by Stephen Wade
Primary Sources
Books Cited and Consulted
Anon. The Medical Annual 1923 (John Wright and Sons)
Anon. The Welsh Fasting Girl: a complete history of the remarkable case of Sarah Jacob (D. Jones, 1904)
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Burdett’s Official Nursing Directory (The Scientific Press, 1898)
Fowler, Robert, A Complete History of the Welsh Fasting Girl (Henry Redshaw, 1871)
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Jones, Iwan Meical, (Ed) Hen Ffordd Gymreig o Fyw/ A Welsh Way of Life: The photographs of John Thomas (Y Lolfa, 2008) These are from the John Thomas collection at Llyfergell Genedlaethol Cymru, Aberystwyth.
Kafka, Franz, Metamorphosis and other stories (Penguin, 2007)
Kilvert, Francis, Diary 1870-1879 (Penguin, 1977)
Mayhew, Henry, and Binny, John, The Criminal Prisons of London (Griffin Bohn, 1862)
Morike, Eduard, ‘Verborgenheit’ in Forster, Leonard (Ed.) The Penguin Book of German Verse (Penguin, 1957) p. 348
Nicholson, Emilius, Nicholson’s Cambrian Travellers’ Guide of the Principality of Wales (Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1840)
Nield, Basil, Farewell to the Assizes (Garnstone Press, 1972)
Saint Therese of Lisieux L’Histoire D’Une Ame (Office Central de Lisieux, 1898)
Shea, Victor and Whitla, William (Editors) Essays and Reviews: The 1860 Text and its Reading (University of Virginia Press, 2000)
Strahan, J.A., The Bench and Bar of England (William Blackwood, 1919)
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Wilson, Violet M., Diary entries for 1896 in Creaton, Heather (see below)
Periodicals and Official Publications
British Medical Journal Lewis, Thomas, ‘A Continuance of the Case of the Welsh Fasting Girl with an account of the post-mortem appearances’ Jan. 8 1870 pp.27-29
Griffith, John (‘Gohebydd’) ‘Fel Bytheid’ Llythyr y Gohebydd in Baner ac Amserau Cymru Oct.20, 1869 issue 660
‘The End of Succi’s Fast’ in The Daily Graphic April 28, 1890
Sunday at Home: ‘Hospital for Sick Children’ p.471 (The Religious Tract Society, 1864)
The British Almanac 1870 (Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 1870)
The Times Digital Archive:
‘The Cattle Plague’ 2 March, 1866, p.10
‘Alleged Death from Starvation’ Letters, 2 Feb, 1869
‘Deaths from Starvation’ Lankester enquiry report: 6 March, 1868 p.10
Central Criminal Court, Feb. 26, 1861, The Times, p.11
‘Distress in Poplar’ Letters to the Times, 12 Jan, 1867
‘Suicide and Murder by Starvation’ 11 Dec, 1867, p.6
House of Commons report, 21 Feb, 1867, p.8
‘The Clerkenwell Explosion’ 15 April, 1868 p.11
‘A Fasting Girl’ 22 Oct, 1874, p.10
‘Shaftesbury Theatre’ 22 May, 1890, p.6
Tracts for the Times Vol. II 1834-35 by members of the University of Oxford. (J H Parker, Oxford)
‘The Fasting Girl of Wales’ letter from Dr Fowler 7 Sept, 1869, p.8
Western Mail: Dec 25 1869 ‘Sarah Jacob, The Welsh Fasting Girl’ article 252 online
‘The Welsh Fasting Girl and her Imitator’ Western Mail Nov 20, 1869
‘The Fasting Man’ Illustrated London News April 26, 1890
Law Reports:
R.v Blow, Alfred and Blow, Sarah March 22, 1867 Midland Circuit assizes The Queen v Sarah Shepherd (Manslaughter) Court for Crown Cases Reserved Jan 25, 1862, The Times p.9
Other Sources
Hansard Commons Debates: 1 July, 1870 ‘Fasting Girl’
Ibid. ‘Judicial Sentences: Question pp.1430-1431
Report from the Select Committee on the Homicide Amendment Bill 1861 (Irish University Press, 1989)
Royal Commission on Agriculture 1882 ‘Report by Mr Doyle on Welsh Labourers’ in Parliamentary Papers: Agriculture, 1878-1882, p.56
‘Abbot Street Sunday School’ Wrexham and Denbighshire Advertiser 11 February, 1860 issue 266
‘Our Library Table’ North Wales Chronicle 25 February, 1860 issue 1717
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Articles in Books, Web Sites and Periodicals
Anon. ‘How to Develop Patient Trust in Anorexia Treatment’ Nursing Times Vol. 107 no. 3 2011, pp.24-5
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Gooldin, Sigal, ‘Fasting Women, Living Skeletons and Hunger Artists: Spectacles of Body and Miracles at the Turn of the Century’ Body and Society 2003 Vol. 9 no. 7, pp.27-53
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Ireland, Richard, ‘Putting Oneself on Whose Country? Carmarthenshire Juries in the Mid-Nineteenth Century’ Legal Wales: Its Past, its Future: essays dedicated to Dafydd Jenkins on his Ninetieth Birthday (Welsh Legal History Society, 2001), pp. 63-87
Ireland, Richard W., ‘ Sanctity, Superstition and the Death of Sarah Jacob’ in Musson, A. and Stebbings, C., (Eds.) Making Legal History (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp.284-302
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The Carmarthenshire Antiquary, Volume XXIV 1988, pp. 83-106
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Quinault, Roland, ‘Victorian Juries’ History Today May, 2009, pp. 47-53
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Springhall, John, ‘The Penny Dreadful’: publishing business in the City of London from 1860’ The Historian Autumn, 2009 pp. 14-17
Tallis, Lisa, ‘The “Dr Faustus” of Cwrt-y-Cadno: A New perspective on John Harries and Popular Medicine in Wales’ The Welsh History Review/Cylchgrawn Hanes Cymru, Vol. 24 Number 3 June, 2009 pp.1-28 ‘The Pioneers of Therapeutic Fasting in America’ www.scientificfasting.com
Williams, Mari A., ‘Sarah Jacob’ Oxford Dictionary of national Biography (OUP 2004-11) online: www.oxforddnd.com/view/printable/89662 Wohl, Anthony S., ‘Victorian Racism’ The Victorian Web (see below)
Art Sources Referred to in the text
From Trial and Innocence Edited and written by Helena Moore (Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 1984): Alfred Provis, ‘Interior, Girl Reading’
Print: Fading Away by Henry Peach Robinson. For a further discussion of this, see Death in England (see above) pp.234-5
Internet Articles
Nicholas, Jane, ‘Hunger Politics: Towards Seeing Voluntary Self-Starvation as an Act of Resistance’ Thirdspace: a journal of feminist theory and culture.
www.thirdspace.ca/journal/article/nicholas/215 ‘Treasury prosecutions’ http:/hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/nov/15/treasury-prosecutions
Web Sites
www.oxforddnb.com ‘Harding Stanley Giffard, first Earl of Halsbury’ www.tsol.gov.uk/about_us/our_history.htm
The Victorian Web – www.victorianweb.org/science/health/hunger.html ‘A History of Hunger’
The Welsh Legal History Society – www.welshlegalhistorysociety.org/research-jacob-trial-report.php
This has a full account of the Carmarthenshire assizes, with transcripts from the small print of the contemporary local newspaper reports.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe thanks to many people whose work has helped me in the writing of the book. Sian Busby’s account of the story in A Wonderful Little Girl raised awareness of the Welsh context; Richard Ireland’s essay on the legal features of the case helped tremendously with the assemblage of courtroom factors and the explanation of the immediate resonances the case had in the offices of the Victorian law machine.
For help with the illustrations, I have to thank the Welsh Legal History Society, and also Rachael Thomas, who supplied the photographs. The National Library of Wales supplied the picture of Gohebydd from the John Thomas photography collection.
Particula
r questions were dealt with by Siwan Rosser, Gerry Hobbs and by Helen Anderson.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Stephen Wade is the author of more than fifty books on crime, espionage and history. He was educated at the universities of Aberystwyth and Leeds and taught in further and higher education, and worked as a writer in prisons. He currently lectures at the University of Hull.
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1. Sarah reads in her bed, surrounded by her books and garlanded with flowers.
2. Florence Brook, an example of starvation at the bottom-most extreme of Victorian society.
3. One of the many ‘improving’ religious tracts of the time which promoted the ideas of a ‘good death’ and brides for Christ.
4. Advertisements for some of the many new medicines available to the public at the time.
5. ‘Gohebydd’ – John Griffith, promoter of radical causes in Victorian Wales and now known as the first professional journalist in Welsh.