The Baby Farmers

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by Annie Cossins


  Minnie explained that, from the middle of July, her baby’s health deteriorated until 11 August when Horace received a telegram from John telling him to ‘Come at once’.2 When she and Horace arrived at Burren Street with their bunch of flowers on the afternoon of 11 August, John brought the body of Mignonette, laid out on a board and dressed in a long white gown, into the sitting room.

  He told them their baby had been diagnosed by Dr Agassiz as suffering from a wasting disease, ‘to which all children are liable’. Although Horace offered to reimburse the Makins for the doctor’s fee, uncharacteristically John said ‘he would not ask him to refund him that’. When asked in court if there were any marks on the child’s head, arms or legs, Minnie said her baby appeared to be well cared for, clean and well dressed.

  Dr Agassiz’s diagnosis suggests the Makins were deliberately starving Mignonette, which would explain why she cried such a lot. When asked about any substances given to her child, Minnie said she had seen either John or Sarah administer some medicine to Mignonette which ‘seemed to give the child some relief’ and could have been Godfrey’s Cordial. It is likely that the more the baby cried, the more Godfrey’s Cordial she was given and the less she was fed, eventually leading to her starvation. How Minnie and Horace failed to see that their baby was getting thinner on their weekly visits is a mystery, since an underfed baby loses the characteristic baby fat on her face, arms and legs.3

  Although it was not possible for Baby 4 to be identified by Minnie and Horace due to the degree of decomposition of her body, upon being shown a lock of hair taken from Baby 4 Horace emphatically identified it as being ‘exactly like the hair from our child’, which was light brown, although Minnie was less sure. The Coroner directed the jury to compare the lock of hair with the hair colour of Minnie and Horace to draw their own conclusions. The couple were asked to stand with their backs to the jury, which created much laughter, although one journalist was not amused:

  the jury appeared to treat the matter as a joke. ‘Don’t pull any out,’ said one of the jury while handling Miss Davi[e]s’s hair. ‘Have you a pair of scissors?’ remarked another juror as he gazed at Bothamley’s hair. ‘No,’ said the witness, jocularly, ‘I only had it cut yesterday.’ The scene altogether was a ridiculous one.

  At the end of the day’s hearings, Mr Williamson rose ‘to draw the Coroner’s attention to the sensational articles and cartoons referring to the inquest in which a section of the Sydney press was indulging’. He was concerned they would ‘prejudice the interests of [my] clients’. But the Coroner was disinterested, informing Mr Williamson that although he could not prevent the jury from reading the newspapers, he had every confidence that the jurors, ‘composed of intelligent gentlemen’, would take no notice of anything they read or heard outside the court. When Williamson continued to protest, several jurors interrupted: ‘That’s alright your Worship. We won’t allow anything like that to affect us’.

  Mr Williamson and the Makins had to be satisfied with that, although another fracas at another inquest would show them exactly where the jurors’ sympathies lay.

  A crowd becomes agitated

  Throughout the day of Minnie’s and Horace’s evidence large numbers of people attended with ‘solicitors, barristers, members of Parliament, justices of the peace, clergymen, and people from all grades of society’ coming and going to get a view of the Makins. When the court adjourned, a police van arrived at the court gates to collect the prisoners. With a huge crowd of about 1000 people congregating near the entrance, the van tried to drive directly into the courtyard but could not pass under the archway. As the horses were backed up, ‘the crowd became very unruly, and the horses very restive’.

  Instead, the van drove to the Equity Court gates to collect John, Sarah and their daughters. When the crowd caught sight of them, ‘they flocked round the van, while others mounted the railings and gates’. Although some in the crowd began to hoot, the jeering failed to catch on. Nonetheless, it spooked Sarah, who ‘exhibited signs of great fear when leaving the court, and pleaded with a constable: “Oh I’m so frightened; don’t take me through the crowd”’.

  The crowd was the culmination of a bad day with the graphic evidence given by Minnie and Horace confirming, if confirmation were needed, that the Makins were in the business of adopting children for a fee. It was also a bad day for Blanche since she had spent the day ‘continually sobbing’ because her sweetheart had called to visit her at the court but had not been allowed to see her.

  Other rumours swirled around the Makins—including one exciting bit of gossip that John was so enraged by the hordes of people each day at court that he’d hatched a plan ‘to run amok’ in the crowd. This rumour took hold after John had been seen slipping an open pen-knife from his vest pocket to his boot. As one journalist reported, anything unusual on the part of the Makins was likely to lead to sensationalism and he suggested the truth was more mundane—that he had been hiding the pen-knife so he could cut up tobacco while in prison and feared it would be found on him.

  A doctor’s mysterious evidence

  As the inquest entered its fifth day, matters became more and more mysterious when Dr Alfred Agassiz took the stand. He was a doctor who advertised in the local papers, telling prospective patients that he gave ‘advice and Medicine’ for two shillings and six pence and boasting he had practised at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh and the University College Hospital, London.4

  Dr Agassiz testified that a Mrs Helbi attended his rooms at 603 George Street with a very sick female child about two months old sometime between the end of July and the middle of August.5 The child was suffering from diarrhoea and marasmus. The surname Helbi was the name of Sarah’s married daughter, Minnie. When Mrs Helbi was called into the courtroom, Dr Agassiz gave the contradictory evidence that ‘he was almost certain that she had been to him for advice’ although he could not swear it nor ‘connect her with the child’. Even more strangely he did not recognise any of the Makins in court. When asked about the cause of marasmus, Dr Agassiz said starvation was the ‘most potent agent’ while ‘the diarrhoea could be caused by improper food or by food that could not be assimilated’.

  He testified that the child had suffered from marasmus for about two weeks when he first saw it on Monday 8 August. This suggests that the Makins had begun starving Baby Mignonette around the end of July, which coincides with the last date on which they saw another mother in Burren Street, Agnes Todd, on 31 July. As we will see below, by this date it was becoming apparent the Makins needed to cut their losses and run. Any excess babies would now need to be disposed of.

  When Minnie Helbi was recalled to give evidence she testified she had never seen Dr Agassiz ‘until to-day’ and had not visited his rooms with a child. She had also never visited 25 Burren Street nor seen Minnie Davies’ child. Despite her denials, Dr Agassiz’s recognition of Minnie suggests she was involved in her mother’s baby-farming business. Her home was a place of refuge when Sarah knew the police were waiting for her in Wells Street. She was also one of the people to whom Sarah turned when she wanted to get rid of babies’ clothing. But without conclusive identification from Dr Agassiz that she had brought the starving baby to see him, her denials protected her.

  The court then heard from the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages for the district of Newtown. At Constable Joyce’s request, Mr Newman had searched the register for the death of an infant by the surname of Makin, or from Burren Street, from 11 July 1892 onwards. No such record was found.

  The Coroner informed the jury that seven bodies in total had been found in the backyard of 25 Burren Street. He decided to call all the witnesses who had given evidence in the first two inquests so that the jury could consider whether or not Babies A or B could be Miss Davies’ child. The bored court reporters probably shuffled and rearranged themselves on the unforgiving wooden benches in the court before taking an afternoon nap as the inquest ‘dragged wearily on’ under the stewardship of the colony’s thorou
gh and obsessive Coroner.

  When Edward Jordan, John Makin’s former cell-mate at Newtown police station, returned to give evidence, he revealed a little more of John’s confession, claiming John had told him:

  When my daughters made that statement at Newtown Station I knew I was gone—me and the old woman—they knew no better. They’ll have me for perjury and illegally burying; but no doctor can say I poisoned them because I never went to a chemist for anything.

  As Makin left the cell the next morning he apparently told Jordan, ‘Don’t say anything to anybody about what I have been speaking to you’. These admissions were particularly damaging because they revealed John’s guilty knowledge and that, as a guilty man, he was weighing up his options. Although it appears he was responsible for burying the seven babies, had he actually murdered them?

  Miss Todd and her ‘painful position’

  Agnes Todd was typical of the women who produced illegitimate children in the late 1800s, most of whom were unmarried domestic servants aged about 25 or younger.6 Although Agnes had given evidence at the inquest into the death of Baby 1, she revealed much more about her relationship with the Makins at this inquest. She told the court she had nursed her baby, Elsie May, for three months but was eventually forced to hand her over to Mrs Sutherland, a midwife, who nursed her for another three months for a fee.

  Agnes had employed Mrs Sutherland to look after Baby Elsie since she had to earn a living and her baby was ‘in her road’.7 Because payments to Mrs Sutherland had become a drain on Agnes’ small income, she placed an advertisement in The Evening News on Friday, 25 June 1892 seeking someone to adopt her baby but using the name and address of an acquaintance rather than her own:

  Wanted, a kind lady to adopt a baby girl at once, small premium. Alice, 48 McCauley-street, Leichhardt.

  Agnes received a reply on Monday 27 June from Mr J Leslie at 109 George Street, Redfern. She visited the same day and was shown into the house by Mr Leslie, who introduced his wife. Agnes identified Sarah and John Makin in the courtroom as the people she met that day, as well as Daisy.

  John conducted the negotiations, suggesting his control over the baby-farming business. He told Agnes ‘he was willing to take the baby and adopt it for life’, assuring her he would be a good father, that her child would be well looked after and she could visit when she liked. Sarah played her part by telling Agnes she was very fond of children and was keen to be a mother to her child. Agnes must have felt relieved because here was a couple who said what she needed to hear.

  When asked about the premium, Agnes offered £3, probably all that she could afford on an annual wage of less than £20, the typical income of a domestic servant in Sydney in the 1890s. But it was enough to satisfy the Makins. The terms of the deal were very clear, with John writing an agreement which Agnes signed immediately, taking no time to think it over.

  When Agnes was not able to pay the full amount, the officious Mr Leslie noted on the bottom of the agreement: ‘Received on account £2; in full, £1—all dues and demands £3—J.H.L.’. The next day, one day before the Makins moved to Burren Street, Clarice collected Elsie May from Mrs Sutherland’s house in Phillip Street, Alexandria. Mrs Sutherland was later able to identify some of the clothing found on the Burren Street babies, including a binder that had been wrapped around Elsie May when she was adopted.

  The Makins had organised their move to Burren Street before they collected Elsie May, since Agnes visited Burren Street four days later to pay £1 of the premium she still owed. She was directed to number 25 after asking a puzzled Mrs Hill where a man by the name of Leslie lived. At the time, Agnes thought that Elsie looked ‘quite well’ although she must have expressed some concern because John reassured her: ‘You need not be afraid. I will look after the child and it will be well cared for’. When she heard the sound of another baby crying, John, the master of the ad-hoc explanation, told Agnes the baby belonged to his married daughter ‘who had gone to the theatre’. When Minnie Helbi was recalled to give evidence, she told the court that although her youngest child was eighteen months old at that time, she had never left it at her mother’s house.

  Agnes made her second visit to Burren Street on 9 July to pay the remaining £1 she owed. Baby Elsie was still alive. But on her third visit on 31 July, John Makin told her ‘they were all out’, explaining that his wife and daughters had taken Elsie with them. By this time, Agnes’ baby was probably dead. Under Agnes’ inquiring gaze, John knew Agnes would return and there were only so many stories that could be invented on the doorstep of chance.

  No doubt this is why the peripatetic Makins could not afford to settle in one place. The Makin household was plagued by the baby who cried too much, the weekly visits from her parents and the ongoing visits from Agnes. Other babies in the house had to be kept quiet but the Makins also ran the risk of a certain awkwardness if Agnes met up with Minnie and Horace. This shows how stressful the Makins’ lives must have been—scouring the newspapers, writing letters, collecting babies, keeping them quiet, searching for cheap accommodation, evading landlords and mothers, killing, burying, packing and moving.

  When Agnes did return, some time after 16 August, the Makins had disappeared. Although Agnes did not suspect anything at the time, it is almost certain that Elsie May was one of the four female babies dug up in the backyard of Burren Street. Elsie was six months old on 28 June when she was delivered into the callous care of the Makins. It is likely she died sometime between 9 and 31 July, before she was despatched to her backyard grave.

  Although the Makins had disappeared, this was not the end of Agnes’ contact with John. When the newspapers reported the Burren Street discoveries, Agnes wondered if Makin was the man she knew as Mr Leslie. Somehow she tracked him down to 6 Wells Street, Redfern. When John opened the door, he was face to face with the very problem he had always tried to avoid—a concerned mother.

  Agnes demanded to know the whereabouts of her baby. Nonplussed, John told her, ‘It is alive and well and . . . staying with a friend until the case is over’. John’s reference to ‘alive and well’ and ‘the case’ suggests that Agnes had asked whether Elsie was one of the dead babies discovered in Burren Street. John reassured her he would organise to make her baby available on Tuesday 1 November. But when she returned to Wells Street that day, the Makins had moved.

  Coincidentally, when Agnes returned to Wells Street to visit her baby, John ‘happened to pass by’. Agnes called out: ‘Where is my child you promised to bring her, Mr Makin’. But John had another ready excuse. Mrs Makin was away in Kiama with Elsie but he would bring her for a visit next Saturday to Agnes’ live-in situation in Chippendale. Not satisfied by this third manufactured story, Agnes decided to report her missing baby to the police. Two days later, on 3 November, the Makins were arrested. Agnes must have realised she would never see her child again. Even when she confronted John at the inquest and asked where her child was, he replied he had never seen her before.

  After Agnes finished giving her evidence, the Coroner observed that even though she had paid the premium for Elsie’s adoption, Agnes continued to visit her baby:

  I think she deserves special consideration for the way she came forward in this case to give her evidence as her position is a very painful one.

  The jury thanked the Coroner for mentioning Miss Todd. Hers was indeed a very painful position. She had lost her child and ‘outed’ herself as an unmarried mother—a brave step for a working-class woman in the 1890s and one that most of the mothers of the Burren Street babies did not take.

  Over to the Makins

  When all the witnesses for the police had been heard, the Coroner asked Mr Williamson whether his clients would be giving evidence. After a short adjournment, Williamson informed the court he would not be calling the Makins to the witness stand. He probably advised that giving evidence would have been a great risk, since, unlike in previous inquests, the evidence in this one was stacked against them. All they had left was silence to avo
id the Coroner’s curt and incisive questions. Or a confession that they were indeed baby farmers, an approach that would lead to awkward questions about how seven babies came to be buried in the Burren Street backyard.

  The court adjourned until Monday morning to enable the Coroner to review the extensive evidence over the weekend before addressing the jury about their decisions.

  The verdict

  The Coroner had more than 300 foolscap pages of evidence that he was required to sum up to the jury before they could begin their deliberations about the two questions they had to decide—the identity and cause of death of Baby 4.8

  The Coroner told the jury that, since the infant was six to eight weeks old at the time of her death and had been buried for 12 to 18 weeks, this evidence tallied with the age and date of death (10 August) of Minnie and Horace’s child. Although Minnie had not been able to identify any of the clothing found on Baby 4, the Coroner did not think this was significant since, according to the evidence, ‘the clothing was distributed among the children found buried . . . at 25 Burren-street, regardless of ownership’.

  He was also sure that none of the other six bodies found in Burren Street, because of their sex and ages, could have been the child of Miss Davies. The Coroner reminded the jury that hair from the head of Baby 4 had been identified by Minnie and Horace. If they believed the evidence given by these two witnesses, ‘it would not require any strain of reasoning to arrive at the conclusion that No. 4 was identical with Minnie Davies’ child’. However, the Coroner did not consider the fact that Baby 5 was the least decomposed of the Burren Street babies, which had led Dr Milford to surmise she was the last baby to be buried. If so, Baby 5, rather than Baby 4, was more likely to have been Mignonette, who was buried sometime between 11 and 16 August, the day the Makins left Burren Street. Miss Davies had also identified the clothing found on Baby 5 as some of the garments she had given to the Makins.

 

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