tragedy of Victorian times. |
The
practice of baby farming grew up in late Victorian era when there was no
effective contraception and great social stigma attached to having a child out
of wedlock. Proper adoption agencies and social services didn't exist at this time.
Instead, a number of untrained women offered legal fostering and adoption
services to unmarried mothers who would hand over their baby plus, say 10 to 15
pounds in cash (quite a large sum of money then) to them in the hope that the
child would be re-homed. Most of the babies were in one way or another. It is
probable that some were sold to childless couples and others fostered/adopted
for a few pounds. Unmarried mothers were often desperate so they answered the
adverts placed in newspapers by seemingly reputable people. Getting rid of a
child in this way had obvious advantages to the mother - it was simple, quick
and legal with few questions asked. The mothers had few real alternatives.
Abortion was illegal and the back street abortions that were carried out were a
very high risk alternative, sometimes resulting in severe haemorrhaging or even
the death of the women or prosecution and imprisonment if she was found out.
Abandonment was similarly illegal and little sympathy was extended by the
courts to women who abandoned their children in those days. Murdering of
unwanted children by their mothers typically resulted in the death penalty in
Victorian Britain. Selina Wadge
was hanged by William Marwood on
If having
been “re-homed,” a baby disappeared, the mother was often too frightened or
ashamed to tell the police so it was very easy for the unscrupulous baby
farmers to kill off unwanted or hard to foster (or sell?) babies. Sadly, a few
of the baby farmers found killing off the babies far easier than re-homing them
and these are the cases examined here. Murder yielded a quicker profit without
the need for caring for the child for some weeks or months, at their own
expense.
In an age of high infant mortality, deaths of babies and small children
attracted little attention and were actually quite common. Where a baby’s body
was found, it was often impossible to trace the mother as the authorities did
not have the advantage of
Six baby
farmers were hanged in
Annie
Tooke.
Reginald Hyde was born on the 6th of October 1878 to a
young woman from Cambourne in Cornwall called Mary
Hoskins, who moved to Ide near Exeter in Devon to
conceal the pregnancy. She was persuaded by her brother to give the child up to
a “nurse” and made contact with Annie Tooke who
agreed to take Reginald on for £12, plus 5 shillings (25p) a week. Annie moved from Ide
to South Street Exeter in the Spring of 1879 and had difficulty coping with the
growing Reginald. The baby was not seen alive after the 9th of May but a
child’s torso was discovered on the 17th of May by a local miller. The head,
limbs and genitals were missing but were discovered nearby. This gruesome find made the papers and the
story was read by a butcher and a doctor from Ide who
knew Annie and the child. They visited
her and asked to see Reginald whom she was unable to produce - instead making up
a story about an unnamed person having taken him away a fortnight earlier. The
police initially suspected that Mary Hoskins had been responsible for the death
(presumably to save the 5 shillings a week) and took Annie to Cambourne to identify her. Mary was arrested and charged
with the crime. Annie gave Captain Bent, the Chief Constable of Exeter, a
statement describing how the child had been taken but he became suspicious of
her testimony and arrested her. While in Exeter prison she made a full confession
to him, saying how she had suffocated Reginald with a pillow and then cut him
up with the fire wood chopper on the coal bunker. She later withdrew this confession. She was tried at Exeter on the 21st and 22nd
of July 1879 and the jury believed her confession, supported by blood stains on
items of her clothing and the coal bunker. She was convicted and hanged on
Monday, the 11th of August by William Marwood.
There seems little doubt that she was guilty and that the murder was
typical of the “Baby farming” style of crime, however there is no evidence to
show that she was involved with any other children, unlike the other women on
this page.
Margaret
Waters.
Margaret Waters, 34, was
charged with 5 counts of wilful murder of children in the Brixton area of
Jessie
King.
Jessie
King lived with her partner Michael Pearson at lodgings in Canonmills
in
Jessie was interviewed and during the questioning broke down and led the police
down to the cellar where they discovered the body of the female baby. Jessie was charged with both murders and
tried for Alexander’s killing at
Amelia Dyer – The
Amelia Elizabeth Dyer was perhaps the best known and most prolific murderous
baby farmer.
Mrs Dyer was 56 years old when she moved from
Ada Chard-Williams, aged 24, was convicted of battering
and strangling to death 21 month old Selina Ellen
Jones at
Like Amelia Dyer, Chard-Williams had her
own "signature" way of tying up bodies she wished to dispose of using
a knot called a Fisherman’s bend, which was a crucial piece of evidence at her
trial at the Old Bailey on the 16th and 17th of February 1900 before Mr.
Justice Ridley. She was hanged by James Billington in the execution shed in the
yard of Newgate prison on Tuesday, the 6th March 1900, the last woman to be
executed there. She was suspected of killing other children although no further
allegations were proceeded with. Her
husband, William, who had helped with the business was
acquitted.
Annie
Walters and Amelia Sach, the “Finchley Baby Farmers”.
Annie Walters and Amelia Sach became the first women to be hanged in the new
women's prison at Holloway on
Twenty nine year old Amelia Sach ran a "nursing home" which offered a
haven for unmarried mothers to have their babies in and which, for a fee,
claimed it would care for the infant afterwards. Sach told her clients that she
could arrange for foster parents for the babies for an additional fee. Once the
mother had left the baby with Sach, she would pass it over to 54 year old Annie
Walters who would murder it, either with a dose of Chlorodyne (a morphine based
drug that causes asphyxia in babies or by suffocation if the Chlorodyne didn’t
work. The baby’s body would then be
disposed of in the Thames or by burying it on a rubbish dump. Walters was
neither literate or very bright and in 1902 decided take one of the babies
home. She lived in rented accommodation and her landlord was a police officer.
She told him that she was looking after the little girl while her parents were
on holiday and his wife helped her change the baby's nappy. The policeman's
wife noted that the little girl was actually a boy. A few days later, Mrs
Walters told the couple that the child had died in its sleep and she seemed
genuinely upset about his death.
A few months later she did the same thing again and this time her landlord
became suspicious when this second child died. She was duly arrested and
charged with the murder of the child, a 3 month old boy by the name of Galley.
Further bodies were discovered from the information Walters gave the police and
Amelia Sach was also now implicated in these murders. The police had enough
evidence to charge them both with murder. Many items of baby's clothing were
found by the police when they searched Sach's home and they may have murdered
as many as 20 children.
They were tried at the Old Bailey on the 15th and 16th of January 1903, before
Mr. Justice Darling. It took the jury 40 minutes to find them both guilty. They
were taken back to Holloway and were hanged there by William Billington
assisted by John Billington and Henry Pierrepoint on Tuesday, the 3rd of
February in the newley constructed execution shed at the end of “B” Wing. On
the day of her execution, Amelia Sach was in a state of virtual collapse in the
condemned cell. Pierrepoint recorded in his diary the following, "These
two women were baby farmers of the worst kind and they were both repulsive in
type. One was two pounds less than the other (in weight) and there was a
difference of two inches in the drop which we allowed. One (Sachs) had a long
thin neck and the other (Walters) a short neck, points which I was bound to
observe in the arrangement of the rope. Amelia Sach had to be almost carried to
the scaffold while Annie Walters stayed quite calm and is said to have called
out “Goodbye Sach” as she was hooded on the trapdoors. This was to be the last
double female hanging in
Rhoda Willis.
Rhoda
Willis, also known as Leslie James, was originally from Sunderland but had gone
to live in South Wales. She had taken up
a position as house keeper to a Mr. David Evans in Pontypool and suggested to
him that baby farming would be a way of generating extra income for them.
Initially, he was against the idea but she must have persuaded him because an
advert duly appeared in The Evening Press giving a Box No. to reply to. A reply
was received from a Mrs. Lydia English, whose sister Maude Treasure was
pregnant. It was agreed that Leslie James, as Mrs. English knew her, would take
the baby when it was born. Willis also received other replies to her
advertisement, including one from an Emily Stroud who had had a baby on March
the 20th, 1907. Willis took this child
and kept it until early May when she dumped it outside the Salvation Army House
in Cardiff, with a note claiming she was an unmarried mother who could not
cope. Sadly, the baby was not discovered quickly and subsequently died of
exposure. Another child was adopted on the 8th of May, but this one was able to
return to its parents unharmed. On the 4th of June 1907, Willis picked up Maude
Treasure’s one day old baby girl and took her by train back to her lodgings in
Cardiff. Her landlady told the police that Willis had gone out later in the day
and had returned home drunk. She helped to get Willis to bed and noticed a
bundle by the bed. When she opened it, she was horrified to find the body of a
newborn baby girl. She called the police
and they arrested Rhoda Willis on the spot.
She was tried at Swansea before Mr. Commissioner Shee on the 23rd and
24th of June 1907. She denied the murder
and claimed that the child had been ill and therefore died of natural
causes. The prosecution showed that she
had died from asphyxia. Handwriting
experts claimed that the writing on the note found with the dumped baby outside
the Salvation Army House was Willis’.
She was convicted and sentenced to death and made a full confession to
her solicitor in the condemned cell on the morning of her death. being hanged
by Henry and Tom Pierrepoint at Cardiff prison on Wednesday, the 14th of
August, 1907, her 44th birthday. She was an attractive woman, and her blaze of
golden hair glinting in the morning sunshine, as she was led across the yard to
execution shed had a profound effect on Henry Pierrepoint. She stood 5’ 2” tall and weighed 145 pounds, her
drop being calculated at 5’ 9”. She was
the last baby farmer to be hanged.
Conclusion.
As a result of these cases,
Parliament passed a number of acts to better protect babies and small children,
including the Infant Life Protection Act of 1897 and the Children’s Act of
1908. These included requirements that local authorities must be notified
within 48 hours with full details of any change of custody or death of a child
aged under 7 and empowered the local authorities to actively seek out baby
farms and lying-in houses, to enter homes suspected of abusing children, and to
remove the children to a place of safety. It also redefined improper care of
infants; "no infant could be kept in a home that was so unfit and so
overcrowded as to endanger its health, and no infant could be kept by an unfit
nurse who threatened, by neglect or abuse, its proper care and
maintenance." The government also introduced proper regulations for
adoption and fostering which finally brought an end to baby farming in
