In
1896, Amelia Dyer the baby-killer, was investigated for the fifth time for
murdering children. On all previous occasions she was freed, allowing her to go
on murdering children, but this time she was finally stopped.
Her
early years:
EXCERPT (Article 1 of 4): An Englishwoman, born in 1839,
Amelia Dyer was officer in the Salvation Army who resigned her godly commission
and entered the sinister realm of “baby farming” after her husband left her in
1880. at first, she set up shop in Bristol, serving as the paid “foster mother”
for an unknown number of infants and earning six weeks in jail from the illegal
operation. In November 1891, she was admitted to Gloucester Asylum following a
bungled suicide attempt. Two years later, in December 1894, she was returned to
Gloucester Asylum, four “adopted” children retrieved from home and packed off
to the workhouse. Doctors described her as violent and prone to delusions,
including hallucinations of birds speaking to her with human voices.
Feeling better after two months at Gloucester, Amelia was
transferred to a workhouse where she stayed until June 1895. Upon release, she
pulled up stakes and moved to Reading, anxious to resume her murderous adoption
racket. It was there, through simple negligence, that homicide investigators
finally exposed her lethal methods to the light of day.
[Michael Newton, Bad
Girls Do It!, 1993, Loompanics Unlimited, Port Townsend, Washington, p. 67]
***
FULL
TEXT (Article 2 of 4): Not since the terrible murders in Whitechapel [the “Jack the
Ripper” murders] has London been so shocked and interested as it has
been during the last few weeks by the wholesale murder of infant
children for which Amelia Dyer is now awaiting trial.
A
coroner’s jury found the woman guilty of willful murder some days ago.
There is overwhelming evidence connecting her with the murder of several
children, who were strangled and thrown into the Thames, after weights
had been attached to their bodies, and the woman has practically
confessed her guilt.
If the police are justified in assuming – as they do – that many of the children whose bodies have been taken from
the river, or who are still mysteriously missing, met death at the
hands of the notorious baby farmer or her accomplices, the woman is a
murderess hundreds of times over and stands in the front rank of the
unique criminals of the age.
The
woman murdered for gain primarily, but there is in the history of her
crimes a suggestion that she was in love with the appalling work which
made her rich, and so found double pleasure in the wholesale disposal of
her victims.
While
no correct estimate of the number of babies she killed can yet be made,
because the inhuman parents who bargained with the baby farmer ore
naturally anxious to conceal their guilt, the police believe that her
victims will be numbered by hundreds.
The police have succeeded in securing the evidence of several mothers, among them being Evelina Edith Marnon.
When
arrested, Mrs. Dyer was living at 45 Kensington road, Reading. Reading
is a, borough about 88 miles to the southwest of London, situated on the
Kennot river, near its junction with the Thames. Mrs. Dyer was
generally reputed to be very pious. Over the door of her home was
a figure of Christ, beneath which was the inscription, ‘‘Suffer little
children to come onto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the
kingdom of heaven.”
Alas! The little children who were suffered to come to this terrible old ogre found their way only too soon to the kingdom of heaven.
It
has been proved that since Christmas 80 children were intrusted to Mrs.
Dyer’s keeping and that only 4 are living. The fathers have vanished.
Prior to Christmas many other children who had been placed in her charge
disappeared.
Mrs.
Dyer was first charged with the murder of an unknown female child, 16
months old, whose body was found floating In the Thames. The date of
this murder was believed to be about March 30. An autopsy proved that
death was due to strangulation, and on a piece of paper found in the
parcel in which the child was wrapped was discovered an address which
led the police to Mrs. Dyer’s place in Caversham. From there she was
traced to Kensington road.
As
soon as Mrs. Dyer was safe in custody tile Thames, near Caversham weir,
close by Reading, was dragged. Another body was found, with a piece of
tape tied about the nock, and a little later a bag containing the bodies
of two infants and some bricks was fished up. In the River Kennot, at
Reading, still another body was recovered. In every case an autopsy
proved that the infant had been strangled before it was thrown into the
water.
Evelina Edith Marnon, a single woman, who lived in Cheltenham, testified that she answered an advertisement relating to the adoption of a baby, which she saw in a Bristol newspaper in February. The advertisement was signed “Mrs. Scott,” whose address was 45 Kensington road, Oxford road, Reading. She received the following reply under date of March 20:
DEAR
MADAM—In reference to your letter as to the adoption of a child. I
write to say should be glad to have a dear little baby girl, one I could
bring up and call my own. First I must tell you that we are plain,
honest, homely people, in fairly good circumstances.
“We
live in our own house and have a good and comfortable home. We are out
in the country and sometime I am alone a great deal. I don’t want a
child for money’s sake, but for company and as a home comfort. I have no
children of my own, and a child with me will have a good home and a
mother’s care. We belong to the Church of England, and, although I want
to bring the child up as my own, I would not mind the mother coming to
see it at any time.
It
is always a satisfaction to a mother to know that her child is going on
all right. I only hope that we come to terms. I should be glad to have
the baby as soon as possible.
If
I could come for her at once, I would not mind paying my fare one way, I
should break my journey to Cheltenham at Gloucester, where I have a
friend. Kindly let me have an early reply. I can give you good
references and any questions you may care to ask I shall be glad to
answer. I am, yours respectfully, A. HARDING.
She wrote in turn, asking for full particulars and saying that if she parted with her child she certainly would wish to visit it. She asked also about terms, and on March 25 she received the following:
MY
DEAR MADAM—Your letter just to hand, and I shall only be too pleased
for yourself or any friends to come and see baby and us. We don’t have
many visitors out here in the country. I should really like you to know
that, the pretty child was with some one who would really care for her,
and you would feel more comfortable I know. I promise you faithfully
that if you send her to me I will do mother’s duty for her and bring her
up as my own. First I must tell you that we are plain honest, happy
people, in fairly good circumstances. When you come afterward, you will
see I have done my duty. Dear child! I shall only be too glad to have
her, and I will take her entirely for ₤10. She shall be no further
expense to you. I am, yours ever faithfully, A. HARDING.
True to her promise, Mrs. Dyer “took her entirely.” That meant that the single woman was
not to be troubled in after life by spatters of the past. Mrs. Harding,
or Dyer, called on March 31 for the baby. She signed an agreement by
which, for 150, she was to take care of the child and rear ii as her
own. The agreement ran as follows:
I,
Annie Harding of 45 Kensington road, Oxford road, Reading, in
consideration of the sum of £10, paid to me by Evelina Edith Marnon, do
hereby agree to adopt Doris, the child of the said Evelina Edith Marnon,
and to bring up the said child as my own without any further
compensation over and above the aforementioned sum of £10.
As witness hereunto we have this day, the 31st day of March, in the year of our Lord 1896, subscribed our names.
Anna K HARDING.
EVELINA EDITH MARNON.
In the presence of Martha Dostnett, widow, of No. 23 Manchester street, Cheltenham.
Mrs.
Harding took Doris with her that afternoon, and Miss Maroon,
accompanied her on the train as far as Gloucester. At Gloucester Mrs.
Harding bade her goodby and took the train for Reading. Miss Marnon
received this letter on April 2: When I got home last night, a wire was
waiting for me saying my sister was dangerously ill, so I came this
morning. My dear little girl is a traveler, and no mistake. She did not
mind the journey. Slept all the way. I shall stop now till Saturday.
Shall write again Sunday. Shall write a longer one next time. Yours with
love, A. HARDING.
In a few days the mother wrote to Mrs. Dyer’s address, asking for news of the baby. She received no reply. On April 11 she was led to the district mortuary, where lay the bodies fished out of the Thames.
One
of the dead children was hers. There was a mark about the neck where a
tape had been knotted by the person who strangled it. The bag in which
the bodies were found the witness identified as one which Mrs. Dyer, or
Harding, had carried on the day she called for the child.
The
police discovered in pawnshops and in Mrs. Dyer’s house more than 500
pounds of baby clothes, which had been stripped from her victims. Miss
Maroon’s experience was like that of many other mothers. The woman set
her trap for women who give birth to children they dared not
acknowledge, but which they were not wicked enough to murder outright.
She
wrote always in the vein of a kindly, lonely Christian woman, and as a
rule her reward was $50 and the clothes of the child, to which she
promised to be a mother, and which she usually dispatched as soon as it
was in her clutches. She was bold to the point of madness in disposing
of the bodies, and it is that among other things which suggests an
abnormal mental development which enabled her to gratify a desire to
kill as well as a wish to grow rich by her fiendish occupation.
Mrs. Dyer has been accused of child murder four times during her life, but on previous occasions proof was wanting.
[“Hundreds of Victims. - Amelia Dyer, Baby Farmer and Strangler.” syndicated, The Logansport Pharos (In.), May 15, 1896, p. 6]
NOTE: This syndicated article was widely published in American newspapers.
***
Following are two texts describing an earlier conviction (circa 1880?).
EXCERPT (Article 3 of 4): As the police investigation grew,
so did the efforts of investigative journalists. It became clear that Dyer had
profited from her trade for almost 30 years, travelling as far afield as
Liverpool and Plymouth. Dyer first opened a house of confinement in the Bristol
suburb of Totterdown in the late 1860s, and charged a fee to take in unmarried
women when they could no longer hide their pregnancies. Some asked for their
infants to be stifled at the moment of birth, since Victorian coroners were
unable to distinguish between suffocation and still-birth. Dyer also fostered
infants for a weekly fee, maximizing her profits by slowly starving her little
charges, muting them with daily doses of the liquid opiate, laudanum, known
colloquially as “the quietness” because it stifled both a baby’s appetite and
its cries. Ten years later, having completed a six-month prison sentence for
infant neglect, Dyer changed her modus operandi. No longer would her
house be filled with emaciating infants. Now she accepted only full adoption
in exchange for a lucrative one-off payment. She silenced the infants
within hours, using a length of white tape tied twice around their necks and
dumped their bodies in rivers or buried them in the gardens of her rented
lodgings. [“Britain’s worst ever serial killer: The Victorian angel of death that murdered 400 babies,” Written by 24 Tanzania Reporter, Tanzania.com, Feb. 23, 2013]
EXCERPT (Article 4 of 4): She was caught once after a doctor
was called to certify the death of one child too many and raised the alarm. But
instead of manslaughter, she was convicted of causing a child to die by neglect
and served six months' hard labour in prison, an experience that nearly
destroyed her. After that she tried going back to nursing. She had spells in
mental hospitals after suicide attempts. But always she returned to baby
farming, eventually drawing her own family into the business. She stopped
calling doctors to issue death certificates and disposed of the bodies
secretly. They moved homes frequently - Bristol, Reading, Cardiff, London - as
often as they scented the police closing in or mothers and fathers on their
trail trying to reclaim their children. [Tony
Rennell, “The baby butcher: One of
Victorian Britain's most evil murderers exposed,” Mail Online, Sep. 28,
2007]
***
Amelia Dyer quote:
“After I got a baby something seemed to say in my ears, ‘Get
rid of it.’”
[Judith Knelman, Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the
English Press, 1998, University of Toronto Press, p. 175; from Weekly Dispatch,
Jun. 7, 1896, p. 1]
***
***
***
***
***
For more cases of “Baby Farmers,” professional child care providers who murdered children see The Forgotten Serial Killers.
***
More cases: Female Serial Killers Executed
***
***
For more cases of “Baby Farmers,” professional child care providers who murdered children see The Forgotten Serial Killers.
***
More cases: Female Serial Killers Executed
***
[8568-1/11/21]
***
The story of Amelia Dyer is always interesting to read about but I cannot help but wonder what on earth it has to do with misandry.
ReplyDeleteHer crimes took place in an age where women undoubtedly faced FAR worse oppression and treatment than in the modern day. She was tried and hanged, unlike many men of the Victorian era who were often given free reign to beat children (and women, for that matter.)
You do a great disservice and disrespect to the hundreds of victims she killed by using their deaths to score political points on a matter which is entirely unrelated to their suffering.
There is no claim being made that any INDIVIDUAL female serial case is presented in itself as an instance of misandry. The fact is that the general public is constantly lied to about violence by women as a general subject. Erroneous claims of rarity of female serials abound. The Unknown History of Misandry has discovered 5 times as many female serial killers as the number that is known by professional criminologists. This fact is an indication that violence by women has, because for decades, academics chose not to look at the matter, that the official take by criminologists is wildly incorrect. Whether this is due to incompetence or ideological bias is a matter that can be argued. Yet it is a major problem regardless. The topic of baby farmer serial killers is especially important. Looking at this rarely discussed subject reveals a world of torture, sadism, apathy, incompetence on the part of female criminals that needs to be dealt with. Yet we see not only ignorance of this important subject (important to forensic psychological investigation), on the part of criminologists and the general public, but now we see overt intellectual fraud and an attempt to sweep under the rug the subject of extreme violence by women by children by such as major publication as Psychology Today. I expose this egregious effort to censor and distort the historical record in the article “Death on the Baby Farm” on A Voice for Men, Jul. 16, 2013 (avoiceformen.com). There is nothing “cheap” about my efforts to expose censorship and fraud on the part of social constructivists (who follow a scientifically disproven theory) and social engineers who use “political correctness” (cultural Marxism-based authoritarian censorship) for mis-educate both the public and policy makers. Also, with respect to politics, you might find the behavior of Nazi “child care providers” or “baby farmers” of particular – and easy to grasp – interest.
ReplyDelete“Death on the Baby Farm” on A Voice for Men, Jul. 16, 2013 (avoiceformen.com).
http://www.avoiceformen.com/series/unknown-history-of-misandry/death-on-the-baby-farm-the-devil-is-in-the-details/
Search further on The Unknown History of Misandry and will discover that the history of domestic violence you have been taught is a fraud. You will discover that – in opposition to the claims made by hoxers in the feminist ideological camp – that the 19th century was not in the least a period when men were free to beat women. Far from it. Nor were violent wives given free reign to beat husbands and children either.
Treatment of Domestic Violence Against Women Before 1960 http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2013/03/treatment-of-domestic-violence-against.html
You have been lied to by your teachers and I suggest you demand a monetary compensation from them for having defrauded you. The scale of the historical fraud mopst of us have been subjected to is comparable to that committed by the German National Socialists and the Soviet Union. We all must strenuously object to the continuance of such intellectual frauds.
Your comment about being lied to by teachers is strange. I can't recall any of my teachers ever mentioning serial killers to me; why would they?
ReplyDeleteWomen's studies, which has infected all of the humanities teaching and introduced heavy indoctrination to supplant the liberal arts approach which is meant to develop critical thinking -- with all the fake statistics, the "rule of thumb" hoax, the bogus tendentious social history resulting from the failures of social constructionist historiography -- is the sort of thing I had in mind, not the tunnel vision fixation on one narrow topic.
DeleteWhere did you get your pictures from? I'm doing a history day project on Amelia dyer and I'm using a couple of pictures that you have on here.. My teacher told me to ask where you got them so I can cite them..
ReplyDeleteA small quibble: Reading is about 40 miles west of London, not 88 miles southwest (which would be the Isle of Wight). Kennington Road is in Caversham on the other side of the Thames to the River Kennet (note spelling); it might be more accurate to say Reading is *at* the confluence of the Kennet and the Thames.
ReplyDelete"Kensington Road is south of the River Thames, whereas Caversham is north of the Thames. The tributary of the Thames is spelled Kennet not Kennot." - Thank you
ReplyDelete