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Baby farming is the historical practice of accepting custody of an infant or child in exchange for payment in late-Victorian Britain and, less commonly, in Australia and the United States. If the infant was young, this usually included wet-nursing. Some baby farmers "adopted" children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments.
The Burke and Hare murders were a series of sixteen killings committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
William Roughead (1870–1952) was a Scottish lawyer and amateur criminologist, as well as an editor and essayist on "matters criminous". He was an important early practitioner of the modern "true crime" literary genre.
Edith Jessie Thompson and Frederick Edward Francis Bywaters were a British couple executed for the murder of Thompson's husband Percy. Their case became a cause célèbre.
Madeleine Hamilton Smith was a 19th-century Glasgow socialite who was the accused in a sensational murder trial in Scotland in 1857.
Williamina "Minnie" Dean was a New Zealander who was found guilty of infanticide and hanged. She was the only woman to be executed in New Zealand. Several other women were sentenced to death, but all of them had their sentences commuted to either life or long duration imprisonment.
Catherine Mandeville Snow, was the last woman hanged in Newfoundland.
The Glensheen murders describe the murders of Elisabeth Mannering Congdon and her night nurse Velma Pietila on June 27, 1977 in Duluth, Minnesota, USA, at the Glensheen Historic Estate.
Ada Chard Williams was a baby farmer who was convicted of strangling to death 21-month-old Selina Ellen Jones in Barnes in London in September 1899.
Woo Bih Li is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court.
Amelia Elizabeth Dyer, popularly dubbed the Ogress of Reading, was an English serial killer who murdered infants in her care over a thirty-year period during the Victorian era.
The trials of the Pendle witches in 1612 are among the most famous witch trials in English history, and some of the best recorded of the 17th century. The twelve accused lived in the area surrounding Pendle Hill in Lancashire, and were charged with the murders of ten people by the use of witchcraft. All but two were tried at Lancaster Assizes on 18–19 August 1612, along with the Samlesbury witches and others, in a series of trials that have become known as the Lancashire witch trials. One was tried at York Assizes on 27 July 1612, and another died in prison. Of the eleven who went to trial – nine women and two men – ten were found guilty and executed by hanging; one was found not guilty.
Frances Lydia Alice Knorr was an English migrant to Australia, known as the Baby Farming Murderess. She was found guilty of strangling an infant and hanged on Monday 15 January 1894.
Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.
Rhoda Willis, alias Leslie James, was an English baby farmer convicted of murder. She was the last woman to be executed in Wales.
Infanticide in 19th-century New Zealand was difficult to assess, especially for newborn indigenous Māori infants. Resultantly, many New Zealand women who might otherwise have been sentenced to penal servitude or capital punishment in New Zealand had their sentences commuted to the lesser charge of "concealment of birth" under the Offences Against the Person Act 1867. However, the relative leniency extended only to mothers of concealed or hidden infants who subsequently died. Fathers, grandparents and "baby farmers" like Minnie Dean, the only woman to be executed in New Zealand history, and Daniel Cooper in the 1920s were viewed as more culpable for the death of such infants.
Margaret Aitken, known as the Great Witch of Balwearie, was an important figure in the great Scottish witchcraft panic of 1597 as her actions effectively led to an end of that series of witch trials. After being accused of witchcraft Aitken confessed but then identified hundreds of women as other witches to save her own life. She was exposed as a fraud a few months later and was burnt at the stake.
Rebecca Smith was the last British woman to be executed for the infanticide of her own child. She was convicted of killing her infant son Richard, and was publicly hanged at Devizes, Wiltshire. After her trial she confessed to having poisoned seven of her other children.
Athelstan Braxton Hicks was a coroner in London and Surrey for two decades at the end of the 19th century. He was given the nickname "The Children's Coroner" for his conscientiousness in investigating the suspicious deaths of children, and especially baby farming and the dangers of child life insurance. He would later publish a study on infanticide.
Between 2015 and 2016, unusually high infant mortality rates occurred at the neonatal intensive care unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England. A series of investigations was initiated to ascertain the reasons for the sharp rise in mortalities.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Mackie, Rachel (March 25, 2023). "Edinburgh history: Jessie King was the last woman hanged in the Capital after being caught killing babies for money" . Retrieved July 25, 2023.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 "Jessie King - the last woman executed in Edinburgh". BBC News. 2015-01-22. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Welsh, Kaite (2021-06-22). "The Edinburgh 'baby farmer' whose game was given away by suspicious neighbours". EdinburghLive. Retrieved 2023-07-25.
- ↑ Ewan, Elizabeth; Pipes, Rose; Rendall, Jane; Reynolds, Siân, eds. (2018). The new biographical dictionary of Scottish women. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-3628-1.