Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

ivyleaf

Our niece got married this autumn, on a Sunday (non-religious wedding obviously)

PasturesNew

Got caught up in another "completely random story" in old papers.

Found a woman who'd murdered her baby. She had been born illegitimate, but brought up by her father's family. She'd moved in with her half-sister (legitimate child of same father) & family. Half-sister's husband had had a fumble and produced the illegitimate child. Sister wanted her out of the house, so found her a job and got the baby put with a nurse; sister paid for half the fees and provided clothes to the nurse from her own children's cast-offs.

The mother of the illegitimate baby took no interest in it, but one day collected it, dropped it into the river and went back to her home/job and carried on as normal.

Lots more detail .... but within a few hours the baby had been traced back to her and she was arrested at her new home/job.

So I then thought "who was her employer then?" and it turned out to be an elderly couple. The shock of all this must've finished them off as it happened in July and the wife died in the 4th qtr that year and the husband died in February; both before the murdering mother had been sent to prison for life.

Well - they lived in a "posh house", and I then spotted a notice in the paper at the time listing his brothers... posh blokes. Funny thing is, 30 years later there was still a shout for heirs to the estate.

So now I'm looking into why nobody claimed it.

One of the brothers didn't die for another 18 years, so he should've had the estate. It shouldn't have still been his brother's estate.

Odd how what'd today be a £2-3 million house can just sit around with nobody needing to pop to a solicitors and say "Ah, yeah, that'll be mine then".

The other brother seems to have died in 1901 - maybe his daughter was tidying up all their estates, hence the late listing in the Gazette on that date.
That daughter seems to have died a spinster in 1915, maybe she was an only child. She left a fortune to the Tate.

Although there's some confusion in the 1901 listing as it says he had no brothers - and another chap seems to be leaving money to the "Sir ...." as his brother, without being mentioned as a brother of the chap who died in 1873.

Maybe the 1873 chap just used his name to pretend he was poshly connected ... or somebody did some duff research at the time to write a short newspaper obit.

EDIT: I've now decided it was duff research. The obit of 1873 confused the dead surgeon George, with the living Major George (who died in 1900), who was actually 30 years younger than the one who'd died. The Major's brother was DEFINITELY "Sir ....."; this was listed in 1873 as a brother of the deceased.
Idiots.

silvercar

Pyxis wrote: »

Ah, that explains it. A few months ago, someone mentioned that they'd gone to a wedding on a Sunday, which surprised me a lot as I had thought weddings weren't allowed on a Sunday, except for Jewish ones etc.

ivyleaf wrote: »

Our niece got married this autumn, on a Sunday (non-religious wedding obviously)

The rules were changed within the last 20 years. Rules are made and changed by each council/ parish. I think it may be the law now that you can have a wedding whenever you like provided you can find a registrar to agree to attend. I'm guessing that the rules were changed at the same time as they were amended to allow weddings to take place anywhere, it used to be the case that halls had to register to be allowed to hold weddings.

Pyxis

Of course, no baby should be killed purely for social stigma reasons, that goes without saying.

However, we can't underestimate the devastation that could happen to unmarried mothers in those days.

Becoming a total social pariah, vilified, scorned, rejected. If she were lucky, she'd end up in the workhouse and no doubt die there. Less lucky women might end up in a lunatic asylum, just for having an illegitimate child, and the rest probably became prostitutes and maybe opium addicts too, and died young.

Maybe she had the chance of a reasonably normal life, working for a nice elderly couple, and maybe someone had threatened to spill the beans, or to bring the child to her because it was no longer wanted.

Not many respectable people would knowingly employ a 'wanton woman', as their tarnish could rub off onto respectable folk.

Who knows what drove her to do such a dreadful thing?

The guy who had had a 'fumble', was of course, blameless in all this, because everyone knew it was solely the fault of the woman, and so she had to bear the consequences, literally, and quite alone.


Ok, she might have just been a heartless, murdering beast, or she might have been driven out of her mind with the hopelessness of it all. Maybe, having grown up with the stigma of being illegitimate herself, she wanted to spare the child from a life of misery.

There but for the grace of whoever you like, go I.
Poor lady. RIP :A

PasturesNew

I think I've worked it out - and it's the irony of rich -v- poor.

Mother'd been born illegitimate and brought up in her father's house.
No idea if he'd died, but she ended up as a servant in her 10 years older sister's house with her husband and 2 new kids. She was there 3 years, aged 13-16 before her sister's husband got her up the duff.

Her sister wanted her out of the house, but made financial provisions for the baby - and got the unmarried mother a job. She had to pay 2 shillings/week towards the baby's keep; sister & father of the child would pay the other 2 shillings + its maintenance/food + provide clothes for it.

Sister paid 2 months up front. Unmarried mother's wage was £11/year (4 shillings and thruppence a week).

The father of the baby appears to have been involved in a strike of some sort, so no money coming in. The nurse keeping the baby hadn't been paid and the bill was 30 shillings in arrears.

I bet the unmarried mother was being hassled for the balance a lot.... so took it and lobbed it in the river for a lack of choices.

The irony is that her boss and his wife lived in a large town house and in several censuses had been described as living from property income. They had never had any children. They both died within 7 months of the baby being murdered .... and their entire estate sat, unclaimed, for over 30 years as they had no heirs.

The baby died for the lack of 4 shillings a week .... a bill of 30 shillings at the time of death.

The father of the child had gone to the unmarried mother's house the day after she'd murdered it, asking where the baby had gone. She told him that she'd put it with a cheaper nurse (3 shillings a week) and she would never tell him who/where. He said he'd go to that village and knock on every door to find it. He said he'd have taken it rather than put it to another nurse.

Pyxis

Oh God, Pastures.

That is so, so sad.:(

But so common at the time.

We are so lucky, aren't we?


I mean, even in the 50s and 60s there was still a terrible stigma about having an illegitimate child.
It all changed in the 70s though, thank God.
And I forget the date, early 1980s, I think, illegitimacy was struck out of legal jargon and no longer had any meaning in law.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

... stigma ...

My own tree shows no stigma. In my tree they kept all their b4st4rds
My older sister was one; I was nearly one. Both kept.
My mother was one; kept by her grandmother, who was one herself - and so was her sister - and their mother had three in total - her own brother was one ...

They're endless in my tree.

They had them, they kept them.

Of course, I can't tell who wasn't kept - there must've been some in the tree that are unknown to me, just "brought up by...." various relatives/neighbours/whatever.

But, in my maternal tree .... they are on every branch.

I wonder if it was just down to "ability to feed another mouth" - and, of course, personalities of the people involved. If you could feed another mouth and if the pregnant girl wasn't a gobby !!!!!! who "deserved to suffer", then they'd keep them.

Many were just sent to paid nurses to bring them up, like the one that was murdered.... but if you don't have the money, that's when you get stuck.

You needed some way to pay for it. Either your family paid, or you worked and paid ... but if nobody paid it'd be handed back to you and you chose to either walk to the workhouse ... or sit on the side of the road.

Having said that, my GG-grandmother did walk to the workhouse and hand over 5 kids. You're supposed to stay there with them, she did a runner, so was arrested and put in jail for it. Got out and did the same again. When she was returned to prison, to do hard labour, she was pregnant with my (illeg) G-grandmother.

She was then lucky enough to have a bloke who paid for her. Census said she was Head and he was a Lodger.... but she stuck with him for the rest of her life and even used his surname once they'd moved into town.

Pyxis

Were they rural families? It may have been easier to keep them in rural communities. And of course, if you were able to stay at home it was possible, but if you were kicked out onto the streets, then it wasn't, most of the time.

And a lot of babies got brought up as 'siblings' of their mother, by her mother, who was really the baby's grandmother.

And then you had the Sisters of Mercy scenarios.

And adverts in papers from people purporting to want to adopt children for a small fee from the mother, who thought the baby would be going to a nice home, but in reality were being sold into a trafficking situation, or at worst, were then killed almost immediately.

Shudder shudder.

Pyxis

Got to admit, though, it's all very interesting!


Would make a cracking novel! :rotfl:

PasturesNew

LOL ... sometimes you shouldn't, but you do have to laugh.

While looking at the details of the trial for the murdered baby, there was another court case. Three men.

The newspaper didn't print the details of the evidence, saying it was "unfit for publication" which is odd as they gave the FULL names/ages of the three boys and then went on to say that because the children wouldn't commit a bestial offence with a donkey, the three men beat the children and threatened them.

So they named the children (aged 9-11) AND gave you a darned good idea what'd gone on!

They got six months for that.