The Chieftain: Victorian True Crime Through The Eyes of a Scotland Yard Detective (26 page)

At a time when effective birth control methods were not available, and where prostitution was rife, unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children were commonplace. The problem in 1869 was not a new one but that year seems to have marked a point at which the police started to take some action. For a pregnant woman in the mid-Victorian era who did not want to give birth or to keep their child, the options were stark. She could obtain an illegal abortion; murder the child; abandon the child at a workhouse or other refuge; or place the child with other women who, for a fee, would look after it. The term ‘baby farming’ came into popular usage in the second half of the 1860s to describe situations where women accepted payment in exchange for the care of children who were not their own, a process that was unregulated at the time.
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Many women with unwanted pregnancies were often close to poverty themselves, and the majority were not able to provide sufficient funds for the adequate care of their child. However, despite the grim connotations that have become associated with the term ‘baby farming’, some unwanted and ‘foster’ children were successfully placed in environments where they appear to have been well treated. Clarke had an example of such a situation within his own extended family. His youngest sister-in-law, Louisa McGregor, had married an agricultural labourer, John Spicksley, but the couple do not appear to have been able to have children. Instead, in 1861, Louisa and her husband were looking after four ‘nurse children’; sisters aged 8–13 years from a family in Brighton. How long the children stayed with Louisa and John is uncertain, but at least one of the sisters, Caroline Best, went on to become a governess in later life.

The criminal options to dispose of unwanted foetuses and children were abortion and murder. There were suspicions at the time that the individuals involved in both methods were the same, and the activities of midwives in particular came under considerable, and often undue, suspicion.
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However, it is clear that there was a high level of infanticide (probably under-reported) amongst the murder victims of that period, and not only in London.
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There is a chilling report of a visit paid by a Mrs Meredith to women in Brixton Prison:

Many of them [the women prisoners] killed more than one child. I discovered that there was a kind of sisterhood amongst them … I found a girl who had become a mother at sixteen, and who was taught to kill her child. She fully understands the art, and would, in my opinion, practise it again if she had an opportunity. In fact there are some women in the prison … who have quite a contempt for infant life, and who speak of their crime with a kind of triumph, being the subject of no shame whatever.
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Even allowing for an element of Victorian sensationalism in this report, other evidence suggests that unwanted children were murdered with the help of women with experience in such matters.
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By the time Clarke became involved in cases relevant to infanticide, baby farming and abortion, the Metropolitan Police had already made some progress. In the Brixton area a number of dead infants had been found in the streets in 1870, and Sergeant Richard Relf of W Division (Brixton) had been put on to the case. He had the good fortune to be able to connect the birth of a child in a ‘lying-in establishment’ (where some single mothers arranged to give birth) with the disposal of the infant from a baby farm run by Margaret Waters and her sister Sarah Ellis. When visiting the Waters and Ellis establishment, Relf found eleven emaciated and listless children (one of whom became known in the press as ‘Little Emily’). Pilloried by the press, the two women were originally charged with manslaughter, later changed to murder. On 24 September at the Old Bailey, Waters was found guilty of murder and was subsequently hanged on 11 October 1870; her sister was acquitted of murder but found guilty of obtaining money by false pretences and sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment.
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Sergeant Relf received a gratuity of £20 for his ‘exemplary conduct’ and a testimony from the Reverend Oscar Thorpe (vicar of Christ Church, Camberwell, and Secretary of the Infant Life Protection Society), as well as a request by Thorpe to Commissioner Henderson that Relf should be solely employed in investigating such cases as he had done such a good job.
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Meanwhile, Druscovich had been making enquiries into Mary Hall of 6 Coldharbour Lane, Camberwell, who ‘accommodates young ladies during their confinement and it is believed that occasionally, by a certain process, succeeds in bringing the children into the world still born’; this case was transferred to Relf, at Druscovich’s suggestion. Although the Treasury abandoned a planned prosecution of Hall for murder because witnesses ‘would have to confess to being guilty of the same dreadful crime’, she was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a £100 fine in December 1870.
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By 7 October 1870, Clarke was investigating other allegations relating to baby farming and infanticide, producing reports on that day on two different cases. The first of these related to his investigation of alleged baby farming by a Mrs Clarke, 44 Palmerston Street, Battersea Fields:

I beg to report that after making enquiries in the neighbourhood mentioned, I on Saturday last, went to Mrs. Clarke and asked her to let me see the children she had under her care. She replied, ‘I have now in my charge five children and you are perfectly welcome to see them’. I was then shewn into a back room where I found them, and the particulars relating to whom are as follows:

Rosa Kettelty, age 10, Mercer Kettelty, age 7, Frank Kettelty, age 3½. These children were received by Mrs Clarke about the 5th Sept. 1869, from their Father, who is employed at Lloyds Newspaper Office, Fleet Street, and who pays 10/- per week for their support, such payments however not including the costs of their clothing and education.

Frederick K. Giles, 14 months old, received 16th Nov. 1869, from a woman giving the same name, but whose address she does not know, a weekly payment of 8/- is made by a gentleman signing himself K.L.M., Army and Navy Club.

Bertie Church, age 6 years, received from her Mother a Miss Church, of 127 High St., Chatham, when about a month old. This child was supported by its Grandfather, who resided at the above address, and was an artisan in Chatham Dockyard; about 12 months since, in consequence of his being thrown out of employment, the payments ceased; he informed Mrs. Clarke he was no longer in a position to pay for the maintenance, and suggested it should be taken to the Workhouse. Mrs. Clarke having become attached to the Child, did not assent to this, and has kept it under her care.

Mrs Clarke could have no intimation of my visit, for which she was entirely unprepared but I found the children decently clad, and to all appearances properly and sufficiently nourished.

The elder child Rosa Kettelty whom I questioned is a well-grown intelligent girl, and in reply to my questions said she had sufficient food and was kindly treated … Mrs Clarke told me she had taken six children to nurse, as a means of support for the last eight years, and during that time had only lost one by death, which occurred two years since…
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Clarke also spoke to the next-door neighbour and to Mrs Clarke’s landlord (who lived opposite), both of whom gave positive accounts of Mrs Clarke and the way in which she treated the children. Thus it seems that Mrs Clarke (no relative of Chief Inspector Clarke as far as is known) was a good ‘foster mother’ to the children in her care, and that the information received against her was malicious or simply ill-informed.

The second report written on the same day was less comforting. This case had been referred to Scotland Yard by Sergeant Relf, and involved possible infanticide by Mrs Charlotte Davis, who operated as a midwife within a lying-in establishment. Clarke reported as follows:

I beg to report that I have made enquiry with reference to the alleged Child Murders and attempts to procure abortion.

Elizabeth Williams persists in asserting that her statements are true, and that when Betsy Harris was about to be confined, Mrs Davis told her to go down stairs to make some tea, and when she left the room she noticed that Mrs Davis locked the door. She did not go down stairs but remained on the landing, when she heard a child cry, and shortly after Mrs Davis opened the door, and said the child was dead. Miss Williams replied that she was surprised, as she heard it cry; she looked under the bed clothes and saw the dead body of a new born child quite naked and much discoloured. This girl is a common prostitute, and is at present in Westminster Hospital suffering from venereal disease.

Louise Foster, on my first visit said that her statement was an entire fabrication, and she was induced to make it by the girl Williams, for the purpose of revenge against Mrs. Davis for keeping her clothes, and further said that Williams was a wicked liar; but on my seeing her a second time she said the statement she had made to Sergeant Relf was true. This girl is a common prostitute and now resides at 7 Luckington Road, Battersea.

The girl called Betsy Harris has been seen; her name is Elizabeth Wigmore, and is now in the service of Captain George Popplewell, Headly Villas, Dagnalls Park, South Norwood. She states that she was taken to the house of Mrs Davies [sic] on the evening of the 13th May 1868 by her married sister Mrs Harris who then resided at 15 Colchester Street, Pimlico, for the purpose of being confined … she was confined early the following morning of a still born child. Mrs Davies gave a certificate to that effect, and she was told it was buried in Battersea Cemetery; she had provided proper clothing for the child. Mrs Davies had previously attended her sister in confinement. She further stated that there is no truth in the statement of Elizabeth Williams, and does not remember seeing her in Mrs Davies’ house; that her present master and mistress are acquainted with her misfortune, and assisted her at the time (her sister having been in their service many years), and upon her recovery, also took her into their service; she appears to be a respectable, truthful girl … I respectfully beg to submit that the statements of Elizabeth Williams, and Louise Foster are not corroborated in any particular, and supposing the statements to be true as regards themselves, they are equally guilty, and their unsupported testimony could not be received as evidence.
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Though Clarke pursued one other potential witness, he failed to find her, and so with the conflicting statements received he concluded that ‘there is no sufficient evidence upon which proceedings can be taken’ against Mrs Davis.
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It is possible that there was some substance behind the allegations against Mrs Davis. However, it is equally possible that she was a victim of the vilification of groups of women, including midwives and child-carers that followed the Waters and Ellis case.
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The police continued to receive information from various sources, not least from the Revd Oscar Thorpe, against women for being either baby farmers or midwives ‘carrying on a murderous trade’. A modern assessment of the police response was that ‘detectives investigated meticulously, invariably reporting the women to be clear of all suspicion of criminal activity’.
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Clarke’s final report of this kind, prompted by information from Thorpe in 1873, found no substantive grounds for the allegations made and commented with evident frustration: ‘The Rev. Mr Thorpe … with his wife take a very active part in these matters, but they are unable to give one particulars of any cases in which enquiry can be made, and it appears to me that they are inclined to form very extreme opinions upon the subject…’
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One of the more positive responses to the protestations of Thorpe and others in the Infant Life Protection Society occurred during 1871, when the government established a Select Committee on the Protection of Infant Life ‘to inquire as to the best means of preventing the destruction of the lives of infants put out to nurse for hire by their parents’. The committee’s recommendations were integrated into the Infant Life Protection Act 1872, which amongst other aspects required local authority registration for ‘houses of persons retaining or receiving for hire two or more infants for the purpose of nursing’.
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However, local authorities were erratic in putting the measures into practice, and ultimately failed to deal effectively and consistently with the issue.
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One terrible consequence of this failure was the case of Amelia Dyer whose serial infanticide shocked the nation in 1896.
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After his enquiries into Mrs Davis had yielded no substantive evidence of infanticide, Clarke turned his focus towards abortionists. He reported on 28 December 1870, that observation had been maintained of a Dr William Harding who had been acquitted at the Old Bailey in June that year for the murder of Isabella Tewson, an actress who, the prosecution claimed, had died as a result of being treated by Harding with a noxious drug to procure abortion.
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The judge in Harding’s trial had concluded that there was insufficient evidence to support the charge and directed the jury to acquit him.
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Clarke had not only arranged for observation to be made, he had also visited Harding. During their conversation, Harding had informed Clarke that he knew who the mother was of ‘Little Emily’ (one of the emaciated young children found in Waters’ baby farming establishment) and had given Clarke the details; Emily was now being looked after at the Parish Schools, Lower Norwood. Perhaps the coincidence that Clarke himself had a young daughter of the same name, and indeed of the same stature, prompted him to ask the commissioner for approval (which was granted) to inform the parish authorities of the details of Little Emily’s parentage.
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Ultimately, Clarke’s observation of Harding yielded no evidence to justify any action, though he did comment that: