Having a child out of wedlock during the nineteenth century ensured a miserable existence for both the mother and the child. Blame was always placed on the mother, irrespective of the details of what was seen as her fall from grace. Burdened with a child, many women could not find work and were unable to keep themselves. In this particular case of hardship, the child’s grandmother offered to look after her grandson, and it was only when this relationship broke down that the child’s life was placed in danger.
Margaret Maynes was aged 20 when she found herself pregnant with an illegitimate child in 1836. When the baby was born, she named it after the father, William Burke, although he had made it clear that he wanted nothing more to do with it. She managed to get a job at a Flax Mill, and the child stayed with her mother, also called Margaret Maynes. The younger Maynes was supposed to pay her mother for keeping the child, but the older woman stated that she had not received any money for the care of the baby. Maynes lodged with a woman called Sarah Wilding of Harpers Yard, Kirkgate, in Leeds, who agreed to let Maynes stay with her, providing that the child lived with the grandmother. Wilding also earned money from telling fortunes, and it was said that she had a curious, oval glass through which she persuaded foolish people to look; she would then tell their fortune.
Little William Burke was aged about 16 months at this time and was described by his grandmother as being ‘a fine, healthy looking lad’. On Sunday, 8 April 1838, Mrs Maynes had given the child some spirits of nitre, rubbed onto his gums – a compound containing laudanum, which is illegal today. At that time, however, it was used quite widely to quieten fractious children. On the Monday, Mrs Maynes sent for her daughter because both she and the baby were ill. Maynes arrived about at 9 a.m., where she remained until nightfall as the child was teething and poorly. The following day, the child was a little better and Mrs Maynes took him to the house where Maynes lodged on Crispin Street in Leeds. She asked Maynes for a clean apron and when she did get one, she lay the child down on its mother’s knee and told her, ‘Here is your child; he is poorly. You look after it.’ Maynes was not happy, but she took the child and placed him on her knees, trying to pacify him.
On Thursday, Maynes took the baby to her mother’s house again and Mrs Maynes noted that William still looked very poorly. When she enquired what was wrong with the baby, Maynes told her that he had taken a fit that morning. She told her mother that she had been to see the local doctor, Dr Ward, that morning, and he had lanced the child’s gums because he was teething, but he had seen no evidence of a fit. Dr Ward had given her a bottle of medicine, but she told her mother that she had not given baby William any of it yet. Looking at the child again, Mrs Maynes thought that he looked stupefied and once again asked her if she had given the baby any medicine at all, to which her daughter replied that she had not. Mrs Maynes told her daughter that she did not believe her. Two or three hours afterwards, she saw her daughter again with the baby, who looked to be in the same state as earlier. She demanded that Margaret take the baby to see the doctor again and offered to go with her to see Dr Ward, to which she agreed. Mrs Maynes asked the doctor if he thought that the baby looked sleepy and had possibly been given some laudanum, and she asked Dr Ward to give the child an emetic. The doctor agreed with her and he quickly prepared something which would make the baby vomit. Dr Ward stated that it was his opinion that the child had been fed some laudanum, which Maynes denied once more.
The emetic was given at about 5 p.m., and the prisoner and her child were sent into the kitchen of the surgery to wait for it to take effect. Mrs Maynes returned home for a short while, before returning to the doctor’s house. She found her daughter still in the kitchen where she was crying; the child was on her knees. The doctor’s wife was also there, and they stayed with the child until midnight, when he expired. Only moments before the child died, Mrs Ward asked her if she had given anything to the child and to tell her the truth. Maynes replied ‘Must I?’ On being begged ‘in the name of God to do so’, Maynes then said to Mrs Ward, ‘I will tell you the truth.’ She said that she had bought a pennyworth of laudanum from a druggist called Mrs Rastrick, which she claimed she had lost, and had been forced to buy some more. She told the doctor’s wife, ‘I have given William a teaspoonful in some warm tea.’ The doctor was told and he informed her that he would have to report the death to the police, to which she replied, ‘I do not mind what you do because I never meant to hurt the child.’
Maynes was arrested and taken to the Town Hall where she was locked in a cell. An inquest was held on the body of the dead child in front of the coroner, Mr John Blackburn Esq. Several witnesses were heard before Maynes told the coroner and the jury that she did give the child the laudanum, but had not intended to kill him. The jury had no option but to find her guilty of wilfully murdering her child, and she was ordered to the next Assizes to take her trial.
Maynes was brought to trial at Leeds on Saturday, 14 July 1838, before the judge, Mr Justice Williams. Sarah Wilding was the first to give evidence. She told how the prisoner had lodged with her whilst the child remained at her mother’s. She also said that the prisoner had brought the child to her house on Tuesday 10 April, and she had reminded her that she could not lodge there with a child. She said that whilst she stayed with her, Maynes would often go out on Friday and pawn the cap that the child had on its head, to buy her breakfast. Mrs Wilding had begged her not to do that, to which the prisoner replied, ‘Oh he’ll never need it,’ and went ahead and pawned it.
The next day, she went out to buy some food and came back having had some liquor, but Mrs Wilding told the court that Maynes was not so drunk that she did not know what she was doing. Maynes had said to her that she would kill the baby ‘and all of its breed’. Against her landlady’s wishes, the child slept with its mother that night and nothing ailed it. In the morning, the prisoner fed the child and, soon after breakfast, Mrs Wilding left the house, leaving the mother and child together. In the course of the afternoon, she saw Maynes in the town centre without the child. Maynes had approached and told her that a friend named Bridget Gorman had come to see her, saying that she had had a dream that baby William was going to die because the prisoner had given it something. She asked her again if she had given William anything and she once more denied it. A juror asked her if she had ever seen Maynes ill-treat the child or whether she had ever witnessed him having a fit. Wilding denied both counts. She also told the court that although they had agreed on a rent of 2s 5d a week, Maynes had not paid a penny for her lodgings.
Next to take the stand was Bridget Gorman – who lodged with the elder Mrs Maynes – who told a different story. She said that the prisoner had often used harsh words to the little boy, although she had never seen her striking him. She said that on one occasion she had said to him ‘to be gone out of her sight’, as she did not like to see him ‘or any of his breed’. She told the court that William had been in a delicate state for about a week before he died. On the Wednesday morning in question, she saw the prisoner standing at the yard end talking to her husband. She joined them and, at the prisoner’s request, they went to the Wellington pub and had two-penny worth of rum. When they came out of the pub, the prisoner stopped, saying that she would be back in a minute. She went into a shop at Kirkgate, near to a jeweller’s shop. When she came back, she asked them to go into the Royal Oak and there they had some more ale. During the conversation she told the couple that she wanted a small bottle, and her husband said that he had an empty smelling-salts bottle which she could have. The two women then left Mr Gorman in the Royal Oak and both went back to her mother’s house.
The child was still in bed but woke up and began to cry. The witness told the court that she had last seen William on Thursday at Mrs Wilding’s house, and he was laid on the bed looking very pale and blue around the mouth. The child was asleep and Maynes told her that the child had been ill during the night. Next day, around 4 p.m., she called again and found the baby William was very ill indeed. She had asked
Maynes if the child had taken anything to eat and was told that he had eaten some meat.
Mrs Sarah Furniss told the coroner that she was the wife of a druggist in Kirkgate, and on the morning of 11 April, she had sold a pennyworth of laudanum to a woman who came into the shop. She asked her whether she had a container to put the laudanum in and she told her that she hadn’t a clean bottle to put it into. The woman said that she would get a bottle and return, which she did later that evening. The woman had told her that she wanted it for another woman who had recently been confined. The druggist’s wife asked her if the patient was used to taking laudanum and the woman had replied ‘No, only when she had been confined,’ and asked her how much she should give her. The druggist’s wife told her about ten or twelve drops and she explained to the jury that a pennyworth contained about 120 drops. When asked by the judge if she could identify the prisoner as the woman who had bought the laudanum, she was unable to point out anyone in the room. Mrs Rastrick, also the wife of a druggist of Leeds, said that she had sold the prisoner a penny worth of laudanum as well, at between eleven and twelve o’clock on Thursday 12 April. She had a baby in her arms and she gave the druggist a teacup, which Mrs Rastrick put the laudanum in. The woman told her that she wanted it for her mother who was afflicted with rheumatism. Mrs Rastrick told her that ten drops would be sufficient to relieve her mother of rheumatic pain.
The surgeon, Dr Ward, said that he remembered the prisoner coming to his surgery on 12 April and bringing the baby with her, telling him that her son had a fit. He told the coroner that he had noted that the baby’s gums were very swollen and his face was flushed. He had lanced the gums, and throughout this process the child did not cry at all and appeared to be asleep. When asked by a juror, he replied that he could not see any evidence of the child having had a fit. An hour later, the prisoner brought the child back to the surgery again, stating that he had experienced another fit. The surgeon examined the child once more. He noted that the infant’s breathing was now quite short and his pupils were contracted. He asked the mother what she had given the child, but the prisoner denied having administered anything. Dr Ward tried to make the child sick by putting a catheter into its stomach, and the baby brought up some wine and water, which was impregnated with laudanum. He kept a sample of the stomach contents in a phial. He then gave the child another emetic, which again brought back regurgitated laudanum. He continued to inject water into the catheter until the stomach contents did not smell of laudanum. The doctor told the jury that no matter how hard he tried to induce the child to vomit again, he was unsuccessful and, despite the injections of some stimulants, the child died at 10 a.m.
Later that morning, Mrs Maynes went to the doctor’s surgery with a small bottle which had previously held smelling salts. The bottle now held laudanum, which he gave to the constable. During the post-mortem, Dr Ward found no laudanum in the lining of the child’s stomach, but he had no doubt that the laudanum administered was the cause of the child’s death. He estimated that the amount which had come out of the child’s stomach would have been the equivalent of fifty or sixty drops, more than enough to kill a child of that age. Asked by a juror, Dr Ward stated that to give a child more than twenty-five to thirty drops would endanger its life. He also stated that poor people often give their children laudanum as a medicine, although medical men, including himself, know that it is dangerous. He continued, ‘It is so common a practice by the humbler classes at the moment, that we tend to make no inquiries and the size of the drops vary by the vessel that they are dropped from.’
The doctor’s wife, Mrs Elizabeth Ward, followed her husband onto the stand and her evidence corresponded with his. She said that at the time the prisoner was in the kitchen, her mother asked her repeatedly whether she had given the baby something, which she always denied. As the child became increasingly ill, Maynes told Mrs Ward that she had bought some laudanum, lost it, and then bought some more from a woman in a shop on Marsh Lane. She also told her that her landlady had complained about the child keeping her awake at night, and that she had been compelled to give it something to make it quiet. Mrs Ward told the court that she had not heard the woman say anything bad to the child and appeared to be quite distressed when the he died.
The prisoner’s defence, Mr Baines, addressed the jury and told them that he had been appointed at the last minute as the prisoner was ‘friendless and miserably poor’. He said that he had ‘taken on the task gratuitously’, and continued, ‘If I had not confidence in the jury I would be overwhelmed with the weight of responsibility of the case.’ He told them that he did not intend calling any witnesses, as Maynes had been very open about the fact that she had bought the laudanum and had administered it to the child in his illness. He also told them that Sarah Wilding’s evidence was not to be trusted as she made her living by telling fortunes. The jury had to make up their minds as to whether the prisoner had administered the laudanum to help take away the child’s teething pain, or in order to end its life. He said that there was not a shred of evidence that the prisoner had acted by any unworthy motive. Indeed, he told them, Maynes had been exceedingly distressed when the child had died. The comments that she made towards it when she was intoxicated were to be dismissed. But if they found she had acted carelessly or negligently, they would have to find a verdict of manslaughter. He said that if they had any doubt about her guilt, then the verdict should be given in her favour.
The judge summed up the case minutely and said to the jury that the question they had to consider was whether the prisoner had administered the laudanum with intent to destroy life, or if it had been given to relieve the child from pain and, in ignorance and carelessness, had lead to fatal results. It took the jury only thirty minutes to find her guilty of manslaughter. The case had occupied the court for six hours and she was then told to stand down.
Three days later, Margaret Maynes was brought back into the court for sentencing. The judge, Mr Justice Williams, told her that although she had been indicted for murder, the jury had found her guilty of manslaughter and that he was not at all satisfied with the verdict. He declared:
The jury asked for a recommendation to mercy and normally I would be most anxious, careful and scrupulous to attend to such a recommendation. But after a careful perusal of my notes and deep consideration, I found the case so strong against you that I could not consider, with my utmost responsibility, to do otherwise than pass the sentence I am about to do. It is always to me a most unwelcome duty and particularly so when I have to neglect a jury’s recommendation without severe punishment.
He then sentenced her to be transported beyond the seas for the rest of her natural life. Maynes was one of 143 convicts transported on the Mary Ann, which left these shores on 16 July 1839 – bound for the colony of New South Wales – to begin her life sentence.
Despite the judge’s decision, the case does seem to have some mitigating circumstances. The mother was very young and, at the age of 21, she was not perhaps as careful as she should have been in the administration of what was generally accepted as medicine. Laudanum was widely used by parents, both married and unmarried, as a soporific agent to be used during teething; therefore it cannot be viewed as the poison we regard it today. However, what the case skates over is that the child was living with the grandmother, and only when she took the little boy and gave it back to its mother, stating ‘You look after it,’ did the problems begin. Having employment, and so not able to look after her child, Maynes was placed in a very difficult situation. Her landlady had categorically stated that she would not have the child in her house, so what was she to do? Whether or not the laudanum was administered lawfully or with intent to kill, we shall never fully know, but regardless, Maynes had the rest of her life to regret her actions of that night.
Case Three
Murder in Bell and Bull Yard
A Case of Domestic Violence, 1838
The following case of domestic violence caused much distress, due to the fact that the p
oor woman was heavily pregnant when she was murdered. In those days, it was impossible to get a divorce and the only solution was to live separately. The victim in this case lived in a different residence from her husband – which was all she could do to get away from his violence. Comments made by the judge reveal a more tolerant attitude towards domestic violence than would be accepted today, but despite this, he gave the highest sentence he was able to, within the boundaries of the law, to ensure that the man would be an example to other violent husbands.
The Bull and Bell Yard, Briggate, Leeds, was a typical court of the Victorian era. Every neighbour knew everyone else in the yard, although one newcomer had tried to keep herself to herself. On the evening of 23 October 1838, a resident in the court was Ann Greenwood, who lived with her mother and sister, Mary. Her mother, Jesse Ward, went to answer the door when someone knocked a little after 8.15 p.m. The man at the door was about 40 years of age, and asked her mother if she knew where his wife, Elizabeth Gilpin, lived. Mrs Ward directed him to the house next-door-but-one to her own. Ann looked out the window and she saw the man knock on the door and enter the house. Within three minutes, Ann and her mother heard a ‘scuffling’ sound and their neighbour, Mrs Gilpin, scream out. As both mother and daughter rushed outside, they saw Mrs Gilpin on her hands and knees outside her own door. She was heavy with child but that didn’t stop the man from kicking her in the face. As he went to kick her again, Mrs Ward bravely rushed up to him and pushed him away from his wife. She told him, ‘Get away from her,’ and stood in between the man and the injured woman. As he went out of the yard, Mrs Ward called after him that he was a ‘murdering thief’. He turned round and told her, ‘if I have not done it, if I have not murdered her, I will come back and do it. I will be Mrs Gilpin’s butcher and yours likewise.’ Without further ado he left the yard, and Mrs Ward and Ann Greenwood immediately rushed to help the injured woman.
Murder & Crime Leeds Page 2